The worst commercials of all time
Okay, the actual worst TV commercial of all time was the Just for Feet Super Bowl ad from 1999, which was obscenely racist and such a disaster that it led to a lawsuit and the eventual bankruptcy of the company.
(No, seriously, it was horrific and I’m blown away it even existed. Watch it if you want, but that’s the last of it being mentioned in this space.)
This isn’t about that sort of stuff. Racism pops up in commercials all the time, and it sucks, and those sorts of ads are the actual worst ones. But those are also very depressing to make jokes about.
So today, I’m breaking down the worst ads of all-time, non-offensive edition. These ads were outwardly evil or anything, just mind-numbingly stupid. I’ve picked out the four worst and will break down their problems below. And then there will be a Twitter poll! That’s engagement!
Larry and DiGiorno Pizza
The carpets were just cleaned, and Larry tracks mud all over the house, for reasons.
He and his buddies then ignore that mud to eat pizza and watch football.
When his wife comes home and fusses at him, he blames it on the pizza guy.
Why would that matter??? Why would the pizza guy have been in the house? Why would the pizza guy tracking mud into the house somehow absolve Larry of responsibility for cleaning it and lump that responsibility onto his wife’s shoulders?
His wife does not notice that Larry (and/or one or more of his friends) has tragically muddy shoes, and that the muddy footprints lead directly to where the guys are sitting?
When she falls for it, Larry laughs uproariously at his wife, who (a) he claims to love, and (b) is still very much within earshot?
And with all that, Larry is so stupid that he can’t even hide the box?
Everybody involved is painfully stupid, and Larry at the very least is a crap husband. And also, I know it’s DiGiorno’s thing and all, but no one in the history of ever has seen a DiGiorno pizza and been like “Oh, yeah, that was definitely delivery.” It’s not a thing, no matter how many ads you air to that effect.
SafeAuto and autocorrect
Mom sends literally four texts to say “Hey, chili,” including hashtagging mom. I know there are desperate-to-be-hip moms out there, but come the eff on, lady.
Accidentally autocorrected “sec” to “sex” is a totally understandable error. The first time, I can see that happening easily. Even the second time! You think you’ve convinced the phone, and it changes it at the last second. The third time? Especially considering this is apparently a traumatic thing to text your mother? Gregory, you’re a dumbass.
Gregory’s out on the college quad (I think?) just anguishedly screaming out “sex!”, which those of us watching the ads understand, but man, his fellow college kids have to have some questions. No wonder that blonde girl took off. She’s the best person in this ad.
Hey look, mom hashtags again. Cut that shit out, mom.
Also, take a look around mom’s kitchen. There’s one pot on the stove. The burner’s on, but there’s no steam. There’s a put on a trivet on the counter as well. You can see no food in either pot. There is one whole tomato behind mom. There is very little else noticeable in that kitchen. What I’m saying is, ain’t no way in hell mom is making chili. Gregory’s gonna come home to some microwaved Skyline or some nonsense.
Mom got a text that said “Leaving in a sex” and can’t figure out what Gregory was going for? Again, mom, you’re a moron.
And for that matter, why is Gregory freaking out? And, “Where did you learn that word?” What the hell kind of upbringing did Gregory have that he’s not only not supposed to accidentally say the word “sex” to his mom, but he’s not even supposed to know the word? You’re an awful mom, mom.
Gregory apologized. So, funny story. Years ago, I was at this girl’s house for some fun. And just as that was about to start, my mom called. She and my dad were coming home from dinner with some friends of hers. I have no memory of what she wanted to talk about, but whatever, I can wait five minutes, I’ll talk to my mom. Only in true stereotypical mom fashion, mom started rambling about nothing. Again, the girl was right there. The moment was dying. I let mom go for a minute before finally saying “Mom, I gotta go, I’m about to have sex.” Maybe uncouth, but effective. So spare me with apologizing to your mom for merely using the word, Gregory. Grow up.
(Turns out I was on speakerphone when I did that. The woman who they were out with usually hosts our Thanksgiving dinners. I’m friends with her and her daughters on Facebook. What I’m saying is, I hear about that phone call a lot.)
And after all that, all that stupidity, I could have forgiven Safe Auto for the advertisement with just one little save. “SafeAutocorrect” is right there. Sure, that was an unsafe autocorrect, but portmanteau those words and you actually have something, guys. Instead, they jingle “Nice typo!” over the company name. You had a shot, guys, and you ruined it.
The Enterprise family reunion
So this woman can’t tell her family that she’s happy single or can’t find a boyfriend or whatever. Annoying, but whatever, that’s not that uncommon, I can buy the premise.
She lives in the area. She has no friends who can pretend to be her boyfriend for five minutes? A rental-car guy was her best bet?
I’ve used Enterprise! I had the rental car person come pick me up! I had literally no idea who was coming. Now, as it turned out, the person was an attractive young woman, so I suppose I could have pulled this ruse off as well had I been so inclined, but it would have just been luck. So did she commit to the bit, prepared to fake a relationship with whoever came, of whatever gender? Because I can support the open-mindedness of that, but I feel like that’d be a weird way to potentially come out to your family. Or did she request a man come pick her up? Because that’s … creepy.
This woman’s family is painfully invested in her love life, to the point that her mom is literally talking about her eggs drying up. And yet when Rob comes and very blatantly tries to introduce himself before figuring out the lie (and props to Rob for catching on and playing along), they don’t notice anything out of the ordinary?
Renting cars ain’t free. This woman is paying to rent a car strictly to get out of awkward conversations at a family reunion … which, since Rob wasn’t there at the start of the picnic, she didn’t get out of anyway. She still had to listen to all the annoying stuff.
So she knows she has a faux-paramour coming, whether she knows it’s Rob or just “generic person I’m gonna pretend to date.” And instead of telling her family at any point during the picnic, “Yeah, I’m seeing someone,” she just sits there and has the awkward conversations until Rob shows up? Why not say “Oh, I’m dating someone,” and when the family asks for details, go with, “They’ll be here later, you’ll get to meet them.” No one is going to question the pronouns, you’re covered if a woman arrives.
How did she get to the picnic? Did she walk there? Because that would imply she lives so close that this whole Rob thing is going to be an issue more than just that day. Or did she drive there and abandon her car just to rent this other car?
Listen, family reunions can be awkward, especially if the family itself is awkward. And there are only so many ways to say “We’re Enterprise and we’ll pick you up!” before you need to spice things up. But why not just make it simpler … “Oh, my friend’s here, that’s his car. I’ve gotta go.” You can duck out of the awkward conversations quickly without relying on a stranger to go full “Yes and…” to your family. There were much simpler ways.
Verizon Paella
This was early in the era of “phones getting smarter.” We knew we could make phones do clever things — send and receive texts and video messages. It was neat. But also, Verizon thought we’d be doing all of that while staying tethered to our home phone line. This was not that well thought out.
To wit: The Verizon Hub became available Feb. 1, 2009. It was discontinued … Sept. 29, 2009. (The iPhone debuted in 2007.) The Hub allowed texting and photo messages, but only to other Verizon phones, definitely an outdated notion even by then. You had to pay $35 a month to use it, and they still forced you to watch a video before using some of the features. This was just an abysmal product. (For the record, I didn’t have one; I’m getting most of this information from Wikipedia.)
Points to mom for using her fancy new phone to learn a new recipe. That’s actually a nice highlight of the feature, even if it ignored that she probably had to watch an advertisement first. And she sends the note to her family. Also a highlight of the feature. This part works well for the product, even if the product is stupid.
But then, her dimwit son sends back a video message that says “I don’t know what pa-ella is, but I’m not eating it. Ever.” Okay, so kids can be assholes. We know this. The correct answer to that is, “Get the hell home right now, Jimmy, and enjoy your damn paella.” Instead, mom goes a different route. She smiles, laughs just a little, and calls for pizza delivery.
I want a sequel to this commercial that features little dumb Jimmy getting home, seeing the pizza, and then being absolutely barred from eating it. “Oh, you want this, you little shit? Too bad, you’re eating paella. The pizza will go in the damn garbage before you are allowed to eat it. We’re paying $35 a month for a phone service that doesn’t do half as much as the cell phones that came out two years ago, so we have no problem wasting money. Eat your damn paella.” But we didn’t get that ad, we got this one. And this one sucks.
So which one was the worst? Watch the videos and vote in the poll!