Full Throttle – 2006 – Let Your Man Out

Okay, we were about to pass judgment on this as being stupid, long, loud, and pointless. Plus it’s for an energy drink, which kind of matches that description too.

But there’s something about this ridiculous ad that just grows on you, like a super-long hair growing out of that mole on your shoulder that you can’t bring yourself to pluck. You just want to see how far it can go!

So yeah, this commercial should have been about fourteen minutes longer and ended up with the complete destruction of the Earth.

Subway – 2005 – I Need You Now

What exactly is the implication here? Did they do something unspeakable with the sandwiches, or even… to the sandwiches? Can’t a couple of totally baked twenty-somethings eat a hot steaming sandwich in peace without being hassled by The Man?

Emerald Nuts – 2005 – Exaggerating Dad

So we kind of liked this one to start off with, but then the more we think about it the more awful the feeling we get in the pit of our stomach. It’s kind of funny, we guess? But then it just seems like the Dad is borderline verbally abusive, especially when you see the look of fear and apprehension on the face of the daughter when she finally gets up the courage to ask for some nuts.

Then again we really love nuts too, so…

Mastercard – 2006 – MacGyver

Richard Dean Anderson reprises his star-marking role, but not his mullet, in this hilarious Mastercard ad from 2006.

This was probably almost the last year they could have done this and still count on having an audience that mostly knew who the hell he was.

Does anyone now know what this commercial is referring too anymore? Anyone?

Ameriquest – 2006 – Cat

Ameriquest uses a hilarious sequence of events, ending in an apparent cat homicide, to tell us “don’t judge too quickly… we won’t”. What exactly won’t Ameriquest judge, we’re wondering?

Good commercial, strange tagline.

Bud Light – 2006 – Hidden Bud Light

Bud Light promotes drinking in the office. If you replace the people in this spot with the CareerBuilder monkeys, you wouldn’t even know this was a commercial for beer.

We like to picture the Bud Light ad team just throwing ideas onto a white board and then wondering which ones to actually shoot for the big game. Then someone, no doubt a Bud Light in hand, gets the bright idea to just make them all.

Budweiser – 2006 – American Dream

Wow, this one is just, wow. Give us a minute.

This has to be one of Budweiser’s all time best commercials ever. Besides being a beautiful, heartwarming story told in sixty seconds, it’s an example of the reason why Budweiser is one of the top-selling beers in America. Say what you will about the quality of the draft itself, their marketing department understands that rather than just selling beer, they are selling an image.

Van Heusen – 2007 – A Man’s Walk

Ads like this are giving the 2007 Super Bowl commercial season a bum rap. The folks at Van Heusen, in their Super Bowl ad premiere, seem to have totally misunderstood their audience.

If it’s not funny, sexy, or GoDaddy, then it has no place in the Super Bowl broadcast.

SalesGenie – 2007 – Work Smart

Wow, this commercial is so utterly terrible that we wish it was five minutes longer. It’s wonderfully ironic how a commercial for a product intended to help your sales efforts can be so tremendously bad.

Can anyone come up with a few more synonyms for “awful”? We’re running out and may need more to describe a few of the remaining 2007 ads.

Foot Locker – 2007 – Autograph

Some basketball dude signs one guy’s shoe and another guy’s face. We think the joke is supposed to be that the Shoe Guy values his shoe more than the autograph, and… yeah, we agree with that prioritization.

We’d be pretty pissed if some tall guy just strolled over and started signing our clothes, too.

HP – 2007 – Orange County Choppers

So someone thought it would be a brilliant idea to let the guys from Orange County Choppers explain what they use their HP computers for. We’re sure that there are some people out there that find this information useful, we just don’t know who that would be.

For a Super Bowl commercial and the millions they paid for the thirty-second slot, HP should have done better.

Bud Light – 2007 – Slap

This commercial is awe-inspiring in its pure unadulterated awesomeness. Nothing fancy, no frills, not even the charade of a tenuous connection to the product being advertised. Just thirty seconds of slapping.