My sister goes to school with an Armenian boy whose parents wanted him to play the piano, but could not afford one nor could they take him anywhere else to practice. So they gave him a piece of wood with keys drawn on it and he practiced 6 hours a day for twelve years, never once hearing a sound until he came to America as an exchange student. Now he practices 5 hours a day on a real piano, and he's absolutely awesome- technically flawless, very passionate and good with interpretations.

Why do I tell this story? Because I saw a MicroSoft commercial with a young boy using a black and white striped tablecloth as a keyboard, and it made me cry. I hate MicroSoft, so I attribute the tears to my sister's friend.



Because trucks are about POWER and saying a truck/SUV has a "hemi" is the latest way to indicate, to those who really don't know what a hemi is, that a certain truck/SUV is powerful and therefore manly.

Just so you know, Panera actually has NEVER been affiliated with Atlanta Bread Company, well except for the time when the founder of ABC worked for Panera and then stole lots of the recipes. Other than that, no relation. :) Quizno's and Panera though, I think, are in two different leagues. Panera is a little bit more like a Corner Bakery or Au Bon Pain whereas Quizno's, I always felt, is more like a Subway. Both good food though.

My local radio station was discussing the spongemonkeys ads this morning and the DJ was trying to figure out what they are. A guy called in to say that he used to have a pet chinchilla and it looked just like the spongemonkeys. They were creepy before, but now just yuck!

In my part of the world they were "St. Louis Bakery" for a while, then changed to Panera.

I don't think of them as being a sandwich shop, more of a coffee house that servers over priced sandwiches and muffins.

I thought it was helping us separate the men from the, well, I hate to say 'fags' but as all of those commercials lately feature that odious man somehow equating caring about anything on the truck other than the hemi as being less than manly, I'm not sure what else to think.

Hmm. Did I dream a commercial with four little cupid-type dudes flying along beside the tires of a BMW? If it was a dream, well, I haven't dreamed it since, and I'm starting to wonder...

I saw this ad the other day, but I'm in D.C. I love it, but unfortunately, I've got no clue what it's for. But it is hilarious.

I might get kicked off The Commercial Thread, but the "I'm lovin' it" ad where the guy goes around giving his apartment-dwelling neighbors things from McDonalds, and then goes back to practice with his band (so they won't get annoyed), amuses me. I mean, yeah, it's just McDonalds, so he's still kind of a shitty neighbor, but I almost think it's cute. Please don't stone me!

No, raguel, it wasn't a dream. The commercial was about the tires being so good it was as if they had teams of angels alongside them.

Actually, it was for BMW's AWD/Stability control features on the X-5. (I'm just a nitpicker. Don't mean to offend...)

dzdzsty, you know, I SWEAR I've seen a Noah's Ark ad around here, too. I'm certain it's for The St. Paul. Again with the duplicative ideas.

I am so disappointed in the new Sportscenter ads. I usually LOVE them, all of them. These new ones just feel...off. I wonder if ESPN went with a different agency or something this time.
I could tell Dan Patrick knew it wasn't funny, too. :-(

Commercials for lawyers and law firms are bad enough. But there's one that's playing here in upstate NY that's creeps me out because it's just too weird. A young man, one of the lawyers, is talking to us, a head-and-shoulders shot, about how good his law firm is. As he speaks, he reaches for his neck and RIPS HIS HEAD OFF! Underneath his head is the head of a young woman, who continues the spiel, as the man's business suit morphs into her dress. Then she reaches for her neck and RIPS HER HEAD OFF! It continues, person after person, each a support staff or a lawyer or an investigator for this law firm. Wolfram & Hart lives!

I'm confused...what does keeping a promise have to do with hospitals?

It's all good, Sleestak. I might as well get used to the little buggers, seeing as how they appear to be here to stay. Hey, I even looked at your pixel challenge, and only managed to scream on the inside (that's improvement)! Well done! Although now, I'm afraid I'll be having nightmares about spongemonkeys and Richard Hatch (::shudders violently::).

They're running the "Ring Pop" commercials again during the kids' shows. The one I can't stand goes like this:
Kids are in the movie theater, and a husky man (Okay, he's huge!) is going down the aisle, and the kids are spilling their popcorn, and other treats thanks to the man walking past them. Our hero is sucking on his RingPop™, and waves and waggles his arms in the air as Mr. Huge walks past him, and as soon as he's out of mortal danger of being squished, he sucks on the Ringpop™ as soon as he's able, like he was already experiencing withdrawal. Sheesh. KidsWb! also runs the commercials for "Poochini" and "D'myna Leagues" near nonstop during commercial breaks. They are loud, too. Annoying as hell.

I am so glad that this site exists and others share my fascination/repulsion with the Quizno's singing sponge monkeys. The song woke me from a mini nap on the couch; I awoke thinking WTF and wondering if it was a dream-induced vision. But when I saw the commercial again I knew they weren’t figments of my twisted imagination. At first I thought they were gerbils on speed. I have never been to Quizno’s, but this might be the push I need.

Is anyone familiar with the music of Daniel Johnston? The Quinzo song sounds alot like his stuff.

Oh, crap, are they still around? Do they still use the same lame-ass jingle?

Has anybody seen the new Mentos gum ad? It's the one where a guy is seated on a couch, waiting for his date, and pops a piece of gum in his mouth. Evidently the Power of the Gum is so mighty it causes the gal's dog to jump on the guy for some VERY friendly attention. I just like to chew gum for good dental hygiene, myself.

Thanks, Jeebus Cripes for diggin' my PC entry. At first I, too, was freaked big-time by the Spongemonkeys. I'm used to them now. I mean, I still kinda hate them- but at least the weird, panicky feeling I used to get when I saw them is gone.

Mentos dog-kissing ad: if I ain't gettin' spam email inviting me to see a video of a woman having sex with a horse, I'm being forced to watch a man tongue-kiss a dog on primetime TV. And this country's worried about Janet Jackson's boob? Crazy.

My bad - it is for the St. Paul insurance group (thanks Tornado25)

So here's the question: When we discuss ads that we all think are "good", we can rarely remember the product. But with ads we all hate, we know exactly what the product is!
Do we need to re-define good vs bad? If the point of spending a ga-zillion dollars for 30 seconds is to get people to remember your product, maybe the ads we all like are really "bad"? :(

ETA: the car with the angels ad was discussed many many many pages ago. It skeeves me out because I always think the car is ready to go off the road and the angels are there to speed the driver across to "the other side"!

They have names?

charlieboo, I wasn't correcting, you know? I thought we had 2 Noah's Ark ads roaming around. Which, given the lack of originality that some ad agencies are serving up, I wouldn't be surprised. I did like the ad, however...so I'm surprised I remembered who the ad was for!

They are still called "St. Louis Bread Company" here in (you guessed it) St. Louis. There are approximately 1.7 billion of them in the metro area.

Never heard of Panera, but we have Wildflower Bread Co. out here. A little overrated, IMO. I've had Quiznos exactly once--it was pretty good, and the sandwich was huge compared to Subway. Honestly, I eat so many sandwiches at home or work that I don't really go to these types of places. I prefer my healthy KFC fried chicken.

They also sound like Britney Spears, but I think that is so obvious I don't need to mention it.

Oh, that Noah's ark is for insurance? I was wondering why I'd also seen it, when I haven't been to NYC in over a year, but if they're showing it in DC, then I must have seen it when I was home for Christmas break.

And Panera is much better than Quizno's in my opinion. Quizno's is Subway with an oven.

Okay I have not seen this Quinzo's ad but now I am dying to if one person thinks it sounds like Britney Spears and another person thinks it sounds like Daniel Johnston, that is too funny.

Just for my family here in The Commerical Thread, I borrowed my office's super fast broadband connection and went to seewhathappens.com. It was totally lame. Basically after the cars come out of the back of the truck, both cars dodge the wreck. The Galant continues on down the road behind the trucks, but the poor Camry... it just can't make it back on the road and has to stop and watch everyone leave him behind.

As an aside, I drive an '01 Galant which is an awesome car, but the new Galants are really ugly. I just happened to be at the dealership this weekend and asked a salesman why the radical redesign. He said that Mitsubishi was marketing the Galant around '01 as a young sporty car. Now they are marketing it as a family car. Which I suppose leads to the "kid waving in the back of the car-Do You Realize" commerical.

I have a sick fascination with those spongemonkey things. Do they frighten me? Do they turn my stomach? Does their little song crack me up and make me kinda like their scary deformed sprouted-potato selves? Yes to all. Will I ever eat another Quizno's sub? I'm thinking no.

Quizno's is my favorite fast-food-type chain. Love it.

There was a new (to me) Enzyte ad on the other day, and it was just so utterly wrong that it made the old ads look tasteful. It was basically using the "Chinpokomon" episode of "South Park" for inspiration; our Enzyte-popping hero is negotiating with a group of Japanese businessmen. He just sits there and grins inanely as they keep on outbidding themselves. "$1 million! $3 million! $5 billion!" and speaking amongst themselves in Japanese, saying things that the subtitles translate as: "he is a stiff negotiator", etc., etc. Horrible.

"Roses say 'I'm sorry'; chocolate says, 'I love you.'"

Funny the first time I saw this Hershey's commercial. Not so funny after the fifth viewing this evening.

Thanks for checking that out, glstx. That really is a lame ending; you'd think that if Mitsubishi were going to keep us in suspense like that, then they'd at least throw in a biker gang and an explosion or two. My guess is that they could have broadcast the entire commercial but didn't want to pay CBS another few hundred thousand for an additional ten seconds of Superbowl air time.

OK, topic: So this ad has been discussed previously, but I finally saw the Dayquil commercial with the wife who wants to stuff Dayquil down her sick husband's throat so that he'll go outside and shovel snow. Man, that really is offensive; but maybe we should see it from nagging wife's point of view - maybe she's only pestering him to shovel the snow because she couldn't get their Alzheimer's-afflicted grandmother or their ten-month-old child to do it. Or not. Maybe the husband should look into a Divorcequil sort of product: "The sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffyhead, fever, so-I-can-divorce-you-and-you-can-shovel-the-damn-walk-yourself medicine."

Enzyte Bob is back. This time he's losing his shorts in the pool and getting bigger bowling shoes. Instead of having the wife smiling she should be looking tired and pissed. [voice of wife-"give it a rest already Bob!"

Panera is known as St. Louis Bread Company in some parts..like um St. Louis.

Quizno isn't much and why would you have a rodent as your spokesmonkey?

I was going to post something, but this said it all.

Not just a rodent but something that looks like a dead rat. It's like those horrible urban rumors about rats being served at KFC -- there is just no way I will ever eat at Quiznos again.

I don't know why but this kept me laughing for a while. Yeah, a biker gang. At least.

I have never tried Quizno's (prefer the random little NYC sandwich places) but it's getting more convenient (i.e. more locations in the city) so maybe I'll break down. I definitely don't think Panera is all that. Although it's ok if you just buy the bread and make your own sandwich. I haven't seen the Quizno's ad (to bring this on topic) but I saw the creatures online and thought it was pretty wackily funny...

And since it's been brought up again...I really hate the car ad with the angels. No rational reason. They just bug.

Well, I'm a sucker for CBS's entire Monday lineup, but I did not appreciate the ads for King of Queens during every commercial break. Yes, it was funny to see Kevin James's belly button "whistle" The Andy Griffith Show theme, but it creeped me out after the 3rd time or so.

Argh, thanks for reminding me! I had blocked that one out until now. ;)

There was a cringe-inducing ad for a related type of product this afternoon. I think samsnee may have mentioned a while ago. A man's sitting on the couch reading the paper while his wife(?) sits next to him, looking bored. The VO says something about--well, I don't remember exactly. But the ad then goes to a low-angle shot of a tube. It's a new kind of K-Y Jelly that "gently warms on contact." When the man hears the VO (apparently), he folds down a corner of his paper. The mere thought of this stuff is enough to tear him from the sports page. As the VO blabbers on, the Happy Housewife smirks at her bottle of newer, naughtier K-Y Jelly while the equally smirking man looks out from behind his paper. It seems that it took the promise of chemical stimulants to get his mojo going.
But what really got me about this? It came on during an episode of Lifetime's The Division that dealt with a serial rapist who preyed on the disabled. Not only that, but during the show, they featured brief clips from interviews with real rape survivors. The juxtaposition was just really, really nasty.

I have a new favorite commercial, it's the ad for Jumbone. The dog is cute, the jingle is catchy and stuck in my head, and I giggle everytime it plays..


A big dog doesn't wanna chew a small bone
Any more than he wants to play the trombone
In fact if he could use the telephone
He'd call up and order this new Jumbone
It's a really really big really big big bone
And that's why they call it Jumbone!

The K-Y warming jelly commercial came on the other night when my roommate and I were having a girl's night in, and she pointed out "if you're at home watching When Harry Met Sally on a Saturday night, I don't think you're really the target market for K-Y." Hee.

Okay, I hate myself, but I really like the Muhammad-Ali-fighting-Laila-Ali adidas commercial. I mean, I hate that it's a commercial, but otherwise, it's pretty cool. "Rumble on, young lady."

I'm squiked by the K-Y commercial as well. It's almost as bad as the Trojan ads, "Trojan-Man!"

The new Target commercial where people are split in half, with what I would presume are Target products... Shit, I can't really describe it, as I saw it a few days ago and can't recall any specifics. Anyhoo, it's crafty as hell.

The spongemonkeys? No. I think they meant The everyday happenings of Weebl and sometimes Weebl's friend Bob.

Car commercial using "The Jeffersons" theme song? Go to hell.

Yeah, I kinda like it too, even though I feel like I probably shouldn't.

Its more like a … rodent toe, with a mutated mouth. Eep!

I know exactly what you're talking about. Love. This. With the "Anything You Want" instrumental playing, and the snappy red and white ... Some of the splits are: aspirin/polka dots on a jacket lining, hand weights/baby bouncer, fishing rod/toilet paper, egg frying in pan/detergent in washing machine, and (I think) a woman with sunglasses/shampoo poured out like flowing hair. Yeah, I've thought about this way too much, but it's not making my head hurt like the Hotels.com tape measure experiment.

What I want to know is, if the guy is keeping his wife so satisfied, what's she doing winking at other dudes?

You know, I never saw the original Sheer Blonde twits, but I just saw the new one. They "sing." My ears bled.

In the Trojans ad that seems to get the most airtime around here -- the one with a couple on a park bench -- all they show of Trojan Man is a red sleeve and a yellow glove, which never fails to make me immediately think of Ronald McDonald. Maybe that's why they never actually let us see him?

FfrauleinN, I'm with you in hating the commercial using the theme songs from "The Jefferson's." This just shouldn't be done. And how is buying that little car (what is it anyway?) mean that I'm moving on up?

rincie, you mean they sing more than the regular IloveyouIloveyouIloveyouloveyouyesIdo? Like that wasn't enough to make me want to bash my head through the TV screen.

Argh! McDonalds! I'm hating it! I just saw this commercial where a couple is out on a date, and the guy tries to order the girl a cheeseburger. She thinks "Oh, he's a control freak," and orders herself a chicken sandwich. Then HE thinks "Oh, she's a control freak." EXCUSE ME?!! She wants to decide for herself which crappy McDonalds sandwhich she wants to put into her body and SHE's a control freak?! What if she's Jewish and can't eat a cheeseburger? What if she's a vegitarian? This was clearly a first date (By the way, who goes to McDonalds on a first date?) so he didn't know her well enough to know what she could eat. And yet he's pissy at her? Fuck you, asshole! And fuck you McDonalds! I'm hating it!

Amen. Also, someone (I forget who) called them parasitic fetuses. Great. I'll never be able to read The Dark Half again--during Thad's surgery, I'm gonna imagine one of these things poking out.

TrojanMan=Ronald McDonald? I gotta buy more Happy Meals.