I didn't see a thread for this one & I know there are some commercials out there that are actually really great & funny. Whether I buy into what they are selling or not, that remains to be seen.

What are some of your favourites?


I think my favourite commercials of all time are the Visa commercials about identity theft with the people talking about their cards being used by someone else - ie the big guy with the valley girl voice, the young woman with the geek voice ("A girl robot"!), the older woman with the truck voice ("those mudflaps with the girlies on them") Those commercials always crack me up. I wish they still showed them.

I also like the other from the same company (Citi?) about talking to a real person - the people who have to beep their way through to try to talk to a real person and the current "Big Boy" commercials

Those are awesome, although I didn't even realize both series of ads were for the same company. My other recent favorite is the series of Geico ads featuring the gecko. He's so damn cute! I love his accent, and the little habit he has of scratching his chest while he's talking. And then when he almost fell off the tree branch but caught himself in time? Hee! So cute! I know I'm gushing but I seriously love him. "It's pie ... with chips ... for free!"

Target owns this thread for me. I love the distinctive style of their "Design for All" campaign. The way they use shapes and patterns to transition from one item/scene to the next is incredibly clever. I've enjoyed all the ads in the series.

I don't mind seeing commercials like this at all - they're quick, catchy, and don't insult the viewer's intelligence.

Sorry about the double post, my computer's being a brat

I will always love any of the Budweiser spots featuring the Clydesdale horses.
Two favorites are the campaign where the mule wants to join the group and the one with the baby Clydesdale trying so hard to move the big wagon. So, so cute.

I like those too. What I can't stand are the WalMart ads that are clearly trying to do the same thing, only with their happy face logo. It just doesn't work.

I don't think this commercial has been on the air for at least 10 years, but its my all time favorite --and this essentially blows the theory that if you remember the commercial, you'll remember the product, because I actually don't. It was for some kind of sauce or seasoning that you put on chicken, fish and meat. I do know it was not "Chicken Tonight." I hated those commercials.

Anyway, goes like this:

A boring family is sitting around a dining room table, waiting for Mom to come out with dinner. She comes out with meatloaf. Everyone sighs with resignation at another tedious meatloaf dinner. Then, however, Mom discovers "Yummy Stuff You Put On Food" or whatever it is, and suddenly meatloaf is exciting again!

This in and of itself is not funny. However, what's funny is the Dad's delivery. When the new meatloaf comes out, he goes "Meat-looaaaf!" and gets all bug eyed and kind of licks his lips randily, as if Mom just brought the meatloaf out naked or something. The same thing with "Chick-eeeeeeen!"

At the end of the commercial, it's just a close up on the Dad's face, and he goes, "Fl-OWN-der!"

I can't express to you why I found this commercial so funny, but at the time it was running I was waiting tables, and me and a couple of other waitresses would walk by each other and go "Fl-OWN-der!" and crack up.

PLEASE if anyone remembers this commercial OR the name of the product, let me know! Gracias!

I have to say, I'm adoring the Applebee's ad with the two guys singing the Gilligan's Island theme. I don't even care that they've changed the words, I just love the harmony.

The current Applebee's ad is the first Applebee's ad I've liked since... well, since ever. It doesn't feel nearly as annoying as they usually do. Weird, that.

I'll do FfraulienN one better: I love most of the Geico ads in general. I may be the only one in my family to like the fake-out ads. The gecko in the talk show one inadvertantly seems to refer to that, though he is meant to refer to the Geiko ads in general.

Favorites include the one where the jogger runs into and has a fight with a sometimes-fake deer. It's wonderfully meta-silly.

I love the one with the squirrels best; it's darkly funny when one runs the car off the road, then high-fives the other.

Of the gecko ones, I like the sight of him driving to the rock music. Now that's the image of "cool". With a tiny lizard creature.

There's one creepy moment in the original gecko ad where he licks his own eye. EEWWWWW!! ;o)

I hope its OK to post about commercials that aren't current or aired anymore, so here goes:
There was a commercial that must have been for the Florida orange juice council that had a classroom full of kids that were passing orange slices to each other when the very old, very STERN looking teacher wasn't watching. The kids were puttng the slices in their mouth to cover their teeth and would flash these big orange smiles at each other but quickly close their mouths just as the teacher would turn to face them from the blackboard. Then all of a sudden she smiles at them and has an orange slice covering her teeth. It sounds dorky as I'm reading this, but it always made me smile.

I'm generally not a huge fan of children in commercials, but Cheerios had some very sweet ones. There's one with a father and his baby, with a football game on the tv in the background, and the father is "showing" his baby different plays with Cheerios on the table. The baby grabs one and eats it, as babies will do, and the father says something like, "Hey, you just ate my tailback!" Then he says, "That's ok, I was going to trade him anyway."

Another one shows a grandmother putting Cheerios on a map to show the baby where everyone in the family is.

I adored the old VW ad (before they went crazy and started this "fast" campaign) with the young father talking about how crazy it is that's he's a father, when he himself still uses the 5-second rule after dropping a cookie.

My all-time favorite commercial?

"1984"

(It's just like "Blade Runner"-lite!)

Off the top of my head, #2 could be "Mean Joe Greene (Coca-Cola)"

Man, now I'm all nostalgic...

I want to hug the Gilligan's Island Applebee's commercial. I normally hate their ads with a passion, but these guys seem so enthused it's hard not to love.

At first I didn't know what the hell you were referring to, but then it all came back to me. I don't remember what the product was called either, but the man's delivery of "fl-OWN-der" made me laugh too. Hee. Now I've got that commercial in my head. Damn it, what was that stuff called?

United Airlines has been putting on some of the best animated commercials I've seen in a while.

I love the one where a woman is trying to make a corporate presentation via conference call but the people on the other end aren't buying it. She flies out to their office and successfully impresses them by making the presentation in person. The committee transforms from unfriendly critters to smiling faces as she speaks, but what really does it for me is how real and expressive her face is throughout, even with the simplicity of the animation and drawings.

Her reaction to the froggy guy at the end is a total hoot - did she end up kissing him, I wonder?

I love the Petsmart commercial with the dachsund and his toy dachsund, Bobo. The dachsund essentially takes Bobo everywhere until one day it is just too grody to bear, so the dachsunds owner steals it away while the dachsund is sleeping, and then takes him to Petsmart to get a new one. It is just too cute.

The best part is when the cashier picks the dog up ('cuz he's so tiny) to ring up the toy. Cute.

The commercial I used to really like was for... I want to say the VW Jetta, but I'm not really sure. In it, there was a young couple dancing around their apartment to music, and they get yelled at, so they pack up their things drive off to move to a house and it ends with them dancing around again, and the tagline was something about growing up. I just always liked it because it had a nice, fun feel to it.

Favorite current commercial? That car insurance one with the cavemen. It's so perfectly deadpan and hilarious, even though I can't remember the name of the company and don't care. I love how polite the cavemen are, even though they're furious. "I don't have much of an appetite, thank you." He's a gentleman to the waiter! I don't know why I love that so much.

I also really liked that Visa ChequeCard one with Charlie and Martin Sheen. Charming, funny in an unexpected way, and brief.

Oh, I loved the check card commercial where the guy was trying to buy a rabbit by writing a check, and it took so long the rabbits kept multiplying, and at the end the clerk picked up the phone and it was a rabbit. Love it.

The commercial I currently enjoy is the German VW rapper. That'll probably start annoying me soon, but for now I enjoy it.

I loved the Priceline commercials with William Shatner backed up by various indie musicians, like Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney. I also like the HP Photo ads with "Picture Book" by the Kinks. Love the song and the imagery. Good music will draw me in every time.

Best commercial of all time? Bonkers candy. There was this crazy old lady who would eat the candy, only to have gigantic fruit fall from the sky and crush her as she laughed like a maniac. Even at the ripe old age of five, I knew that this was totally irony - who uses the threat of death by produce to sell their product? The candy was pretty tasty, though (especially the grape).

I love that one, too, it's hilarious! The look on the little girl's face when the rabbits start gettin' in on is hysterical. I'm sure I'm annoyed my husband to death over it, though, because every time the clerk said "Have to phone this in," I'd yell "On the BUNNYphone!" Yes, I'm terribly clever.

As far as visual effects go, I always loved that commercial for HP printers (or whatever) that had the guy with the white picture frames that he'd put around his neck and stuff, while that "Picture Perfect" song played.

The commercial I used to love was the one for Raisin Bran Crunch (or some other crunchy cereal), where the guy had to fire Steve (I think that was his name), who just sat there all day eating the cereal, and couldn't hear himself being fired because the crunching was so loud. Then the guy does a victory dance, and Steve does a little dance back at him. The look on Steve's face just cracked me up every time.

His name is Johnson, and I too love those commercials.

Geico. I love that one too; the man in the commercial was so insensitive, he ruined the caveman's appetite.

My favorite series of commercials are for Diet Snapple. I like the older one, where the neighbor gushes about the Snapple drinker's abilities to communicate with animals: "And without this gift--!"

And the one where the hapless guy is trying to talk to a person on the support line, and ends up catching his broom on fire.

I remember the commercial. The "Fl-OWN-der" thing was definitely funny. As for the product, I want to say Mrs. Dash. I'm really not sure if that's right, but it's what keeps popping into my head.

Naw, the ad guy was trying to make up for it. It's just that the caveman is being a total bitch about it.

One thing I noticed about the cavemen ad is that the one in close-up with the last pissy comment looks like Joe Piscopo doing an SNL sketch in the early '80s.

Those HP Photo ads are the most visually brilliant things I've seen in a commercial. I didn't know originally that it was a Kinks song they played in them, so I didn't have a chance to be unhappy about that; that music works great with the ads, so as long as it wasn't a song I'd heard before...

About the Priceline ads with Shatner, I love the one they originally showed with Leonard Nimoy in it. It was a nice Trek tweek. The second one with Nimoy in it was stretching the joke alittle far, but the first one was good.

And how could I forget? The whole Pedigree "We're for dogs" campaign. Every one of those commercials makes me feel so good inside that I want to rush out and buy some dog food ... and I don't even have a dog. But ... [paraphrasing] if there *were* an international holiday to celebrate all of the contributions that dogs have made to our lives, I'd be for that too! Preach it, David Duchovny! Dogs DO rule!

Two very similar ads, currently airing, neither of which is really flashy or "Super Bowl material" but still got my attention.

One is for Diet Dr. Pepper, and features a bunch of clever visuals equating DDP with various "sweets" - we see a tray of DDPs being taken out of an oven, a DDP wrapped in plastic hidden in a candy bowl, a chocolate box filled with DDPs, etc. The other is for Cheerios, and shows a "restaurant" in which Cheerios are served to diners on silver trays by waiters, the way you'd serve fine cuisine.

I love ads that use a little visual creativity to make their point, without going overboard...

There's a commercial that begins with a cheerful announcer stating "This is Bob." Each and every time I find myself yelling back at the TV "Bob has bitch-tits!" Darned if I even know what they're hawking.

I love all the older Snapple ads with the people in fruit suits, but the best one ever is the one where they're entering that special time in their lives, so to speak - a pair of lemons in a closet "making out," and one has a chunk of its peel ripped off, a few various fruits looking at a centerfold in "Peeled" magazine - had me collapsed on the floor in hysterics every time it was on.

And much as I love the Geico Gecko (especially the older ads), the cavemen never fail to make me giggle. It's just so perfectly played.

Tiny House! Amazingly, I never got tired of that silly little reality show parody.

Oh, Tiny House. That was brilliance. I was actually fond of all the fake-out ads like that.

Does anyone remember the one that aired years ago-I don't even remember the product-but it featured a monkey dressed like a cowboy...riding a border collie!

That still airs in the Twin Cities. It's for Taco Bell, I believe.

Who didn't love the Office Max "Rubber Band Man"? I was half sorry to see the guy on "My Name Is Earl" because that pretty much sealed my beloved RBM's doom.

My latest favorite is Bucking Chicken (BK? Wendys?)- there is something about the grainy footage, the melancholy music, and the Brokeback Guy hanging on for dear life to the big bucking chicken that makes me laugh out loud. Doesn't make me want a chicken sandwich though.

Hee. I kinda hope that someone from that ad campaign is reading this; I bet you made their week.

*snorting with laughter, milk dribbling down chin*

I love, love, LOVE the new Hilton commercials for "Be hospitable." Maybe because I like seeing people be nice to each other. It's sweet, but not fakey. Just...people doing some nice stuff for random people. It makes me smile.

It's for Taco John's, not Taco Bell. It's another West-Mex favorite, though I'm not exactly sure what that means!

Ditto. They're the only ads I back up my videotape to watch.


I know it's coming but everytime the car is destroyed I break out laughing.
"Umpimp your ride!" VW ad online

"V-Dub! Deutschland, represent!" That's well on the way to classic. Still, my current favorite is "Push It".

I've only seen this once, and not even all the way through. In fact, I didn't even realize it was a commercial at first. Initially I thought it was some weird skit or college student film parody about "choking the chicken".

Like TraceyBee, I'm not a fan of kids in commercials. But I LOVE the little boy who's going to Disney: "We're too excited to sleep!" I hope they really took the actor to Disney!

The VW Un-pimp ads are genius: they're really multi-layer.

German engineer (pointing to hood scoop): Vat does this do?
Dweeb w/Earclip: It sucks in air.
German assistant: It certainly is sucking.

Hi-LAR-ee-us.

In the past few years, VW ads have been consistently my favorites: Bubble Boy commerical for the Beetle Convertible featuring ELO; a Jetta one ("The Wedding") from 4-5 years ago that's an homage/rips-off The Graduate featuring the incredible J. Ralph song "One Million Miles" NPR article w/music; another Beetle one called "Squares" that is a montage of everyday square objects (I can't find it online); a Golf convertible ad ("The Milky Way") featuring Nick Drake's "Pink Moon" with two couples driving through woods at night to some loud party which they decide to skip and keep driving; and a Jetta ad, "Synchronicity", with 24's Nina Meyers, where everything in the ad is in-sync to the same beat.

Also Reebok's "Terry Tate: Office Linebacker" series is great.

Finally, there's a great Samsonite one from 2-3 years ago that tracks a young professional from morning to a Mexican getaway resort. It has groovy Astrud Gilberto-style music, and similar to "Squares" features the same composition all the way through. Very well done.

The first thing I thought when I saw this commercial was "Chicken boo, what's the matter with you?"

The second thing I thought was "He's a giant chicken!" Ah yes, Animaniacs forever influenced my perception of giant chickens.

I adore the Beneful commercials with the guys being goofy with their dogs. Probably because I tend to have those exact same sorts of conversations with my own dog. The puppy in the newer commercial may be cuter, but the guy in the original commercial was more enthusiastic. I grin every time he makes the dog smile ("So happy!"), or pouts out his lip and assures the dog, "But it's good for you, too."

I'm a little bit in love with the first Beneful guy, actually. We and our dogs should totally hook up.