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Commercials That Annoy, Irritate or Outright Enrage


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What bugs me abut the AT&T commercial is when she says she should have married another guy. To me it goes back to the idea of a desirable woman having many suitors and her picking the one based on their prospects as a breadwinner. 'I should have married the other guy' is saying the other guy would have been a better provider as an insult. I don't think most women approach marriage that way any more.

 

 

The State Farm woman cracks me up in spite of herself when she says, "She sounds hideous."  All three characters have such great lines in that commercial; the husband with "Well, she's a guy, so ..." and Jake with "Uh, khakis."  In the context of women being so often portrayed as jealous, nagging wives in commercials, it is certainly problematic, but taken on its own I can stand it.

 

That ad strikes me as misogynistic and homophobic since it's got the nagging, sensitive wife trope and the "Ew, me, finding a guy attractive? Who does that?" trope.

 

There's a "design your own DiGiorno's pizza kit and the ad features some friends making a smiley face and joking it looks like a guy they know... and then the guy turns out to have a smile face baloon for a head. I hate it because those friends come off as bullying jerks and it makes me hate their pizza.

 

In the much smaller hate, there's a new Yoplait commercial where the fridge is full of yogurt but the family keeps emptying the yogurt shelf (side note: this family has a refrigerator shelf almost filled with Yoplait) there's a song playing in the background that I almost recognize and I keep thinking it's a song about having sex all day long that was considered pretty dirty in its day, but it's edited to cut the "dirty" parts out.

What bugs me abut the AT&T commercial is when she says she should have married another guy. To me it goes back to the idea of a desirable woman having many suitors and her picking the one based on their prospects as a breadwinner. 'I should have married the other guy' is saying the other guy would have been a better provider as an insult. I don't think most women approach marriage that way any more.

 

That ad strikes me as misogynistic and homophobic since it's got the nagging, sensitive wife trope and the "Ew, me, finding a guy attractive? Who does that?" trope.

 

I disagree, for the reason that she's not saying that the other guy would have been a better provider, but that the other guy would have known better than to commit himself and his wife to a new wireless plan without consulting her first.  That's what she's ranting about until he points out that he actually scored a fantastic deal that is better than what they had with their old service provider.

 

As for the homophobic part, I'm not seeing that at all.  Where is that evident in the commercial in question?

I don't take the State Farm husband's reaction as homophobic.  In fact, his even-keeled responses are among the reasons I don't hate the commercial like I otherwise would.  I don't read him as being grossed out by the idea of a man finding him attractive.  I don't see any reason he'd think Jake was doing anything other than helping him with insurance, and he's so unaffected by his wife's misinterpretation of the situation that he just delivers a deadpan response to her "She sounds hideous" line.

  • Love 9

 

Once the divorces go through, the AT&T shrew can be roommates with the insecure shrieking harpy who freaks out about Jake from State Farm. Hell, the yogurt bitch can move in too, and they can all lead peaceful, yogurt-filled lives without their annoying men-children sneaking into the refrigerator or making calls at night.

It's calling her 'the yogurt bitch', which I must now try to work into my everyday conversation, that make it gold.

  • Love 1

There was also that Dunkin Donuts breakfast sandwich commercial where it was a spicy sausage sandwich. Their is a boyfriend and girlfriend at the counter and the Dunkin Donuts worker is a female. They get their order and the man says spicy and the girlfriend automatically thinks he's talking about the female worker. The girlfriend gives him and the female worker a smug look before walking out of the place.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA1EOlwteBM

There was also that Dunkin Donuts breakfast sandwich commercial where it was a spicy sausage sandwich. Their is a boyfriend and girlfriend at the counter and the Dunkin Donuts worker is a female. They get their order and the man says spicy and the girlfriend automatically thinks he's talking about the female worker. The girlfriend gives him and the female worker a smug look before walking out of the place.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA1EOlwteBM

Smug? Shitty, maybe.

 

There was also that Dunkin Donuts breakfast sandwich commercial where it was a spicy sausage sandwich. Their is a boyfriend and girlfriend at the counter and the Dunkin Donuts worker is a female. They get their order and the man says spicy and the girlfriend automatically thinks he's talking about the female worker.

 

Good thing he didn't order the new "Your Spicy Sausage in Our Juicy Jelly Donut Hole" sandwhich.

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Once the divorces go through, the AT&T shrew can be roommates with the insecure shrieking harpy who freaks out about Jake from State Farm. Hell, the yogurt bitch can move in too, and they can all lead peaceful, yogurt-filled lives without their annoying men-children sneaking into the refrigerator or making calls at night.

Definitely! Both of them are really annoying!

 

The men are just being men. The women... I'd love to bitch slap... along with the writers who think that women are shrews.

There are a few of them in my neighborhood.  Whenever I see the neighbor across the street out doing yard work, I reasonably conclude he's been ordered to do so.  Meanwhile, she can't be bothered to help because she's too busy sitting on her rear end behind her computer looking into her neighbors' backyards using Google Earth.

 

While eating yogurt.

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I watch the majority of content online, and it drives me batshit crazy how Hulu will run the same commercial literally five or six times in a row. It sends me into a blind rage. First, I'm having to pay to watch commercials, and second, Hulu, you mean to tell me you can't get more than one commercial to play during whatever I'm watching?

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It's calling her 'the yogurt bitch', which I must now try to work into my everyday conversation, that make it gold.

This made me recall the Ask-the-Box Birch (sometimes shortened just the Box Bitch), who for a while made annual appearances for a couple of months during US tax season, but seems to have mercifully gone away in the last few years. I couldn't find the video (if someone can, please post it!), but it is described in detail in this article.

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In the much smaller hate, there's a new Yoplait commercial where the fridge is full of yogurt but the family keeps emptying the yogurt shelf (side note: this family has a refrigerator shelf almost filled with Yoplait) there's a song playing in the background that I almost recognize and I keep thinking it's a song about having sex all day long that was considered pretty dirty in its day, but it's edited to cut the "dirty" parts out.

That song is 'All Day And All Of The Night' by The Kinks, and yeah, that's pretty much what it's about. I can't imagine what Ray Davies must think of one of his classics being used to hawk nasty-ass yogurt, of all things.

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On a different topic, I think it's time to retire Duke the talking dog on the Bush's Baked Beans commercials. These commercials have been running for over 20 years, and the sad fact is that Duke would be dead by now. In fact his voice has changed several times, yet it's always the same guy who owns him, meaning he must get a new dog whenever Duke dies and name that one Duke too. Any product that makes me think about dead doggies isn't going to get my business.

I came here specifically to talk about Duke. First of all, Duke has turned into a real asshole.  I mean, it used to just be that he knew the recipe and happened to be able to talk.  Now he's actively trying to give the recipe away.  What does he have to accomplish by doing that?  Secondly, I was just telling my husband today that this dog is like thirty years old now and should be dead.

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There's a "design your own DiGiorno's pizza kit and the ad features some friends making a smiley face and joking it looks like a guy they know... and then the guy turns out to have a smile face baloon for a head. I hate it because those friends come off as bullying jerks and it makes me hate their pizza.

 .

I hate it b/c obviously, the guy can't literally have a smiley face for a head.

Can we stop referring to yoplait as "yogurt"?

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(edited)

I came here specifically to talk about Duke. First of all, Duke has turned into a real asshole.  I mean, it used to just be that he knew the recipe and happened to be able to talk.  Now he's actively trying to give the recipe away.  What does he have to accomplish by doing that?  Secondly, I was just telling my husband today that this dog is like thirty years old now and should be dead.

 

LOL at "Duke has turned into a real asshole"

 

 

I hate it b/c obviously, the guy can't literally have a smiley face for a head.

Can we stop referring to yoplait as "yogurt"?

 

LOL @ not calling Yoplait yogurt.  I feel your pain, but I'm not sure what else to call it?  :)

 

But while we're on Yoplait, how about this special gem....

 

 

1. Yoplait rap?

2. You're not going to convince me that Yoplait is delicious, just because you say it 50 times in 30 seconds

3. Do you really want to meet the cow that made this...sounds kinky!

4. But I don't love anything about Yoplait, so why would it be any better frozen?

Edited by RealityGal

I loathe the "meet the cow that made this" commercial on so many levels. Initially because A) I am a firm believer that, sure fine, autotune exists and can and will be used forevermore, but please do so in subtle context where we're not supposed to know it's happened. No more of this "it's an effect". No, it's a cop out. Just stop. You're not clever. And B) when this commercial was in heavy rotation it was in HEAVY rotation. I don't know what the hell I was watching but seriously, all three ad breaks of a single show would start with that damn frozen Yoplait people stuck in a box. I know there's data that suggests saturation is actually a good thing for ads but it got to the point where I would change the channel the second it'd come on. I don't mind sitting through ads, but I refuse to watch the same one six times in under an hour. I will throw things.

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(edited)

I loathe the "meet the cow that made this" commercial on so many levels. Initially because A) I am a firm believer that, sure fine, autotune exists and can and will be used forevermore, but please do so in subtle context where we're not supposed to know it's happened. No more of this "it's an effect". No, it's a cop out. Just stop. You're not clever. And B) when this commercial was in heavy rotation it was in HEAVY rotation. I don't know what the hell I was watching but seriously, all three ad breaks of a single show would start with that damn frozen Yoplait people stuck in a box. I know there's data that suggests saturation is actually a good thing for ads but it got to the point where I would change the channel the second it'd come on. I don't mind sitting through ads, but I refuse to watch the same one six times in under an hour. I will throw things.

I remember it playing ad nausem during Top Chef, or maybe Project Runway.  I think it actually was Project Runway because they had some ridiculous Yoplait challenge that made absolutely no sense.

 

I feel like the autotune was dreamed up by some 50 year old Yoplait executive who thought it was a surefire way to appeal to the "hip, young" people.  I'm sure he is still hoping that the video will "go viral" and "create a lot of buzz" and that people will "tweet about it" to all their "mySpace friends."

 

I guess they figured they already had the market cornered on married naggy shrews who wanted to lose weight so they figured they better find another audience to peddle their muck to.

Edited by RealityGal
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Now for a new aggravation, the flip side of annoying children - annoying *parents*. Why can't the kid in the gelato commercial have some of the stuff? Is gelato the Yoplait of the ice cream world, in that it's so awesome that not everyone is allowed to eat it? Is it supposed to be cute that these jerks are hogging it all for themselves? Explain this to e like I' five, because I don't understand.

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(edited)

Now for a new aggravation, the flip side of annoying children - annoying *parents*. Why can't the kid in the gelato commercial have some of the stuff? Is gelato the Yoplait of the ice cream world, in that it's so awesome that not everyone is allowed to eat it? Is it supposed to be cute that these jerks are hogging it all for themselves? Explain this to e like I' five, because I don't understand.

 

First...for reference

http://youtu.be/82qdJYJ_ROc

 

Second - I've had Breyers Raspberry Cheesecake Gelato (don't judge me, I was shopping while I was hungry, so it seemed like a good idea at the time) and it tasted exactly like ice cream to me.  Its certainly nothing I would hide from anyone.

 

Third - you CLEARLY have a lot of this crappy gelato because you both have a full bowl of the stuff and the container you have on the table is full, so stop being jerks and share.  And even if he eats it all isn't the grocery store open tomorrow so you can get some more?  I remember the Bryers Gelato being relatively cheap, as far as gelato is concerned. 

 

Fourth - Stop being selfish jerks.  He said he likes carmel and nuts, let him have some of the damn gelato.  Its pretty much just fancy looking ice cream in a see through container.

 

Fifth - How much of an asshole are these parents?  Mom: "you wouldn't like it, it has caramel and crunchy stuff?"  WTF?  what kid doesn't like caramel and crunchy stuff.  Thats just an asshole move.  If she wasn't being a jerk she would have said "its made of brussel sprouts and donkey turds"  Then there is Dad: "I'm an adult" while slurping the ice cream with caramel that a kid would love down his mouth.

Edited by RealityGal
  • Love 3

 

Second - I've had Breyers Raspberry Cheesecake Gelato (don't judge me, I was shopping while I was hungry, so it seemed like a good idea at the time) and it tasted exactly like ice cream to me.  Its certainly nothing I would hide from anyone.

 You're lucky it didn't taste like frozen dairy dessert, which is what many/most Breyers products have to be called now.

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(edited)

You have to have a certain percentage of milk solid in a product in order to be able to legally market it as ice cream.  The Breyers brand was sold to Unilever (the same company that bought Ben and Jerry's and mucked up the the fomulations) who introduced a smoother product due to customer demand.  

Edited by Maverick
  • Love 1

You have to have a certain percentage of milk solid in a product in order to be able to legally market it as ice cream.  The Breyers brand was sold to Unilever (the same company that bought Ben and Jerry's and mucked up the the fomulations) who introduced a smoother product due to customer demand.  

 

The same people who make the soap?  I skimmed the article, and left confused, I wonder why customers don't demand frozen dairy desserts from other ice cream companies?  who finds ice cream too rough to eat?  Ben and Jerry's is sort of sad, I never thought those guys would ever sell.  Oh well, hippies need money too :)

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Fifth - How much of an asshole are these parents?  Mom: "you wouldn't like it, it has caramel and crunchy stuff?"  WTF?  what kid doesn't like caramel and crunchy stuff.  Thats just an asshole move.  If she wasn't being a jerk she would have said "its made of brussel sprouts and donkey turds"  Then there is Dad: "I'm an adult" while slurping the ice cream with caramel that a kid would love down his mouth.

Maybe they're paying him back because he won't let them have any of his Kraft Macaroni & Cheese.

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Now for a new aggravation, the flip side of annoying children - annoying *parents*. Why can't the kid in the gelato commercial have some of the stuff? Is gelato the Yoplait of the ice cream world, in that it's so awesome that not everyone is allowed to eat it? Is it supposed to be cute that these jerks are hogging it all for themselves? Explain this to e like I' five, because I don't understand.

I see this commercial differently.  The kid is annoying.  There are some things that ARE for grown ups.  Not everything is for children.  The parents have every right to eat ice cream whenever the heck they want.  The kid should shut the hell up and go to bed; the parents are paying the bills, not the annoying little brat.  

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(edited)

I see this commercial differently.  The kid is annoying.  There are some things that ARE for grown ups.  Not everything is for children.  The parents have every right to eat ice cream whenever the heck they want.  The kid should shut the hell up and go to bed; the parents are paying the bills, not the annoying little brat.  

 

And I don't think thats an unreasonable point of view.  But when the kid comes downstairs just say "hey, its too late for you to eat" or "maybe tomorrow"  Don't be a jerk and tell him that you're eating delicious caramel ice cream with crunchy stuff but you won't give him any.  Thats just mean spirited.  

 

They just make the ice cream seem like the most important and delicious thing by hugging it to their chests and coming up with lame excuses.  They don't seem bothered that he wants to eat something, they just don't want to share their sub-par gelato.  It seems like if he asked for a line of coke they might have had less of a problem giving it to him.  Its just that they don't want to share this amazing gelato with him, so of course he wants it.  How can he not, especially when they tell him its got caramel and crunchy stuff!  

 

They should have just told him they were eating Yoplait - he wouldn't have wanted any part of that.

Edited by RealityGal
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(edited)
I see this commercial differently.  The kid is annoying.  There are some things that ARE for grown ups.  Not everything is for children.  The parents have every right to eat ice cream whenever the heck they want.  The kid should shut the hell up and go to bed; the parents are paying the bills, not the annoying little brat.  

Normally I'd agree with that, especially since I've already expressed my loathing for the Halos commercials.But it isn't like he was asking them to set him up with a shot of Jack Daniels and a beer chaser, and as @RealityGal notes, these piggy jerks might have had less of a problem with that. It's *ice cream*, people, and gluttony is one of the seven deadlies. I guess my issue is the hoggishness of it, and if the kid had demanded a bowl of the stuff, then I'd have had no problem with them shutting him down, but all he does is say he likes caramel and crunchy stuff after they've made it clear how delicious it is. They're the ones behaving like selfish five year olds, hugging the bowls to their chests as if the kid's going to leap on them and steal it from them. It's not cute to me.

Edited by Cobalt Stargazer
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(edited)

I think my parents would have just told me to get back to bed and leave the grown ups alone.  And they would not have been wrong.  

 

What's wrong with Yoplait?  I eat yogurt all the time.  

would they have rubbed their delicious ice cream in your face?  thats the part that seems mean.   I don't care for yoplait, I find it watery and weird tasting, but thats a taste preference, people must like it because it is still on the shelves.  I mean no offense if you like it.  :)  In fact, I'm solidly in the minority yogurt wise, because most stores don't stock the yogurt I like, so clearly a lot of people in the country enjoy Yoplait.

 

And truly, when I was a kid I wasn't really all that interested in yogurt just as a general rule, especially not for dessert, it wouldn't have gotten me as excited as ice cream with caramel and crunchy things on top!

Edited by RealityGal

For me, if my parents said, "no you can't have it" case closed.  I don't care if the adults are hugging it close to them, they're the adults, they're paying the bills.  So be a good little boy and go to bed, kid shouldn't have been up that late anyway.

 

I think a "no you can't have it" is different than coyly playing like you're eating the most delicious caramel and crunchy covered thing in the world and then telling a kid no.  To me, its like if a kid asks you about going to a local easter egg hunt, and you tell him its the most amazing experience ever, looking for eggs, the bright colors, how you could get a dollar for each one you collected, how some of them have delicious jelly beans in them, how there is an Easter Bunny who hops, how there is just the most amazing chocolate bunny rabbits. And then you tell him "no."  To me, it would be perfectly reasonable if the kid asks you about the going to the local easter egg hunt if you just say "no" but if you make the easter egg hunt sound incredible and then say no, it seems mean spirited to me.  

 

I think its fine, acceptable and advisable for people to tell their children no, but I don't think people should be mean spirited to anyone, especially and not even children.

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(edited)

Yeah, but I think whatever ad exec came up with this...that was their point: the parents are being mean. The whole schtick of the ad is "it tastes so good it'll turn you into a selfish, mean, immature, frozen dessert hogging jerk; you won't care about anything else, all you'll want is this product". I mean, I don't like the ad; I don't find it particularly effective as executed (or perhaps, even its tack at all) but the whole point was that they're being mean. If they said any of the very logical parental refutations for why the kid couldn't have any, that'd defeat the purpose of what they were trying for this with ad. I'm not saying it's any good, but it was intentional.

Edited by theatremouse
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(edited)

Just what ARE the crunchy things? Dead cockroaches? It's never explained.

This comment, coupled with the article about the mystery ingredients making the previously perfectly delicious Breyers now unpalatable because "customer demand" said so, makes me now never want to eat ice cream again. Good job, posters!

(I'm being halfway serious. Ice cream is delicious and I don't allow myself to buy it because I have A Problem. I will eat the whole container. Ergo, I rarely have it. We had some at work a couple weeks ago from Marble Slab, and let me just say that Activia has nothing on Marble Slab.)

Edited by bilgistic
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(edited)

Because if you automatically suspect your husband of having an affair/calling his secret lover just because he's taking a call at night and speaking in lower,hushed tones,

 

How they write her handling of the situation is annoying (advertising execs really think all woman are irrational, jealous nags, don't they?), but her initial "Who are you talking to?" suspicion isn't as far-fetched as her later persistence; he's not just speaking in hushed tones, he's saying, "Yeah, I'm married; does it matter?" and "You'd do that for me?" at 3:00 in the morning. 

 

Speaking of annoying State Farm commercials, I loathe the one with Jimmy.  Of all the made-up jingles characters use to try and summon their insurance company, "I have blah blah insurance, so person come help" is my favorite.  But Jimmy is awful.  He rear ends someone and his mother teleports herself to the middle of nowhere to sit on hold while he stands around griping and discouraging his son's love for his grandmother.  "You're not helping."  Really?  Because she's filing a claim while you do nothing, jackass.

Edited by Bastet
  • Love 7

This comment, coupled with the article about the mystery ingredients making the previously perfectly delicious Breyers now unpalatable because "customer demand" said so, makes me now never want to eat ice cream again. Good job, posters!

(I'm being halfway serious. Ice cream is delicious and I don't allow myself to buy it because I have A Problem. I will eat the whole container. Ergo, I rarely have it. We had some at work a couple weeks ago from Marble Slab, and let me just say that Activia has nothing on Marble Slab.)

 

I too...have this problem.  But I'm delusional as well, so I'll still go to the store and think "oh, only 110 calories per serving, I'll just have one serving a day, how bad can that be?"  And before the day is out the half gallon is gone :(

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My half-cup serving of ice cream looks a lot different than the manufacturer's half-cup serving. Mine looks more like a mixing bowl.

LMAO!  I used a measuring cup once to measure out ice cream.  It was wildly disappointing.  I figured there had to be some margin of error in favor of giving me more ice cream.  Four hours later, the half gallon was gone.

 

LOL @ a mixing bowl

  • Love 3

I've been guilty in the past of making up my own serving sizes when it came to Girl Scout Cookies.  This way I'm only eating one serving. 

 

Serving size:  1 sleeve

Servings per container:  2 

 

It's the same kind of logic I use when I apply the common idea that the calories in a pizza are canceled out if you drink diet soda with it.

 

You say this as though someone could poke a hole in your flawless logic.  But seriously, I swear to you they have to be lying about the number of servings in some of those boxes of girl scout cookies.  Damn thin mints!

  • Love 6

If you eat too much of any of that full-fat (18%) premium ice cream, it WILL go through you faster than Activia.  It's the fat content.  I've taken to buying empty cones & trying to portion out the Haagen-Dazs that way, but it's not working.  End up eating the cones (the cake kind that taste like Communion wafers) filled with egg salad or tuna & scarfing a half-pint of the ice cream from a bowl - after it's been dowsed with butterscotch schnapps.  Did I say I was borderline diabetic?  Anyone care to guess why?

  • Love 5

Really, if they don't want you to eat the whole sleeve, why do they package it that way? Any cookies left in the sleeve will get stale!

This is where I mention that I don't allow myself to buy Girl Scout Cookies, or the crack cocaine that is Edy's Thin Mint GSC ice cream (frozen dairy dessert?).

 

 

It's all their fault. Yep

 

And honestly, you don't just want to have one lonely sleeve of cookies rattling around in the box all by itself, so you pretty much have to eat the second sleeve of cookies.  As far as the ice cream, I won't even look at it.  But about twice a year, I'll convince myself that this time will be different and this time I'll really have self control around the ice cream, and I'll really only eat it in 1/2 cup increments.  Four hours later when its all gone, I just know that I'm not built like these people that the ice cream companies are designing for, these magical beings that can measure out half a cup, put the ice cream back in the freezer and wait until the next day before they have more ice cream.

If you eat too much of any of that full-fat (18%) premium ice cream, it WILL go through you faster than Activia.  It's the fat content.  I've taken to buying empty cones & trying to portion out the Haagen-Dazs that way, but it's not working.  End up eating the cones (the cake kind that taste like Communion wafers) filled with egg salad or tuna & scarfing a half-pint of the ice cream from a bowl - after it's been dowsed with butterscotch schnapps.  Did I say I was borderline diabetic?  Anyone care to guess why?

The half pint is just a game ice cream makers play to mess with your mind.  They know you're gonna eat that entire pint, I don't know whey they ever bother to put the calorie count for more than one serving size on it.  Oh wait, yes I do, they know if they put that 1 serving was 780 calories, they might lose sales, but if they can convince you that its really only 4 servings of 195 calories each, you're more likely to bite.  

  • Love 2

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