Restarting this thread, as it was lost in the great board-out of 2007.
I originally thought my inspiration for this thread was a Chevy, but it was actually the Ford Edge with the disclaimer: Fantasy, cars cannot actually drive on buildings.

I do love the one where rival neighbors who are fans of the Vikings and Bears keep bringing out more and larger items with their team's logo on it, to the point where the Vikings guy has a huge inflatable football player and at the bottom it says "30-ft inflatable Viking not sold". Too bad. I know some people who would buy one! (well, not the Vikings, the Patriots, Go Pats).

Go Pats is right! Although I think I might shell out some money for a 30 foot tall inflatable Tom Brady....

There was just a commercial for some Ford crap called the Edge, and on the bottom of the screen it said "Yes, this is a fantasy. Cars cannot really drive on buildings."

Well, if your car can't do what it does in the commercials, why would I buy it?

But thanks for letting me know that cars can't drive on buildings. All this time I was misled.

I think Chevys were the ones that could fly through the air without needing any help from nearby buildings.

Holy crap. How could I have missed the first post?

I blame residual effects from the TWoP bird flu epidemic, or as a clever person said in the Forum Questions thread, it was the Winter of Our Missed Content. Thirty lashes for me.

There was a commercial for some crappy 'dollhouse' thing or something, and at the end it showed two kids playing with the little people and junk, and it said 'Comes with evrything seen here!'. And then at the bottom of the screen, it says "Children NOT included".

Aww. I though we could skip the adoption papers and everything.

There was a Lexus commercial on today, and they were taking a car and dropping it from a helicopter on a target while a Lexus drove down a runway. At the bottom of the screen it said "Do Not Attempt."

Well darnit. And here I had this extra car and a spare runway with nothing to do with it.

I think I love that person!

I just 'love' all the bowflex commercials with all the paid fitness models claiming that they got that way by using boflex 3x a week for 30 minutes. Yeeah. Riiiight. And then of course, the disclaimer on all weight loss gadgets and pills: "Results not typical."

Noooooo Really??

In another vein

Not a commercial, but still a stupid(ly worded) disclaimer:

I got a free sample of some running and endurance formula sports drink mixes in the mail. One of them, "Catapult" is something they suggest should be consumed pre-workout, especially if it is a long one. The reason? The main ingredient beyond the amino acids and carbs, is caffeine. One serving has the equivalent of 2 cups of coffee.

In the disclaimers it said that you should not consume this if you are "Pregnant, or contemplating pregnancy" Emphasis mine.

Now. I have CONTEMPLATED pregnancy many times (usually in the vein of, "why would one want to be...") with absolutely no disruption to my lifestyle or routines. Silly me.

I saw this on the bottom of a commercial for some "drug free" drug that helps ward against colds:

"Individuals have been renumerated."

What the hell does that mean? It sounds kind of dirty.

I think that's what the aliens do so you won't remember that they probed you.

I believe that means they've been paid.

It does if the word was remunerated.

So if they've been renumerated, they've been renumbered? My question is who numbered them the first time and why did it have to be redone?

One of my favorite stupid disclaimers is on some medical ads, and it kind of ties in to what CCRaces was talking about.

"Women who are pregnant or may become pregnant."

Now, correct me if I'm wrong here, for I am an ignorant man-beast, but to me, pretty much any woman without complications of some kind MAY become pregnant. This one always feels like their cutting off 51% of their customer base.

Women past menopause cannot become pregnant. Since this disclaimer is for a prostate drug, and geared towards older men, I imagine that many wives would be in the clear. It is kind of weird that just handling the drug would cause birth defects.

Women not having het sex won't, but I've known women who had trouble convincing their doctors that yes, they really would prefer to be on the med that works best because they are either not in a relationship or not in the kind that might result in pregnancy.

Accutane (an acne medicine) had/has a fairly strict requirement of showing that if you are female you are on birth control and a negative pregancy test each month. Most of the warnings are geared toward women who may not know they are pregrant yet.

Since the Winter of Our Missed Content ate this thread, I feel it necessary to remind everyone that Ambien, a sleeping pill, may cause drowsiness.

Which they really need to revise to read "may cause you to walk around like you're drunk and forget things and feel like you are still asleep even after you've slept for 8 hours and laid around watching reruns of Law and Order all morning". At least that's what it does for me. What they really mean to say is that it could continue to cause drowsiness even after 8 hours of sleep. I don't know why they don't just say that.

I love this thread. Now I watch commercials looking for ads that don't have disclaimers.

The latest one is for Ford trucks. They are celebrating their 30th anniversary, so they drive through a big cake. Well, at the bottom of the screen is doesn't say "do not attempt" so anyone want to help me bake a big ass cake this weekend?

I'll help, but does it have to be ass cake? Would that be a Sandra Lee recipe?

Well, I was thinking more of a Rachael Ray recipe. You know, in case we need a model for the big ass cake.

I'm sorry, that was mean. I'll show myself out.

It only seems logical - don't all her recipes involve cans?

(hold that elevator please, Halloween Mojo, right behind ya...)

This weekend I saw what has to be the ultimate in ridiculous disclaimers. The ad is for an insurance company. It shows a woman freefalling thousands of feet through the air, finally landing softly on a purple blanket, which represents the security of the insurance company.

You can tell the actress in the ad jumped out of a plane, in an outfit that somehow disguised her parachute (she wears an oddly bulky blouse and jeans) and then obviously must have opened the chute after the camera cuts away, but the effect is of someone falling from the sky without a chute. Well done, actually.

The disclaimer? "Dramatization. Do not attempt."

So are you telling me that if someone throws themselves out a plane without a parachute, their heirs can say to a judge," We're suing for millions. The ad didn't say not to do it." Surely anyone related to someone that dumb would not be able to collect. I'm guessing they'd be laughed out of court. (I hope.)

My favorite ad featuring a disclaimer is the one with a barren landscape, except for a smoking volcano in the background. Suddenly the volcano erupts and apparantly spits out a nice shiny truck, which lands in the foreground, with a thump. The disclaimer says, "Do not attempt." But I'm a rebel, dammit! Does anybody know of a volcano near New Jersey? And can I borrow your truck?

A nice companion book for this thread is Remove Child Before Folding about wacky warning labels put out by the folks at M-LAW(Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch). The title refers to a stroller.

I saw a commercial advertising some contest, or something, but the disclaimer said that winners must meet "elegibility" requirements to collect their prize. The best I can figure, it means that winners must have the ability to have a mournful poem written about them.

Nevermind. I just realized why "elegible" was in quotes. Duh me.

A good one for NyQuil-DayQuil: The ad says, You feel better faster. The disclaimer reads: Vs. Doing nothing.
Wow, that's some heavy competition.

I was just on YouTube and saw an old VW commercial in which the Bug was driven into a lake. At the end, underneath the price($1999, so I'm guessing around 1970-ish)was the disclaimer Although the VW will definitely float, it will not float indefinitely.. It's interesting that they felt the need to emphasize that even 35 years ago.

A lot of the medications for prostate issues (or for hair regrowth--see Propecia, a reformulation of the prostate cancer drug Proscar) are able to be absorbed through the skin and cause a very specific birth defect in male children (it's seldom named explicitly, but the medical term for the disorder is hypospadias). (Term is spoiler'd for possibly NSFW link) Most if not all prostate drugs are specifically labeled as Pregancy Category "X" (definitively shown to harm a developing fetus), which is pretty rare among drugs approved by the FDA. Much as I hate disclaimers, this is one of the few cases where the disclaimer is absolutely warranted.

In college I knew someone taking Acutane, and in order to get to the capsules, she had to puncture through this cardboard thing with a diagram of a hugely pregnant woman with a big red X through it. Scary stuff indeed.

On topic: I've always been amused by the multiple car commercials with a variation of the do-not-attempt-at-home: "professional driver on a closed course." Gee, I thought if I bought your car, not only would my driving skills improve exponentially, but I would be driving in an abandoned desert in perpetuity.

The craziest one of those is for a current truck commercial. It has a truck pulling a trailer up this crazy looking bridge see-saw thing and then driving back down once the see saw pivots (demonstrating the engine and braking power). I am pretty sure there is a disclaimer about not attempting this kind of thing, incase I was going to build the giant bridge/see saw.

So shouldn't sterilized, infertile, and post-menopausal women be able to handle prostate drugs?

Hell, I ain't having kids. Let me hold your Propecia for you, honey!

Well, fabulous. I just found a dumb/funny disclaimer. Unfortunately, it really isn't too funny at the moment. At the end of a Mentos commercial, it says in tiny print "if consumed in large amounts, product may have laxative effects". And I saw this right after eating 11 mentos. (don't ask why...)

Why would someone take a pill that is so dangerous to even touch? I understand what you mean, scarletsmith, but why would someone want to ingest something that is so harmful? If it's bad to touch it, why would I want it in my blood stream?

I've got it! Mentos-flavored Activa!

Because "dangerous" = "powerful," subconsciously if not consciously. It's the same reason anti-drug PSAs are counter-productive. (Also why "bad boys" seem to get all the girls sometimes.) If a drug is so powerful that the side effects may kill you, yet the government has approved it and other people are using it, the potential payoff must be huge.

But the group that it would be dangerous to (pregnant women and/or fetuses) doesn't in any way overlap the group that would have the conditions the drug treats (prostate problems, male-pattern baldness). Actually, as far as I can tell, it's not harmful to the woman, either, it's the birth-defect issue. If you have a prostate, you're effectively out of the "possibly pregnant" group, therefore no problem.

As a comparison, I'm allergic to penicillin, to the extent that touching penicillin tablets will make me break out in an itchy rash. Theoretically (and I'm not about to test that theory!) taking penicillin could kill me or at least put me in the hospital. However, if you aren't allergic, it could be beneficial or save your life.

I was watching one of the latest Subway commercials(the one with the person standing on the scales which keep going up and up), and although I didn't have the sound on, I saw this disclaimer:

Subway meals are not a diet; they are a better way to eat.

Ooookay...so what was Jared all about, then?

I saw an Avon commercial for some Botox-type cream, and the disclaimer at the bottom basically said that the cream didn't achieve the affects of Botox. O-kay then, so why would I buy this product again?

As far as V-Dub goes, not only can't you get three cars for under 18000 like they say, if you do even get one, the fine print tells you that you have to get a manual transmission. Is an automatic transmission really that expensive?

Specifically with prostate drugs (which is what those commercials are for), the medication inhibits the conversion of testosterone into dihydrotestosterone. DHT in a man causes, among other things, prostate enlargement and hair loss, and is also a factor in the rate of growth of prostate cancer. However, in a developing male fetus, this conversion is crucial for the proper development of the male sexual organs. The tablets are covered in a special coating to protect the active ingredients (usually some form of finasteride), but if that covering is breached, the active ingredients can be absorbed through the skin. That's why pregnant women are told not to handle crushed or broken tablets especially and shouldn't be handling the drug at all if possible. However, since men can't get pregnant, they can take the medication without causing harm to any unborn children they may father.

A better explanation is here.

Last fall I somehow ended up on a site that provides all sorts of things that no self respecting dog would ever want. My favorite part was this: Novelty use only. These wings will not enable your pet to fly. I was on the phone with my mother at the time and she almost died she was laughing so hard. It's a good thing they warned us not to throw her schnauzer off the roof, because we had that planned for right after Thanksgiving dinner.

That is AWESOME!! I almost fell off my chair at that one!

"As God is my witness, I thought Schnauzers could fly!"

Cant we just assume that everyone who gets a prescription drug gets it from a doctor who will cover all of the side-effects and not to take it if you ___? Worst disclaimer is when you see some ED drug and some 80yr old guy and they are talking about a 24 hour boner.

No, we can't assume that. Surely you've gotten some spam from on-line "pharmacies" (and I use that word advisedly,) whose one big selling point is that you don't need a prescription from your doctor for anything. They've got doctors on-staff who write the prescription for you.

Well, if you fall for stuff like that it should be buyer beware...or you die. Would be good natural selection.

I was up late and saw a commercial for a culinary institute. The only disclaimer was when the actress held up the brochure that they would send you if you called now. The disclaimer? "Brochure's appearance may vary"