Top Seven Worst TV Commercials

Stephanie Courtney as Progressive Insurance’s Flo, image via Wikipedia

The venerable TV commercial has been a bane on society ever since the advent of serious television programming in the late 1940s. Here are seven commercials of recent vintage that are sure to irritate and infuriate the masses, much like a pair of sharpened fingernails raked across a virgin chalkboard.

GEICO: The Easy Cavemen Cometh 

The Government Employees Insurance Company (GEICO) has been around since 1936, though it seems much, much longer. GEICO has saturated the airwaves with its moronic commercials for car insurance, using a three-prong approach. We have sassy Martin the gecko with the Brit or Australian accent, the pair of spyglasses sitting atop a wad of money and the small herd of cavemen trying their darndest to make the leap into modern society.

“So easy a caveman can do it,” is GEICO’s catchphrase. We also have their omnipresent theme song, a remix of “Somebody’s Watching Me,” which no doubt plays incessantly through the heads of millions of people who are now irreparably infested with GEICO earworms.  

GEICO commercials are worse that the bubonic plague – at least there’s a cure for the latter.   

E*Trade: Baby Talk Gone Wild 

Founded in 1991, E*Trade is a financial services company based in New York City, though it could easily be Kindergarten USA.  Their hope is to attract new customers through the use of TV commercials featuring know-it-all infants with an attitude. One “baby” is apparently the top dog, lecturing the others in an adult voice on the merits of on-line trading with E*Trade.

Beg your pardon, but isn’t this child abuse?

Allstate: Watch Those Good Hands, Mister! 

The deep, booming voice of actor Dennis Haysbert of TV’s The Unit provides the incessant pitch for Allstate, the big insurance conglomerate that has been giving people the glad hand (or maybe the finger?) since 1931. Also employed in their commercials is Neil Sedaka’s old 1962 #1 ditty, “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do,” which is apparently designed to reel in the aging bobby sox and malt shop crowd.

If Haysbert is getting paid every time he mindlessly mouths the slogans, “Are you in good hands?” and “That’s Allstate’s stand,” then he must be a rich man indeed. And who does Haysbert insure his fleet of cars with bought by all that Allstate premium cash. State Farm, maybe?

Progressive: When Flo Ain’t No Mo’

Progressive has been floating around the insurance biz since 1937. (You ever notice that many of these insurance companies were hatched during the Great Depression?) Their spokesperson is a bubbly, irritating, dark-haired trollop named “Flo,” who looks as if she just escaped from some greasy diner of the 1950s.  

Flo is a real pistol, flirting and making wisecracks as she mercilessly hawks auto and motorcycle insurance in a sterile enclave apparently scrubbed down with gallons of Spic ’n Span and Lysol. The people buying Progressive insurance don’t look any smarter than old Flo, succumbing to her charms and her spiffy “I Love Insurance” button as she literally sells them the store.

For those who care, actress Stephanie Courtney plays Flo. No doubt she picked up much of her flirtatious advertising acumen playing Marge on AMC’s Mad Men. But for chrissakes, honey, give it a break already!

Cialis: Bathtub Gin and 36-Hour Sex 

There was a time when E.D. – that’s erectile dysfunction to the uninformed – was not spoken of in polite circles. Ah, those were the days! But thanks to an avalanche of “talk-to-your-doctor” drug commercials from Big Pharma, the dreaded “E.D.” has taken front and center stage in the medical-pharmaceutical complex sweepstakes.

Cialis features one couple whose last sexual encounter appears to have been sometime during the Carter Administration. Another Cialis entry exploits a mandatory oldie, “Be My Baby” by the Ronettes, first released in 1963 and co-written by convicted murderer Phil Spector.

If Cialis is so effective in treating E.D., then why the hell is one couple lounging around in separate bathtubs? Shouldn’t they be in the same bathtub, especially when Cialis finally kicks in during its alleged 36-hour window of opportunity?

And remember all you Cialis romeos out there: Men experiencing an erection lasting longer than four hours should seek immediate medical attention. Yeah? How about four years? It was called high school and no one needed any damn pills…

AT&T: Minute Maid Mother Always Knows Best

The setting: perennially crabby woman bitches at husband and two sons for not using their Family Talk rollover minutes. In the yard sale version, she castigates one of her sons for trying to sell the minutes. “Antiques, they’re rollover minutes!” she snarls at the poor kid. In another, “Grumpy” stares down her sons from the front seat of a car while her henpecked husband dutifully drives.  

Again, for those who care, the bitchy AT&T mom is played by actress Geneva Carr. Here’s one new version that is being considered by our good friends at AT&T: Fed-up husband and pissed-off sons stuff bitchy mom and her precious rollover minutes into Cialis bathtub and push it off a cliff every 36 hours.

Can your hear us now, Mom?

Free Credit Report.com:  Free What?

If you’re currently singing the jingle from this silly commercial (”Free credit report.com/Tell your friends, tell your dad, tell your mom!”), cease immediately before you hurt yourself. There are some nine different versions of this inane commercial – Restaurant, Dream Girl, New Car, Rock Star, Bicycle, Renaissance Fair, Roller Coaster, Cell Phone, Reno – all of which star the same doofus who doesn’t even do his own singing.

It’s bad enough that our society now revolves around one silly number – the old FICO score – but do we really need to be reminded of that festering little wound with an entire series of marathon commercials?

It’s 10 PM, do you know where your credit score is? If not, better talk to your doctor…