It makes. Me want. To change. The channel...

One of the good bits that will always be in my brain is from "City Slickers". Billy Crystal's character is an ad exec for a radio station and he's in a bit of a funk. His boss calls him into the office and plays him an ad that Crystal has sold:

Crystal asks what is wrong with the ad and his boss says "It's terrible. It makes. Me want. To change. The channel."
I don't know if I'm just getting old and cranky or if there is more and more really, really bad advertising on the radio these days.

There's an ad running for a local housing community with a French name. So the initial ads had this broad with a really snooty, heavy French accent, going on and on about "ze wonderful shopping" and such. And the ad was long--like a full minute, I think. It would annoy me so much I would shut off the station when I'd hear it.

Well maybe I wasn't the only person it had this effect on, because they killed that ad...and replaced it with one where she's actually speaking French! So the ad comes on with this pretentious broad jabbering away: "Voulez boulebaisse, blah-de-bleu..." and another speaker translating what she's saying while she continues to yammer on in the background.

Or the latest...HD radio ad(?) (I can't be sure, because as soon as the ad starts I change the station, so I don't know what it is for for sure.) It has some guy droning on in a nasal monotone: "This-is-an-HD-radio-test. Blah-blah-blah-blah-blah..." There's a reason that radio announcers have pleasant voices. And running a radio ad with an announcer with an intentionally horrible voice isn't clever or innovative. It is annoying and stupid. It makes me not only resolved to NOT use your product, but to, should I ever meet anyone involved with HD radio, kick them in the balls like a mule.

There's a radio ad in my town that advertises a Mexican restaurant.
It entails Southerners trying to read the ad in Spanish, totally screwing up the pronounciation of even basic words most English speaking folk could say.. It's supposed to be funny (I guess) but enforces the stereotype of the dumb, ignorant, unworldly Southerner.

It's embarrasing as hell.

the last couple of weeks they've been running ads on the radio in Memphis for something called "Stamp Out Hunger" in which you are encouraged to set out canned foods for the mailman to pick up on a particular Saturday (How'd you like to be the cvarrier drafted into THAT job?)


Anyway, the speaker says "Just set out a sturdy bag of non-perishables like...so [slight clanking sound effect]. then your carrier will..."

So wait, he just SHOWED me what to do...on the radio?!!?!?!

Yes, I donated food that day. I never even heard about it until my wife told me.

One of the reporters I work with a lot was born and raised in Missouri and, until he came to work here more than five years ago, spent more than a decade in Montgomery, AL.

I love when he has to pronounce hispanic names in a story.

I like to fill in blanks with violence.

Fatal violence.


"This Tuesday . . . One Man will have The Experience Of A Lifetime . . ."

"KILLING YOU!"


or


"Blah blah blah Gives You What You Want Most out of a once-daily women's water-based pseudo-organic NAFTA-approved pastrami-flavored multivitamin:"

"YOUR DEATH!!"



Violence may not solve everything, but it tends to be effective with idiotic commercials.

I hate those stupid natural male enhancement ads that come on at midnight. It makes me want to change the channel QUICK!

When I used to watch television, I would pay special attention to the commercials so that I could better understand that time slots target audience. Of course, when watching G4, I already knew the target audience, but the advertisements confirmed it hilariously.

Oh, yeah. Except they come on all the time around here for some reason. Particularly when my daughter and I are watching something.

Bock: yep! Exactly! Also those Sonic commercials make me want to bash my head on a rock! And of course there's those annoying kotex commercials that are on TV all the time. The things that people can get away with these days.

Sonic commercials (the ones with two people in a car) actually don't bother me. Probably because they're low-key and don't seem to have any illusions about the fact.

Another would be those idiotic "Geiko" commercials. I just want to shoot that computer- generized lizard bastard!