Best and Worst Commercials

Being stuck inside for the better part of the past 2 years due to COVID concerns, I’ve seen a lot of great commercials on the TV and on social media and I’ve seen my fair share of terrible ones.

Here is a brief list of some good ones and some terrible ones. It’s in no specific order, and I’ll try to explain why I like or detest them. If you have any to add, please do!

Like: Any commercial for Tide Cold. These commercials with Stone Cold Steve Austin, Ice-T, and a combination of laundry / cold / ice related players like Vanilla Ice, Mark Messier and Falcons QB Matty Ice, are absolutely hilarious! The most recent one with Gordon Ramsey which ends with Stone Cold yelling, “That guy needs to chill out!!” is so good! I get quiet for these commercials.

Like: Any Skip the Dishes commercial with Jon Hamm. Watching him promote the brand (which I use and love) while pretending to be a Canadian makes for very funny commercials.

Like: Uber Eats commercial with Elton John and Lil Nas X is hilarious! It took me a few times of watching it to catch all the little funny bits.

Dislike: KFC “Chicken Rich” commercials. The jingle doesn’t match the commercial, it’s terrible and it doesn’t make me want to eat KFC at all… It doesn’t make sense that fried chicken and chicken rich are a good combination, which is why it’s not. I had to pause it after grabbing the link.

Dislike: Intuit TurboTax Free “Dance Workout” commercial. It’s terrible. You know they say any publicity is good publicity? It’s not true. This commercial, which has a fitness instructor in short shorts saying “free” over and over again while leading a class doesn’t make you think of a tax product, but makes you wonder why Intuit would make another terrible commercial. I had to ask friends, and they all wondered why the commercial led you to believe that someone was going to come free from the instructors shorts, and nothing else. It’s super-cringy. Shame.

Dislike: The BMO commercial about the couple who are out for dinner and the menu is in German and the female comments that she stopped taking the German lessons because the free trial ended. The BMO guy who tells her that she’s paying now is fantastic! I think he’s great and I really enjoy him in the commercials. He’s really awesome as their spokesperson! But what gets me, is that when she finds out she’s still paying she says something in German, which sounds like she’s saying “fuck me!” I had to watch that commercial quite a few times before I realized it wasn’t what she was saying, but regardless… It’s in poor taste. The rest of the commercial is great, and I see they’ve added subtitles now, but still… UGH.

Like: There is a commercial that I’ve seen recently about a family who have a massive hole in their kitchen. I’m not yet sure what the commercial is about, but I like that as they’re staring in the hole, the female says something like, “my cat is in there” and then you hear “meow”, and a second later the male says something like, “and it has my keys”… I just find that last little commentary to be very clever and quite hilarious! I think it’s for one of those non-dairy coffee creamers…

Like: One last one while I remember is a commercial for I believe, Chevy Silverado, and it involves a cat named Walter. This cat loves the winter, and seeing the cat outside partaking in all winter activities is hilarious, especially the scene where a guy is buried in snow, and the cat starts to dig him out. The guys looks at the cat and says, that’s amazing, and the guy who owns the car and the cat says, yeah… that’s the 2022 Chevy Silverado, and he proceeds to discuss the car. Then the guy says, no, the cat! The cat owner says something like, what? you’ve never seen a cat before… It’s clever, it’s funny and it’s cute. Well done!

What’s on your list?

The Urban Daddy’s Post 1365: Olympics, Really?

As I mentioned in my most recent post, I have a love / hate relationship with the Olympics. I love that countries build structures for sports and housing for athletes and then turn those facilities into housing less advantaged, and training kids in these sports, but, I hate that the whole process around getting the games is corrupt. It makes me sad to see so much bribery and corruption rampant in the process of deciding where the games will be held, and that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) seem to place more presence on making money than on the best interests of the athletes and the populations of the host countries.

What really lost me, however was the cheating, and lack of sportsmanship in Olympic events. Doping from the Russians, Iran athletes refusing to engage with Israeli athletes and the addition of professional athletes really takes the games away from their original intention and into just a money-making spectacle.

It’s become a joke, and for that, I feel horrible for the athletes!

Athletes train and compete for an opportunity to be recognized as one of the best in their field in the Olympics where the best of the best are supposed to be competing. It seems in some cases, its become a case of which country can dope the best, or cheat, or whose judges can do a favour for another country.

The Olympics have lost their integrity.

One way they could strive to get them back is to make a fundamental shift in the way they do things. Out with the old and corrupt and in with the new. There are rules, so use them. If you cheat, you’re out. Entire country. Out. No Olympics for you. No accidental drinking from my grandfathers drink after he took his angina medication, no accidental taking of horse hormones, none of that.

And the IOC needs to look at games which will help countries and where countries will help their people. How about a location which could use the economic support, and making the games into an opportunity for the global community to go to that country over the 8-year period of when they’re announced as hosts, and help build and create and develop. Make the games for everyone and not just for the benefit of the IOC and their pockets.

Cheating, doping, lack of fair play and you’re out. It’s time to make this change to the Olympics before the Olympics are gone for good. You owe it to the athletes!

I also think it’s time to look at some of the events in past Olympics and yes, I’m likely showing my age here, but how about a discussion about the sports that are being awarded medals:

1. Skateboarding as an Olympic sport? Medals being awarded for riding a skateboard down a railing? What’s next? Scootering? That’s really popular with the kids these days… What about Unicycle? Pogostick? Have you ever tried a pogostick? They’re hard!
2. What’s up with race-walking? and golf? Why aren’t billiards there? Or darts? Croquet? Lawn bowling, or bowling? Bocce??? I think a look into the sports being included in the games and awarded medals is always a good thing.
3. Have we not progressed enough as human beings that we can watch beach volleyball and don’t need the women in skimpy bottoms and a bra top? I mean, the men wear tank tops and baggy shorts that go to their knees… What’s up with that?!? It’s 2022.
4. I saw in the speed skating a skater push forward a pylon and it tripped a skater, causing them to crash and be eliminated. If I saw it, didn’t any of the judges? Even after the fact when it was being replayed over and over again. The IOC was very silent on this.
5. I like watching figure skating, go figure, but this judged sport has it’s share of controversy, ranging from bad judging to doping and it’s become something that either needs to be robot scored (so a set of criteria completed get a score, and no “artistic impression”) or it needs to be removed from the games. It’s become a big source of frustration and a bit of a joke and that’s not fair to the athletes. Not fair at all.

All in all, I want to enjoy and watch the Olympics, but I cannot. I’m upset before the games begin at the location of the games, and the cheating and corruption make me sicker. Then a Canadian athlete wins, or beats their personal best, or just competes and my eyes well up with tears, and want to give them the keys to the country for representing us so well.

Please IOC… Fix the damn games, eh!