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Bud Light – 2002 – Cedric Plays Matchmaker

January 12, 2011 at 3:31 pm

Cedric the Entertainer tries to give a little Cyrano-style advice to a dude in a bar, but it all goes hilariously wrong because of a misunderstanding. It’s like every episode of Three’s Company condensed into a thirty-second beer commercial.

So whatever happened to Cedric the Entertainer? If he’s dead it make sense that we haven’t heard from him in a while, but if he’s not then it’s just weird. Not as weird as his name, though. It’s just plain strange to have a noun as part of your name, especially with a demonstrative adjective lurking before it, just waiting to cause trouble. It’s a lot to live up to: if you don’t entertain, you cannot be “the entertainer”, ergo your career is over.

So his name killed his career, or he’s dead.

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Bud Light – 2002 – Satin Sheets

January 12, 2011 at 1:47 am

This could be sort of a PSA about the dangers of satin sheets.

Seriously, that woman upstairs with a black teddy and red satin sheets, and this loser needs the Bud Light to get him up there? Hot chick needs to dump the schlub and find a real man, one that values her for who she is as a woman. Or at least one that places her value higher than Bud Light, maybe somewhere around, oh, at least a cold Fat Tire?

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Bud Light – 2002 – RoboBash

January 12, 2011 at 1:32 am

The BotBash (anybody remember that show?) guys reportedly helped produce this funny spot for Bud Light. It really brings back memories, for sure. Robot battles were definitely awesome, but we’re waiting for the day when they’ll robots fight people. What’s exciting about a robot smashing another robot?

Actually, maybe they should bring the robot battle shows back, but they’re secretly just people inside metal suits. They can hack and slash at each other until one of the “bots” loses a limb. Okay, that idea would only work, like, once. But it still be pretty cool to watch that one time, wouldn’t it?

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Subway – 2001 – 245 Pounds

January 12, 2011 at 1:23 am

In the years before Super Size Me, a lonely fat guy named Jared Fogle embarked on a journey of weight loss and personal discovery. This spot from 2001 shows all of the other wackos that tried his classic Subway Diet and achieved similar results. It’s easy to lose weight when all you eat is lettuce and bread.

We’re surprised Jared didn’t get his own television show. There would be Jared Fogle of course, weight loss champion and Subway foodie. He would have a girl interest that wasn’t into him, but he’d struggle to get her attention. A wacky neighbor of course — oh! The neighbor can work at Togo’s Subs and that would be a source of tension between them!

Now that we put it out there it will most likely come true, and for that we apologize.

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E-Trade – 2001 – Invest Wisely

January 11, 2011 at 1:50 am

Featuring what may be the greatest visual symbolism ever in a Super Bowl commercial, a chimpanzee riding a horse, this E-Trade spot encourages us to “invest wisely”.  We don’t think the ad will make much if any sense within a few years, since nobody will remember what that sock puppet is supposed to represent, but for its time it was a clever spot with a simple premise.

Oh, and did we mention that it has a chimp riding a horse?

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Volkswagen Jetta – 2001 – Big Day

January 11, 2011 at 1:33 am

If you haven’t seen this yet, then we really don’t want to spoil the experience of watching it for the first time. It’s a beautiful example of what a commercial can be, what they should all aspire to be, and of how you can tell a story and grip the audience’s attention without whoring out your brand or clubbing people over the head with marketing lingo. The fact that this is a car commercial actually makes it even more amazing somehow.

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Charmin – 2004 – Illegal Use Of Hands

January 8, 2011 at 12:41 pm

Riiiight, there’s something more than a little disturbing about this commercial. Football has a powerful enough latent homosexual vibe to it already without tossing in a QB that can’t keep his hands off the center’s “end zone”.

Should we be worried about our own latent tendencies if we’re bothered by this ad? You know on second thought, this is the gayest commercial we’ve ever seen and that’s just fine. There’s nothing wrong with that.

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Frito-Lay – 2004 – Fight To The Death

January 8, 2011 at 12:33 pm

Old people bring instant funny to almost any commercial, especially when they fall down. There’s just nothing funnier! Too bad in real life when old people fall down, they break bones and wind up in the hospital. It would be great if we could somehow get around that, so we could see more old people falling down and be allowed to have a good, hearty laugh over it.

As it is now I guess we’re expected to pretend to not find it funny and fuss over them and see if they’re okay, things like that. A shame really.

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Pepsi – 2004 – iTunes Giveaway

January 8, 2011 at 2:02 am

Some girl with a mild speech impediment talks about how the music industry prosecuted her because they couldn’t adapt their broken distribution model to changing technology, but now Apple did it for them so it’s all good now.

This is a digital society people, piracy is here to stay. Adapt your business plan to this fact or your business will slowly wither away. Apple may be turning into the new Microsoft but they at least pointed the music and movie industry down a road of digital freedom, where you assume the best of your customers rather than the worst.

That, and anyone stupid enough to get caught downloading music illegally deserves to get sued.

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H & R Block – 2004 – Willie Nelson Advice Doll

January 8, 2011 at 1:55 am

Call us crazy, but we think a Willie Nelson advice doll is exactly what this world needs right now. We know it looks like a joke, but somebody must have had one to get us into the financial mess we’re in right now. Maybe Willie we can send one to President Obama… it’s better than the magic 8-ball he’s been using, since the Willie Nelson doll seems to always agree with you!

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7-Up – 2004 – Slam Dunk

January 8, 2011 at 1:48 am

This commercial is so stupid that it’s funny. The proper application of slapstick comedy, that’s “people fall down go boom” for those of us without a classical education, is sometimes the best choice for making people laugh. Sometimes people don’t want to think, they just want to laugh at someone hurting themselves.

As funny as this is to watch, how hard must it have been to pitch? “So this guy chases the truck with a basketball, and he jumps, and he hits the back of the truck. Then this other guy runs out of his house and jumps, but misses the truck and crashes through a lemonade stand… Okay, I know. But trust me, it’ll work!”

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Pepsi – 2004 – Pepsi Bears

January 8, 2011 at 1:41 am

We’re wondering at the real message in this spot: are the bears really smart or is the store owner at the end incredibly stupid?

This commercial is pretty cute as it is for, like, what it is, which is something a high school video yearbook class may have shot if they had access to live bears. Pepsi seems like a good tool for bear population control more than anything: give all of the bears in the woods diabetes and they’ll be blind and legless within a decade.

Pepsi: destroying mother nature one habitat at a time.

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