How about, for all who still have unedited tapes: Worst sponsor or commercial you had to sit through. Those Psychic Friends spots were TORCHA!
For me, one word suffices: o/` “APTIIIIIIIIVVVVVAAAAAAAAAA!” o/`
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Weekend Discussion Thread: Worst CommercialsAlert reader “darthlazy” suggested:
111 Replies to “Weekend Discussion Thread: Worst Commercials”Commenting at Satellite News
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I had this commercial to open an episode I taped on VHS .. and danged if I can’t find it! It was priceless. This fellow had a cooking or cleaning product or something he was hawking, on the elderly side, very nervous, and he was almost pleading, “write us if you have any ideas, call us, and we’ll happy to talk to you and (looking nervously at possibly frantic director) … we love you all.”
After consolidating everything onto DVD, I’m not sure I kept it.
My kids get a big kick out of the America Online 2.0 commercials where you can check scores and stock prices — every 15 minutes — and if you call you can get 50 minutes FREE.
Oh man, the commercials. I want to take out the old tapes, just to see how bad they were.
The two worst I remember the most from right now:
– BK TV ads for Burger King, which had that annoying MTV ripoff style and some guy repeatedly saying “I Love this Place.” It was stupid.
– Penn Jilette. While technically a promo, he did a spot for the movie “Earth Girls are Easy” on Comedy Central and sang along with it. It seemed to be in every break from a tape I have.
Two there weren’t annoying, but amusing:
– An ad for CD-i. It was going to be educational, entertaining, informational, and great for the kids. It did none of these things well.
– An ad for “America’s Talking,” a TV channel that was sort of like talk radio and a network morning show. It bombed within two years and turned into MSNBC.
The Comedy Channel would repeat those Bud Dry commercials. Remember that beer? It was ‘dry brewed’, whatever that meant.
Do you like to paint, draw, or even sketch and doodle?
Manny, Moe & Jack
The Danny Glover phone commercial where he eats the jelly beans, gross!
Re: Rob Willsey (post 4)
Actually, I liked those art institute commercials. They had a nice, pleasant feeling for a Saturday morning. And did you notice that the place was based in Minneapolis?
As for the worst, I’d say any of the endlessly-repeated promos for “Politically Incorrect” and ‘Dream On” (especially the Ruth Westheimer ones for the latter), and the also-endlessly repeated plugs for the Sci-Fi Channel magazine. It seemed like they were run during every commercial break.
On the other hand, I loved the overblown L. Ron Hubbard commercials they’d run. (“Man is nothing but a BRAIN! A BRAIN!!!!) They were as funny as MST3K.
Most irritating commercials? Is when Sci-Fi has its Station ID sequence then cuts to our own hometown local commercials or our surrounding towns, etc. Where these people cant act worth s@#T!!
I second the Psychic Hotline commercials, full of people supposedly being interviewed off the street who are really reading cue cards.
The AOL commercial that always got me was the one where the pitch guy says, “My friend told me to try America Online. I said, ‘Why? I’ve got a computer.'” Well, sell your computer and THEN get AOL.
And one word that can stand in for Hell: Zima.
All my unedited tapes were from the Sci-Fi years. They had a lot of commercials for Psychic Friends and that other paranormal garbage. Especially irritating were the John Edward / Crossing Over promos. Definitely more “Fi” than “Sci”….
You have to sit through?
All you to do is press the Fast-forward (cue) and skip right through the commercials in seconds.
Did you not realize that?
Any spot from Comedy Central where Penn Jillette spoke. One of the most annoying voices of all time (and he’s only gotten worse with age.)
This reminds me though of the unique Rifftrax of The Star Wars Holiday Special, which riffed not merely on the special but on all the commercials left in the bootleg video they were using.
Those AOL commercials are quaint. Ten years later and AOL is completely irrelevant.
All of my tapes are from the Sci-Fi era, but after the show was canceled, although I did tape the first airing of the final episode. All of those prescription drug commercials were annoying, even more so than they are today.
Those battery comericals that had those plastic people. ugh!
One of the worst actually warranted its own riff, during the Sci-Fi era. I forget what it was for (some prescription medication), but “The sun is risin’!”
For me the worst was from the Sci-Fi era for Kahlua Mudslide featuring the song ‘Brown Sugar’ sung by a soul singer…………………that song haunted my nightmares.
Two words… “SAIL AWAY!!!”
From my mid 90s syndicated tapes what I hate the most were the bubble gum ads where someone says they’ve been waiting all their life to see the a comet or a whale, then realizes their gum is globbed up and is distracted and thus misses what they had been waiting for. Then everyone else belittles them for having sucky gum. I still hate those passionately. I have a those old AOL ads too.
I personally liked those Psychic Friends commercials with Dionne Warwick or that Caribbean voodoo lady, who actually was from central Pennsylvania or some place like that. They were a hoot and a half. The John Edwards ads were annoying because of their earnestness but I can’t think of anything from the Sci-Fi years as annoying as that gum ad though. Maybe someone will jog my memory.
#3 I remember the dry beer ads too. The only people who should be drinking dry beer are ancient Sumerians IMHO. One of the more memorable of the SNL commercials to me, is the one where the guys are cleaning a pool and one pours a beer into it, hoping for pretty girls to appear, only to find out it’s Bud Gay.
I can’t believe nobody’s mentioned Mentos.
What really annoyed me wasn’t commercials, but when Sci-Fi squooshed the end credits to one side to make room for upcoming program announcements. Very often they would ruin the stinger or talk over some dialouge.
I agree with #14. Those commercials fortold the horror that would be The King.
I believe one of our honchos on here mentioned them already but I must second the emotion…Tom Selleck groaning on and on about all the super cool stuff that would be provided to us by AT&T. When I finally started to digitize my collection I made VERY sure to excise that crap utterly.
Again, anything with Penn Jillette.
Speaking of Commercials.. i think they missed a huge opp with The Movie by not leaving commercials in… I would have loved to see them riff commercials.. there are so many old ones they could have thrown in… I thought you were Dale !
Does anyone have videos of the commercials Comedy Central made that showed two hicks watching MST3K?
One commercial that Sci Fi used to run frequently during MST3K were those Barely There underwear ads. They were fine for awhile, but eventually got annoying.
Oh yeah! If I recall, the Aptiva sported an original Pentium-100 chip. About all it could do is sing “AAAAAAAAP-TIIIIII-VAAAAAA!”.
I just had a thought- those of us with the will, time and a little technical knowledge could actually find these awful commercials on YouTube, and drop the links on a special thread, or even rip some and put those up. (Don’t know if they would be nailed by the content recognition system or not.) It’s been awhile since I heard “AAAAAAAAP-TIIIIII-VAAAAAA!”!!
Ah, yes. The Barely There underwear commercials. That’s what my underwear becomes after a while! I also remember an infomercial just before mst, for the unfortunately named product “NADS”.
“Soap scum builds up and up. Pretty soon – you’ve got a scum situation!” (as told to us by a presumably naked man in his own shower)
Can’t remember if it was for Zest or water softener, but it haunts my tape of “Space Mutiny.”
On the few unedited tapes I have left, I tend to just fast-forward the ads.
But there’s one that seemed to come up in every single commercial break when I was watching the show live in late 1991. Penn sings! “Christmas is here/And every year/You’ll hear this song/Twelve million times./But here’s a new tradition:/’Saturday Night Live’ Merrython!” Not actually bad, I guess, but it’s colonized territory in my brain that I’ll never, ever have back.
I’m with “darthlazy”, those psychic friends ads were murder. They kept coming up every damned commercial break. It got to the point I tried testing my psychic powers by trying to make their heads explode like Scanners (and like Dr. F once tried to do to TV’s Frank) but no luck… ;-)
I think there actually is someone who put some of MST3K commercials on youtube (hope this works):
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=mystery+science+theater+3000+commercials&aq=6
Mid 90’s Comedy Central, Sheik Condoms: “THEY want us to use them, but WHO ARE THEY!?”
It wasn’t annoying, but on one of my tapes there was an infomercial after MST3k for magic. I guess just learning magic tricks to impress people at parties, grandkids, and maybe business meetings. It was hosted by Dick Van Patten.
#27 –
Those Nads infomercials were PHENOMENAL. They were a full hour of comedy, every time – especially when watched with friends.
#29
Not only is your brother one of the coolest humans ever, but you are 100% correct on your choice.
Penn should have to write us all apology letters (with checks) for that SNL bumper he sang.
Damn him!
Oh,
and “Thank you, Thank you Mr. Sheik!”
Aol was annoying and the commercials were everywhere. There was one commercial on a tape that I get a kick out of everytime. It’s a Dentine Ice commercial featuring a pre-jackass Johhny Knoxville at the end. That was a double take from me. I never rewind through the commercials but had to that one time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlUEKK0YJD0 if you must see.
The L. Ron Hubbard ads always made me laugh. Who the hell was that crackpot trying to fool?
There were so many bad ones, it’s hard to remember them all. But I do remember being annoyed by the Burger King “I Love This Place!” and Zima ads.
As for the best ones, it has to be the Playboy ones. :smile:
#14 (David)
Oh no…repressed memories surfacing…OH GOD! Those were awful and only served to augment my terror when the Burger King mascot arrived to steal my soul.
There was one ad I hated with a passion. It wasn’t really bad so much as it was like hearing a song you think is “meh” on the radio constantly. The ones I kept on tape were mainly from the Sci-Fi channel post-cancellation and from one particular summer. So every episode was preceded by a commercial for Sears and their AC installation services. Plus, it would pop up at least one to two more times during the commercial breaks in the show. Same one every time, too. A wife gently but overtly hen pecking her husband into calling Sears and getting their AC fixed. Sort of an iron glove wrapped in velvet (suburban edition) ordeal.
It was helpful in one way, though. If I saw that commercial pop up during one of the breaks, the show would almost always come back on right after. Made fast forwarding an easier affair, at least.
I’m afraid I have to side with those who mentioned the Psychic Network/Friends adverts.
The worst one (and someone PLEASE feel free to tell me I’ve got it wrong — although every time I saw it I’d listen carefully again, aghast, hardly believing my ears; and my wife heard it the same way) had a woman who said something like “She asked me if I’d had a miscarriage and it was true! She convinced me.” (ending with a broad smile). Say what??!! :shock:
I think I’m remembering this right – CC’s “New Fall Season in July” used to drive me crazy.
I remember the other BK commercials where they were giving away those sunglasses promoting that movie “Wild-Wild West” staring Will Smith.
And the Chef Boyardee commercial where the 30 year old woman had 3 40 year guys! LOL
I mean the 30 year old mother who had the 40 year old children (Sorry)
There are probably so many of them I detested,but can’t remember them all.I never recorded the commercials when recording MST3K.I mean,what’s the point?? I don’t like filler when watching my favorite cow town puppet show.
Wilson’s Leather during Turkey Day ’93
Wiiiiiillsooonnn’s Hoooooolliday Saaaaaaaaaaale!
I have to do this by memory, since I deleted almost all the commercials on my VHS tapes of MST3K. Makes repeat viewing much easier….
Any of those Comedy Central ads with Penn Jillette was cause to hit the MUTE button on my remote.
I seem to remember the guy advertising “free money” – you know, the guy with all of the question marks on his jacket – being around in the mid-to-late ’90’s, and always showing up during a commercial break somewhere. Yeah, he was an annoying little s**t.
I also remember those L. Ron Hubbard commercials, basically because they always featured something exploding, and the sound always being louder than the show itself. It would especially wake me up during late-night viewings. Probably a big reason why I never got into Scientology. ;-)
These days, any commercial from the SciFi Channel is painful to watch because it drives home how much better that network was than “SyFy” [sic]. On my home-recorded MSTs, I see promos for Kolchak, Star Trek, and movies that got an actual theatrical release, and it just breaks my heart to think how that’s all gone, replaced by wrestling and 75 shows where two douchebags yell at “ghosts” in nightvision.
Two come to mind. ONe is the Sheik commercial previously mentioned. The other was a car commercial with weirdos who had (badly) customized their (small) cars. “My car has wings, feathers, and a beak!”
I’m not sure what’s worse – the way John Edward takes advantage of people’s grief, or that SciFi saw an opportunity to get in on the profits. Not only were those ads irritating, but they could actually make you angry.
I also have always edited out commercials on EVERYTHING I recorded since my first VCR back in 1984. I have to say many of my edits are lousy and I may miss the first line or a big rainbow line dances across the screen. Needless to say, I regret cutting out commercials. :sad:
I do remember 1-800-COLLECT. :grin: