Some Words About Goofy TV Commercials

Hanes has a sock commercial that is just the most unbelievable spot ever concocted in the history of commercials. It shows a man dipping his son’s feet in what looks like plaster. He is apparently trying to make some kind of covering so he won’t have to buy socks for his son. Who can identify with that? Nobody. It’s just weird.

Some spots just don’t make sense like the ones for a rug cleaning company called Stanley Steemer (that’s the company’s spelling, not mine). They leave you trying to figure out what’s going on.

The absolute worst spot on TV is one for a toilet paper. A line states, “It’s time to talk about what really goes on in the bathroom.”

Why do adults in a Subway commercial speak in helium voice?

A Chili’s commercial shows adults coming out of a building into bright sunshine and asking, “What is that?” A man replies, “It’s the sun.” Duh.

What is Tums trying to demonstrate with people getting slapped in the face by the food they’re trying to eat? Never have seen that in real life. The ugliest in this series is the guy tying to eat a corn dog.

When a local car commercial comes on, I switch channels or turn down the volume. I’ve never bought anything from someone yelling at me.

Odessa is not Music City, but has a shopping center called Music City Mall.

Academy has a spot showing ex-Dallas Cowboy Emmet Smith pushing a shopping cart with race driver Danica Patrick pushing another cart right beside him. Are they a couple? Looks like Academy could have done two separate spots using Emmet for one, Danica for the other. Commercials, like news stories, should never create questions.

I think some of today’s incorrect English spoken by half the college population is all over commercials. Count how many times someone ends a sentence with I instead of me or starts a sentence with me instead of I. How many times is there no subject and verb agreement? The biggest mistake in commercials is the misuse of the word their. The so and so store is having their sale. Wrong. Store is singular and requires the singular pronoun its (no apostrophe, please).

The best commercial I’ve ever seen is the 1984 Super Bowl ad when Apple introduced Macintosh. The commercial shows hordes of people in a zombie state shuffling along while watching a big screen showing a dictator speaking to the masses. All of a sudden a girl who looks like she works at Hooters comes running down the aisle and flings a sledgehammer at the screen. Until she arrived, everything was in a dull gray. She came in with color. The commercial had a late night airing in Idaho to get it entered in awards competition, then was aired only one other time during the super bowl game. Apple paid for it just twice, but it has been shown millions of times to demonstrate what a commercial can do.