Published: August 29, 2008 09:59 pm      

Here are the summer’s worst TV commercials

Hate to admit it, but one thing I did on vacation this summer was — watch television. Only at night, but still way too much television, especially counting the Olympics.

Consequently, I also got to see way too many commercials.

Let me share with you the ones I disliked most. I’d also like to talk about some I liked, but right now I can’t think of any.

First let me get Billy Mays out of my system. Billed in a recent Washington Post article as “the Elvis of TV ads,” this chap never stops selling and he never stops yelling. You used to see him mostly in infomercials at night, but lately he has come out in the daytime too, like some immune vampire. Actually, in the article, he sounds like a nice guy, normal too, and apparently able to talk in normal tones when off camera. Still, what is it with him? Being able to broadcast without a mike is a talent, no doubt, and probably comes in handy when the power goes out. Still, I’m glad he doesn’t live next door to me.

Once we get past him, there are eight other current commercials I wouldn’t mind if I never saw again. Or hadn’t seen in the first place.

No. 8 — For some reason, I can’t stand the “I’m an On-the-Go-Kind-Of-Woman” (she has “Meg” written all over her medicine), but I’m not sure why. When I figure it out, you’ll be the first to know.

No. 7 — The Mazda 10-car-dash commercial. This may be a personal thing because there really isn’t any inherent reason why I should be so annoyed by young guys doing somersaults on a lineup of ten new cars. I guess it’s supposed to be vaguely Olympic-related. Still, it’s aggravating. What’s the point anyway? I mean, it’s not as if you’d buy a car on the basis of which kind you can best turn cartwheels on the roof. I suppose I should be glad that it’s guys, decently dressed (with shoes on, yet) instead of half-naked girls playing, say, beach volleyball over the car-roofs. Nevertheless, I bet you any car salesman who came out to the lot and found chaps bounding about on top of brand new cars would call the police in a second.

No. 6 — The Caduet commercials. One reason this one gets to me is that it’s so long. I suppose it is a cute idea, or it was on paper, to have someone separate him/herself into two identical people, and then blend back into him/herself, both coming and going. (Strangely enough, no one else in the commercials seems to notice this happening right in front of them.) But it goes on forever, long after you get the point. After that it only makes you decide never to buy that product no matter how high your cholesterol goes. We get it! We get it! Now you get it, off the air.

No. 5 — The Plavix commercial, where the so-called family physician with the plummy voice boringly reads off the warnings that are usually on the back of the page in magazines, or in very fine print on the bottle label. And shouldn’t you wonder about a GP who asks you to “tell me if you’re going to have an operation?” I mean, he’s your family doctor, for heaven’s sake. If you’re going to have an operation, shouldn’t he be the first to know?

No. 4 — The Boniva commercials. Sally Field seems like a nice person, even if she has only one life to live, but that’s no excuse for boring us all silly. I’m sure she has a great family (“Here, let me hug you, kid, now scram quick so I can do the commercial that’s putting food on our table.”) but still, I just can’t quite figure out why taking one pill a week is so labor intensive, as compared to taking one pill a month, which is the main reason they give you for switching.

No. 3 — The Evista commercials, that mainly seem to showcase a number of middle-aged women hanging around dressed in white towels. You’d think they could squeeze a little more drama out of these folks, have them hold a meeting or do SOMETHING. Even varying their towel colors would help. Maybe they could do the handsprings on the cars.

No. 2 — The Lowe’s commercial, with the braggart father, boasting to his teenage son about how he outsmarted the hardware company. The poor kid sees for himself that the father is a jerk, and has even accepted it, which is sadder still. This commercial is supposed to make you smile. However, at the end, when you see him pulling the same stunt on his trusting little 4-year-old (or thereabouts), you feel more like weeping, which I don’t think is what the Lowe’s people intended.

No. 1 — The Cialis commercials which show pitiful folks sitting in separate bathtubs, plumbing-challenged, and in the middle of nowhere, looking out toward the ocean or the forest. Seems to me, if I may say so, the point of the commercial might be better served if there were only one bathtub. Decently shower-curtained, of course.

Right, then.

The good commercials? Haven’t seen a lot of them lately, although I came in on the tail end of one in which a horse and a dog were doing high fives, which looked promising. And it’s not a commercial, but the Puppy Games 2004, which Animal Planet put on opposite the Olympics, were even better than the Puppy Bowls, with better commentary.

Of course, I’m a pushover for animals. I’ve been faithfully watching “The Greatest American Dog,” and it seems to me the dogs always come out better than their humans. Not to mention some of the judges who have been arrogant from the start, and actually got into a nasty brawl with each other this last week.

So what were you doing while I was on vacation?

Maude McDaniel is a Cumberland free-lance writer. Her column appears in the Times-News on alternate Sundays.