The quote is from King of the Hill, where Hank will not let Bobby Hill watch ads for tampons.

So what's your take on TV's incessant ads for cosmetics, razors and (yes) tampons? Some of them I like, but others, like most ads for tampons, I wish would leave my screen STAT.

As a Person of a Certain Age, I'm just bemused sometimes by how much more explicit everything has become in the "personal" area in my lifetime.

As a kid (reaching into magazine ads for a moment), I thought Modess was a high-class dress designer, because they advertised with full-page color photos of a woman in a fabulous gown, on a terrace or something looking out at a starry sky, and the only words were a discreet "Modess... because..."

It's certainly better to speak honestly about things, and get the word out, but it's been interesting watching the gradual change. We'd get those 70s "not-so-fresh feeling" ads (Nora Ephron did a hilarious article about these), careful ads for "bathroom tissue" (so much nicer than "toilet paper") keyed to its squeezability or strength without mentioning its purpose, and now all these "feminine product" commercials trying to walk the line between delicacy and competitiveness. The times, they have a-changed.

The Summer's Eve commercial, with the mother and daughter walking on the beach, is one of the worst ever. IIRC:

Daughter: Mom, do you douche?
Mom (grinning insanely): Every day!

The new Vagisil commercial....with the cartoon inflamed triangle....it's so obvisouly this diseased vagina and it makes me want to vomit.

That's wrong on so many levels. But mostly, it's wrong because you shouldn't douche everyday. Hey, hygeine products! Some bacteria are actually good for you.

Off Topic: I seem to remember at one point, waayyy, way back in the day (like, say, 1900s or 1920s), Lysol used to be used douche. I think I saw that on some program on the History Channel. F*cking scary man.



*snickers*

Yeah, something about those insanely cheerful and wholesome "feminine" ads seems to bring out the inner 12-year-old in many of us. They're trying so hard not to talk about what they're really talking about. I recall the first-generation douche ads, when they'd go on and on about the wonder of the "conveniently shaped applicator," and I'd want them (not really, of course) to stop the euphemisms and go into more detail about what made the shape so "convenient": "Look, you can shove it right up there!"

Two things bother me about Personal Hygiene ads. (OK, way more than two, but these are probably my top two pet peeves.)

First, enough already with the tampon commercials showing women frolicking on the beach in white bathing suits. Their product may be good, but for most women, it just isn't THAT good.

Second, ads for Depends, etc actually offend me. Western culture already shows older people little enough respect. Do we really need ads showing them putting on bladder leakage garments? (Well, we only see their feet but we get the message.) Give these people a little dignity, please! Discretion can be a good thing.



This made me laugh because I remember the same thing. Then again, was it so bad? Honesty is good, but there's something to be said for women retaining just a little mystery. There are some things I just don't need to see on TV.

It always amuses me to see that the liquid used in the tampon and pad commercials to demonstrate the absorbancy is always blue, like windex or ty-d-bowl. I always imagine the meetings all these male executives must have had when deciding the color, stressing about red and yellow until finally deciding blue.

I think they use blue because it shows up well on tv. But when I see those ads, I always start thinking that, if I start leaking blue liquid, the last thing I'm going to worry about is how absorbent my pad is.

Coming from a person who thinks the only good tampon ad is for Roca Pads ("they keep my flow motherfuckin' tizzight!") from Chapelle's Show, the Kotex ads of late just want me to not. watch. TV. Their whole "Women win" campaign just doesn't feel right to advertising tampons.

Ok, I'll admit - adorning my bedroom wall are TWO framed prints of Modess ads because I LOVE the gowns the women are wearing and it tickles my sense of humor to know that they are ads for "feminine protection" (don't worry, the "Modess...because.." has been left off)

I derive secret pleasure on watching t.v. with my hubby when an ad comes on. I always look to see if his face shows horror, disbelief or outright laughter.

ETA: Yes, the pinball one! We both had a good laugh over that one. I had my *ahem* yearly visit soon after we saw that one and I pondered whether I should tell the doctor that no pinballs come out of my hooha.

The cartoon vagina really gave me pause. I guess I should just be glad that Vagisil didn't take a cue from those toilet paper bears and show a bunch of frolicking cartoon beavers shaking their itchy crotches at the screen.

Oh. My. God. I am still giggling about this one. That would be so disgusting!

I didn't like the toilet paper commercial (I think it was Cottonelle) that showed a whole bunch of shots of people's butts. And this isn't really personal hygiene but the Pepto-Bismol commercial with the people doing the conga line and covering various parts of their bodies while shouting out the ailment (mouth for vomiting, chest for heartburn, stomach for nausea and, you guessed it, butt for diarrhea!)

That's so funny. I've heard so many complaints about this one. I'm normally squeamish but I have to admit this one cracks me up. It's just so ridiculous.

One ad that did sort of bother me (and this sounds even sillier) is the one for some kind of toilet paper, which involves bears going to the bathroom. Well, going to the tree, really. I realize everyone has to go to the bathroom, but I'd just as soon not have to watch them do it on TV, (or anywhere else, for that matter) particularly when I'm eating. Not even if they're bears. (This reminds me of a current ad for a toilet bowl cleaner. It shows a woman cleaning a grungy toilet, and they always show it during dinner. Yuck.)

Cannot. Stop. Laughing. ::wipes tears from eyes::

I can't believe I'm the first to mention feminine pads as pinball games. Seriously? If I've got balls down there, I've got real problems beyond the blue liquid issues and potential leakage.

I would love, love, love one company to finally use red.

Slightly OT but Mr. 'bert used to work with a CODA (child of a deaf parent). She told him that when she first got her period she absolutely and completely freaked because her point of reference (since her mom couldn't "speak" to her about it) was TV commercials which indicated to her that she would bleed blue.

I would still take the rather ridiculous image of a pinball machine over some annoying woman in the feminine hygiene aisle swatting me with blue colored pads. Actually, I kind of like that ad somewhat. There are so many worse out there that I can't quite work up enough dislike for it. Though for some reason the ball makes me think of those kids from Capri Sun commercials that zoom around like liquid silver and thinking of both of those together is just really, really icky.

I do not know of this pinball pad commercial you speak of. Is it a recent commercial or an older one?

I was innocently watching American TV and the interesting show I was intently viewing went to commercial. Annoying to say the least, but to hear a woman "openly" discussing her herpes outbreak with me and what drugs she was taking to control it was just too over the top.

And the little reminder, given in a low voice, that if you have an STD, you should always remind your sexual partner.

Look. This is just information I don't want to hear from a television set. Who authorizes this stuff to go on air?

And it was replayed, over and over and over again.

TMI!

I have 4 words: Have a Happy Period. F@%k you, Always! Nothing brings out my pre-menstrual anger like that commercial that consistantly makes me throw stuff at the t.v. in blind rage. Gah! What were they thinking???



It's pretty new, I saw it last about a month ago. Pretty weird, iirc. Like a pinball machine made of absorbant pads, and the pinball bouncing off (to show us that nothing can get past it, I suppose). Blech.

So what if strangers know I've got a burning, itchy, smelly vajayjay? Besides, the Vagisil is always hidden under the discreet package of Depends.

On a more serious note, we should have known waaaay back in 1970 "vagina" named products couldn't be too far off when they aired a commercial starring a mother and daughter, sitting in a gazebo, sipping refreshing iced beverages, smack-dab in the middle of a beautiful, flowery meadow, discussing "Summer's Eve". Imagine explaining that one to your two-year old!




Oh yes! My mother and I had a wonderful relationship, but now I wonder if she was faking her part because we never had that all-important mother/daughter douche conversation.

Maybe I'll hide my Vagisil under my Anusol. I'll take ointment AND suppositories!

The new Cottonelle bear commercial takes the series to new heights! A father and son bear settle in at neighboring trees. They each have reading material, and a big fat roll of Cottonelle perched on a nearby branch.

After doing their dirty bear business, they each reach for the roll of paper, and just when you think, "oh my god they are actually going to show cartoon bears wiping their cartoon asses", the scene switches to baby bear pulling out waaaaay too much paper, and daddy bear assuring him that Cottonelle is so thick and absorbent he doesn't need that much.

Two tampon/pad commercials that stand out for me are:

The one with a woman swirling around in a white dress with big pink polka dots. I guess the polka dots are supposed to be a play on "period" but it actually made me think of stains, i.e. leaky tampons. Wrong message people!

Then there's the one in which a woman is shopping for pads, and a complete stranger walks up to her to ask "does your current pad make you feel dry?" or something equally completely inappropriate. The hell? Because wouldn't we all cheerfully engage in an absorbency conversation with a total stranger. And allow this person to pour the ubiqutous blue liquid on a pad, and then place this wet pad all over our body ?!?!?!?

On another note, I haven't seen any Preparation H or similar commercials in a long time. I remember and old one for Tucks which involved a lit match being extinguished with a Tucks pad. Pretty tame by current standards.

The second-most notorious Summer's Eve ad ever.

That's Charmin, not Cottonelle. I know because I loathe the bears so much that I refuse to buy Charmin (even though it is the softest I've found).

And a joyous hysterectomy.

That ad caused my best guy friend to exclaim, "Someone's losing their ben-wa balls!" Now that's all I can think whenever I see it.

Ahhhhh yes! The red and white polka dot dress. Show of hand. How many of us thought we could dance our cramping little asses off or ride a horse like an equestrian born on a saddle? Anybody think the could swim like a mermaid or play a violin good enough to secure a seat at the Met if we only purchased the right sanitary product? The funny thing about those commercials is that not long after it was over, we still had kind of an alpha mindset as to the actual name of the product, i.e., sanitary napkins were referred to as Kotex (are they still around?) and tampons were Tampax, pretty much like photocopies were Xeroxes.



I never saw that one, but if some stranger were to walk up to me and ask me that question, I'd have bitch slapped her and asked her whether she preferred aspirin, ibuprofen or acetaminophen?

Thanks, [/b]mariposa[b]! Now I'm off to the beach to see if any Summer's Eve products have washed ashore.

Dave Barry ran a contest a while back to name the worst commercial ever. The number one choice turned out to be the '70s Mr. Whipple ads for Charmin. In Barry's words, "About various idiot housewives who lived in a psycho pervert community where everyone was obsessed with squeezing toilet paper, or as they say in commercial land, bathroom tissue."

They actually started running these ads on TV Land recently, and it was a kick to finally see them.

For me, nothing will ever top a commercial that aired around 1990 or so, which began with a woman saying, "I'll wear my mother's hat...or her scarf...but never her tampons!"

Which, of course, implied that the woman was not only taking a stand against using her mother's brand of tampons, but against using the very same tampons themselves.

Not only that, but then she pressed the pad--which was ridden with that blue gunk, by the way--against her chest...twice. So wrong; so disgusting. And the way she says "see? DRY." really freaks me out.

One of my current most-annoying commercials is the one that purports to deliver a feminist message - you see a woman in uniform helping passengers in a plane as she makes her way to the front. You start out thinking she's probably a stewardess, then find out she's the pilot. Yay for women, right? Not so much. Turns out she has a yeast infection, but thanks to "The Product" can fly a jumbo jet comfortably despite her yeast infection.

I can't quite put my figure on why this ad offends me - maybe I'd just like to see a confident, competent woman in a commercial who didn't have either her period, a headache, a bladder problem, or a yeast infection. Or maybe it's just that you never see female pilots on TV - when I do, I'd like to be able to enjoy it and not think about....you know. Just me?

Melina Detroit

Oh for crying out loud. Luckily I didn't see that ad.

I think that the thing that bugs me about these commercials is, no matter what the hygiene product, these ads manage to offend both men and women in the watching audience.

I have not seen any lately, but remember when (the 1990s) there was a whole spate of commercials for products that treated headlice? Shampoos or ointments or something. Anyway, when did lice become such a problem in this country? How did it become so common that you needed products to treat it?

I ask because in the mid-1970s, my little sister somehow got it. We never knew how -- it wasn't in her school; none of her friends had it. Mom was brushing out Sis' hair and suddenly started screaming. Never saw her so upset at anything before or since, not even when her parents died. She was so mortified and ashamed and hysterical that I thought we were going to have to move to a new town. It took months for her to calm down.

Today, lice is nothing to be embarassed about.

Gah. Can't stand that ad.

a) Where are the flight attendants, anyway, and why aren't they doing their job? I don't want to be on that plane if the pilot has to get up every time somebody presses the call button.

b) How feminist is it, really, if "she's really the pilot" is the twist? Portraying a female pilot as an anomaly is not really going to help the stereotype of pilot = male much. Though I suppose it might help attract a certain type of woman to the actual job -- people in college used to ask me if I picked my major to meet men, so some people must consider picking jobs by the gender ratio..



As soon as somebody figured out there was a way to make money off selling such a product and dragged it out into the open, I suspect.

Head lice can be a huge problem, especially in apartment buildings. This one woman I was talking to said the kids in the apartment building all played together, and the head lice spread through the building like wildfire. Head lice just love clean little heads of hair and jump happily onto their new homes, snuggling into the scalp and sucking the blood like the little vampires they are.

When patients are admitted they are checked out for head lice. If the nurse doesn't catch it, the whole institution can become infected. Big pain.

Lots of money in those medications!

I think this falls under the Personal Hygiene umbrella (yeccchh, let me rephrase that)...

What exactly is "natural male enhancement" anyway?

For months now, I've had nightly basic-cable encounters with a retro/60s/Pleasantville style commercial for a supplement (I think) called Enzyte or something close to that. It features a presumably well-serviced wife standing eagerly at the door waiting for Mr. Enhanced to arrive after a hard (?) day at the office, and a middle-aged neighbor looking on, holding his wilting, dribbling garden hose. It's a truly creepy ad, but it's memorable.

And again I ask, what are we allegedly "naturally enhancing" here? The software or the hardware?

I think that's one of the funniest descriptions I've read in this thread, Hello Ball! ("well-serviced... wilting, dribbling garden hose" -- hee!) The thing is, it's perfectly accurate too.

OMG dancing beavers with itchy hoohas. I laughed so hard I think I peed a little.
But remember BEING A GIRL ROCKS! Stupid kotex.

I'm not sure, but I think that "natural male enhancement" means some kind of vitamin supplement or herbal medication that's supposed to make the penis grow larger. Which of course is impossible, but I'm sure there are plenty of men out there gullible enough to fall for it. Damn, now I'm wishing that I had thought of this idea before Enzyte did. I'd be a billionaire.

Funny, I've always assumed that "male enhancement" means they're selling an (alleged) cure for impotence. But maybe it really is supposed to make your penis bigger.

I noticed that there's a Pepto Bismol ad featuring kids, where the diarrhea line is left out. Maybe they decided to spare some poor kid the embarrasment of having to hold his butt while singing about diarrhea. On the other hand, some kids might actually like that.

A commercial that never fails to angry up my blood is/are the Summer's Eve (or Vagisil, I forget which) that mention that women have a "different standard of clean." We see the required dumb male that's too engrossed in the ball game to even wash himself properly, and instead of him getting up and at least putting a new shirt on, he just sniffs under his arms then turns the shirt inside out. TA-DA! Now he's all clean, much to the dismay of his wife.

Now, the gist of the commercial is that the woman will love him anyway, stanky body and all, but she'll always be fresh, 'cause we know that women can't be walking around with that "not so fresh feeling."

Seriously, I imagine that cleanliness is important to people, and if he's this much of a slob all the time, maybe she needs to kick his stanky ass out.

So it's offensive on two levels. It implies that men are pigs, while at the same time implying that if women don't use their (questionable) product, they're not really clean. (Eeewww - they're just like disgusting men!)

I didn't have the sound on for this commercial, but the new Always commercial where an animated illustration of the pad is used (with green coloring) almost made me think it was an ad for a stick of chewing gum.

You mean...it's not chewing gum!?!? Bleah! Hack! Spit!

I would like to know that too. The comercials crack me up though!

I think blue is the color for liquids they use it for all sorts of ads including pads and diapers. Since they're getting more open about stuff why don't they just come out and say "your going to bleed every month for four to seven days and you need something that won't leak use _____________."

I hate any ad having to do with bladder control, but the ad that grates more than any other was the one with the, "Gotta go, gotta go, gotta go right now!" jingle. Women from all walks of life sitting around jiggling their feet like crazy or hopping up and down in anxiety, and then suddenly abandoning their jobs, their friends, their golf games or whatever to rush to the toilet. Please. You may have to pee, but by the time you get to middle age you can usually excuse yourself with dignity and not wriggle about like a kindergartner.