Wasn't it Nestea? I remember trying it in swimming pools: spread your arms out, and fall straight back into the pool - never managed to fall without bending.

It was the Nestea plunge, and my sister and I would do it at the swimming pool. That ad bothered me as a kid, because I was worried about the glass of tea in the fallee's hand contaminating the swimming pool. I had no idea tea was least of my worries.

Good times... Tab, what a beautiful drink...

The new Gillette ad, the one that premiered during the Super Bowl, with the black & white "artsy" montage and the oily-voiced narrative that claims that a freaking razor is like "havin' an angel at your side"? Enrages me. I can't figure it out. It should just make me meh, but, instead, I want to throw things. Is it something subliminal? Like, the Manchurian Candidate triggering device of commercials? Whatever it is, it's in the voiceover, because it happens even when I just listen to it.

You know what bugs more than the stupidity of the commercial itself? The little 3 second tack-on they added on the end for their new *Sparkle* deodorant. I ask you, does one really need their armpits to *sparkle*? The hell? To what end? So that I might hypnotize my mate on the dance-floor every time I raise up? Ooooooooh...sparkly!!!!! And in the event that I'm wearing a shirt with sleeves, do I really want glitter all over the inside of the damn thing? Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. They're lucky the glitter thing was added to the end of the ad, cause had the broad in the commercial been wearing that crap, she certainly would have gotten caught. And then what would she do?!? Oh, NO!!! DUM.. DUM.. DUM!

I saw this mentioned some pages back, but I just saw it...that Pepto-Bismal diarrhea boogie is just so wrong! The way the people grab their asses and thrust them upwards is so disturbing. I hope that doesn't join the Chicken Dance and the Cha Cha Slide at wedding receptions any time soon.

I just saw an interesting PSA about safe sex and HIV/AIDS prevention. There's this really hot girl and guy making out on the couch and they decide to have sex. After the guy gets naked he realizes he's got no condoms. He gets up and walks out of the apartment naked and heads to the store to buy condoms. He asks the cashier for condoms, she shows him a box of Large sized ones, takes a peek at his crotch, and changes them to medium. Hee! They actually showed the guys ass in a few shots as well. He was hot :)

Wasn't that the Nestea Plunge? I do.

Who is the guy on the Mach III razor commercial? Is it Colby?

And whaddya know folks, in less than thirty days, we're back to the glittery hoo-hoo. :) It's a good day to be a TWoPper.

I have to say that the ad had an entirely different effect on me. At first, I was more or less indifferent to it. After several viewings since its premiere, however, I must admit that I've found the Gillette Mach3 commercial to be positively inspirational. Seriously. I can honestly say that, after seeing the commercial multiple times, the B&W imagery and the hyperbole-laden voiceover telling me about "that walking-on-water feeling" motivated me to throw out my Gillette Mach3 razor and buy the competing Schick Quattro razor (despite the fact that the Schick commercial terrifies me, what with the gigantic four-bladed razor hovering menacingly just behind the spokesperson's head - yikes!).

So there you have it, proof positive that advertising really can have a powerful influence on consumers' purchasing choices. And for the record, shaving with the now discarded Gillette razor was never anything like what I imagined having an angel by one's side would be, unless having an angel by one's side entails getting nicks and cuts and razor burns.

If you are thinking about the Schick Quatro, then yes it is Colby Donaldson. Yum.

Hmm, maybe I was zoning out at the time because that makes a LOT more sense.

Also, in the "olden days", Sunny Delight was the stuff people too poor to buy real orange juice bought. Nice to see they shed that stigma, I guess. Speaking of which, did you know "prunes" are now called "sun dried plums" for the same reason?

And speaking of retromercials...

You can buy it for your girl
or give it to a squirrel.
You can buy it by the case
or stuff if it in your
FACE!

Neglect the thread for a couple of weeks, you'll find you have fifty+ pages to read when you come back!

In my review of everything I missed, I didn't see anyone mention the Kia President's Day spot with the kid playing George Washington who has been coached by his dad the Kia salesman to do a Kia plug during the school play. I know the kid's supposed to be acting badly - like, deliberately - but his voice and stance suggest he's trying to hold back a hefty wave of diarrhea.

So glad to see I'm not the only one who loathes the Jumbone commercial. The singing voice at the beginning grates horribly, and if I hear "telly-phone" one more time, I may just start screaming and never be able to stop.

I also despise the Tide commercial where the woman is telling her husband how to get stains out of the laundry ("Dab, dab, dab. Then apply lemon juice, and if not lemon juice, vinegar, and if not vinegar, miracle water from the St. Vincent De Paul fount, and if not that, then tears of Jesus Christ, and dab, dab, dab.") like he's a complete retard. Like, who doesn't know how to do laundry by the time they're his age? Hell, I was doing laundry by the time I was eight. Anyway, the man uses Tide to get the stain out and the phone rings, and the wife says, over the phone, "PLEASE tell me you dab, dab, dabbed!" I continue to be nauseated over women in commercials who seem to believe they've married someone incapable of leaving the house without a helmet.

A fond TV commercial farewell for Madge the Manicurist of Palmolive dish detergent: actress Jan Miner died Sunday.
Miner obit

To sum up the last 30 days: get a spongemonkey jumbone for your glittery hoo hoo.

Attempting to move on, what's up with the Attack of the Ceral Pushers? First it was just the deeply annoying Go Lean men with the woman who makes me want to go all Elvis on my TV, and now there's a second herd of male cereal pushers approaching strangers to force their cereal upon them. I can't remember the second cereal. But I am seeing a Jets v. Sharks dance number in the offing.

Two Guys was an old discount store that sold everything from men's pants to kitchen junk - sort of a pre-Wal-Mart . Korvettes, but not as "nice". I know they were all over New Jersey (ah, more of the cultured life a NJ childhood offered!), but were they in other parts of the country too?
To take you back, check this out (scroll down about 3/4 of the page):
http://www.wtv-zone.com/dpjohnson/60sdisco...ores/page2.html

TechTV's video-game review show "XPlay" did a retro ep recently where the "hot new thing" was the Intellivision (I miss my Intellivision -- they had the most distinctive control pad).

During one of the commercial breaks, they played an ancient Atari 2600 ad for the 'Ice Hockey' game that featured, of all people, Phil Hartman. Watching him and this store clerk get so into the "realistic play" was a pleasant enough diversion, and I think this may be the earliest work I've ever seen him in, since it easily pre-dates Pee-Wee's Playhouse by a few years.

Speaking of cereal, someone pages back mentioned the intrusive Total Disembodied Voice with the towel-wrapped woman standing on her scale - but I don't recall anyone mentioning how shiny the woman is. It's like she's made of greased plastic. Yick.

Far from it, puckish. I hear one syllable of that annoying voice and make a mad flail for the remote.



BWAH! There's a marketing ploy in there: "Stubborn stains? Try Tears Of Jesus! Even works on stigmata blood!" *sigh* One-way ticket to hell, please...

(shock) My God, I thought I was the only one who obsessed about that as a child.

Topic: Been seeing the Pier 1 ads running again, with Kirstie Alley convincing a woman with a new boyfriend to go out and get a new living room set because the guy clashes with the furniture, while said guy does nothing but sit there looking cute. Thing is -- what's really surreal about seeing this, is I think I dated him briefly.

It didn't last long -- not because he clashed with my couch, but rather because he had the same IQ as my couch. This seems vindicative in some way.

A side note: I thought Pier One had named Thom from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy as its new spokesperson. What's up?

All right, fine. I was wrong. Saw the Jim and Liz Durango at the lake ad again last night and realized he didn't drive into the lake, but did indeed back into it.

But the boat is definitely on the trailer! I. Don't. Get. It.

Oh, if only! I'd take Thom over Kirstie Alley any day. Hell, I'd take the spooky leering Snuggle bear over Kirstie Alley any day. The worst of her Pier 1 commercials was definitely not the "redecorate your place to match your guy" one, though. Because I still have flashbacks of that horrible woman singing "Santa Baby". And then I cry.

I like the spongemonkeys. (and i knew TWOP would fill me in on what the hell they were). My roommate gets mad when she sees it, because it's so silly, she says it's stupid, but I always crack up and end up humming the tune for the rest of the nite. We have no Quiznos in Philly, so do they have a pepper bar really?

I was about to post that too. Come to think of it, when I was watching CSI last night, there was a promo for an upcoming episode of (I think) "Cold Case" with Alley guest-starring as someone who lost her kid years ago -- and she looked freaking enormous. Was it just makeup and padding, or has she really gotten obese? She won't be able to fit into her Pier 1 calico ballgowns much longer, at this rate.

Yeah, watered-down Tang mixed with milk. It kills me that the kids in the commercial push the soda aside for the "awesome" taste of Sunny D. What human child does this?

Hee, "tears of Jesus Christ!" I kind of like this ad. She's insane, but I know people who will give house chore instructions like that. Plus, wouldn't you know, the adult man actually figures out how to do laundry for himself! It's sadly refreshing.

That’s what I heard. Why am I still seeing Kirstie Alley, Pier One?

She's soaking it. Really.


Phil Hartman? From SNL?

Thanks for the heads up on Jan Miner, Decormaven...*sniff* Another little piece of childhood, gone. That catchphrase used to be everywhere back in the day; I remember going to some strange off-off-off Broadway drag vampire review (don't ask) in the '80s that featured the line "Blood of the innocents? You're soaking in it!" Everyone in the place cracked up.

Re: Atari ad -- yes, ubi, Phil Hartman from SNL. He used to do ads before he had a regular TV gig. He was also in the Pee Wee Herman stage shows before Pee Wee's Playhouse aired...he was a Groundling. And he was a commercial illustrator before that - he designed this album cover and this one and this one too. I miss Phil.

Now don't go into shock, but I have actual praise for a commercial! It's the one for Imitrex, the pill for migraines. They explained the symptoms to watch for, and when it was done, I felt informed. My god! Who knew a commercial could do that?

The Thom/QE Pier One spots, I believe, are set to premiere in March.

Certainly not the folks who do most pharmaceutical commercials, because by the end of the majority of drug commercials, I have learned the following:

1. Despite the fact that I don't know what it's for, I should ask my doctor if this drug is right for me.

2. This drug will royally screw me up with side effects, but I should still ask my doctor if this drug is right for me.

3. This drug may kill me, but I should still ask my doctor if this drug is right for me.

The one and only.

Hardware store.

And don't get me started on the PIX hate. I remember the cries of the desperate children frantically screaming PIX!PIX!PIX! until they ran out of oxygen. Meanwhile onscreen, a random bullet would show up about 2 seconds after each yell because the pothead intern in charge of playing the videogame had the reflexed of a sloth. ARGH!

Now for a retromercial:

It's not too sweet
I repeat it's not too sweet
Canada Dry cools your thirst
With a taste that can't be beat.

Anyone remember that one? Esp. the "I re-PEAT" drunk guy? Was he a famous actor or comic at the time?

What's a groundling? And he designed album covers on the side? Wow, I didnt know he was so talented. I miss him too.

I remember that old Canada Dry jingo, but no other details.

Speaking of retromercials, I saw one the other day for Honeycomb cereal:
"Honeycomb's got a big big bite!"

The Groundlings are an LA-based improv comedy group. Many Groundlings have gone on to star on SNL.

Hey, Beelzebubba - PIX!PIX!PIX!PIX!PIX!PIX!PIX!PIX!PIX!PIX!PIX!PIX!PIX!PIX!
hee hee hee!

Word on that Canada Dry jingle....

Here's a few more for you:

When it says Libby'sLibby'sLibby's
On the LabelLabelLabel
You will LikeitLikeitLikeit
On your TableTableTable


or, perhaps a little

Bum, Bum, Bumble Bee
Bumblee Bee Tuna
I love Bumble Bee
Bumble Bee Tuna

and one of my favorites...

Once upon a time there was an engineer,
Choo Choo Charlie was his name we hear.
He had an engine and it sure was fun,
he used Good and Plenty candy, to make his train run.
Charlie says, "Love my Good and Plenty,
They really ring my bell!"
Charlie says, "Love my Good and Plenty
don't know any other candy, that I love so well!"

If a company does not want to list the side effects of their drug, then they can't advertise what the drug does. So:
1(a) I may want to live with my itchy, watery eyes if it means I can avoid a head growing out of my ass and warts on my eyelids.

I really love the commercial for Viva paper towels where the kid sprays his mom with orange soda and then instead of getting mad she shoots him with the water-sprayer by the sink. It's freakin' hilarious.

This is especially true in gender-specific drug commercials, so women are forced to ask their doctors if erectile disfunction medications are right for them.

Wheras all I can think about is who's going to be mopping it all up. (Hint: the one without a penis!) My sense of humor about having food/other messy fights in the house evaporated once I moved into my own place. The squirt gun and shaving cream fights were fun my siblings and I lived at home, though! But please don't tell my mom I used to do that. ;)

From two pages ago:



You have to drive the trailer (but not the truck) into the water to get the boat off. You drive in until you can just float the boat off. How else would you do it?

I usually just lurk here and don't post, but I was just way too disturbed not to say something.
I just saw an ad for a minivan of some sort where a woman talks about how her husband was 'raised by wolves.' In the ad they use the van to go camping and return to nature. Then, the part that really freaks me out: The guy is shown sniffing the backsides of a few wolves! What were the people on Madison Avenue smoking when they thought a great way to sell a family vehicle was to show a guy putting his face near a wolf's tush! It looked like this ad wasn't even superimposed, and actor was that close to a real wolf! Plus, the husband/father is doing this near his really young children. Great role model! This gives me the wiggins almost as badly as the guy-sucking-on-goat Quizzno ad. *shudder*
Please tell me someone else saw this?

I have seen the husband raised by wolves commercial and hate it.
My first reaction to the commercial was, "Who the HELL would be so desperate to get married that they would marry someone like that?"
The people who wrote that ad must think women just have to have a husband, doesn't matter if he sniffs wolves' butts, because you just gotta have a husband or you are nothing.
The commercial disturbs me so much, I turn the channel as soon as I see it. I have no idea what they are selling. I do know that I do not want to buy it.

See, I thought that commercial was hilarious. I hated the Quizno's wolf-suckling commercial, but loved this one. The sight of the dad gnawing on the giant chew toy at the office, and then when he's running with the wolf pack in the middle of the night have me chuckling uncontrollably.

Goody! Hope this doesn't mean he'll be doing all his shopping at Pier One for QE. I've loved the stores he's used in the store (esp. Design Within Reach), so I hope he continues to mix it up.

Eliot mentioned the Shasta root beer ad a few pages ago - I loved this one.
A tough-looking gunslinger walks into an old western bar, orders a drink, & is handed a root beer. When he scowls and asks what it is, all the saloongirls & cowboys break into a song-and-tapdance routine:

Root beer, Mister Shane!
Please let us explain
Root beer, Mister Shane, is something grand

It's Shasta, Mister Shane!
It's known from here to Maine!
It's simply the best brand in the land

Well, skittl3862, I wouldn't be surprised if women were asking their doctors about Levitra, what with that "flame" logo that really just looks like a giant vagina on the TV screen...

I just wanted to share my love for the Quizno's commercial. I love Joel Veitch. Especially his singing kittens. And I like his spongmonkeys, too. And his Buffy sweary thing. And this song about mango cookies is even cuter because it's sung my pandas. So... yeah.

I think it may have been on the original "raised by wolves" car commercial and not the most recent, but my favorite part is when the kid throws a stick into the lake and his Dad goes chasing after it. You just know that kid has all kinds of fun when his friends come over!

Seriously! She looked like Sally Struthers on South Park drawn to look like Jabba the Hut.

And I love the Honda raised by wolves commerical. And it has occurred to me that I now know *both* Quiznos songs by heart. Please shoot me now.

They started using the 867-5309 song in yet another commercial (I think it was for a car, or a candy bar, who knows?) - what's with the comeback?

Anyone see the ads for Reese' Peanut Butter Cups with white chocolate? A friend assures that they're pretty good, but it looks really sickening, like a larva pie (I just made it up, relax), or something.