It was a magical time before CGI stormtroopers and Red Bull

How can the Gap ever be cool again if they aren’t producing commercials like this anymore? What kids today need to see is Madonna and Missy Elliot bumping butts in order for them to think your clothing chain is ‘the bee’s knees’.

This spot has a mingling of clichéd tactics: the forced friendly co-mingling of two stars with very different fan bases, a catchy but annoying song reworked to be even more annoying, and so much dancing. It’s hard to believe the Gap was ever the king of television advertising. This spot is from earlier this decade, but looks like it was made in the 1980’s.

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All this computer hacking has made me thirsty

This ad for video game design training at Collins College used to make its rounds on the G4 network. The differences portrayed in the ad versus the realities of game design are so sharply different it should warrant a ‘complete dramatization’ title.

First of all, you program video games with a video game controller? No, that would be stupid. If it were that easy why would you have to pay to go to college to learn how to do it. Instead of sitting next to your BFF in armchairs playing with your joysticks, you’re probably in an office hip deep in code trying to track down a memory leak.

The commercial also seems to suggest there’s no AI for the movement of bad guys in video games, and events and sound effects are laid out like a movie. “Ok should this guy move left or right now? And then what sound effect plays as this is happening, for this one unique instance?” Maybe this might make some kind of sense if they were designing the video for a cut scene, but they clearly aren’t since one of the guys refers to the level of the game they are ‘programming’.

(Oh there is more…)

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One time I really did poop out bricks

This ad, found via the Consumerist, finds a classy way to talk about defecation on a construction site.

In case you didn’t notice, things in the background of this man talking are supposed to have overtones of pooping. Or maybe it’s just a really dangerous workplace environment.

I dislike the ‘things happening in the background’ commercials, espcially the ‘Raising the Bar’ spots Cingular puts out where things line up to look like cell phone signal bars. I don’t have any kind of aesthetic rationale, seeing those spots just make me want to choke a dog.

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She is always sexiest before the physical assault

Naomi Campbell was kind enough to poke fun of her perceived violent persona in this ad for Dunkin’ Donuts.

From Wikipedia: ‘In 2000, she pleaded guilty in a Toronto court to a 1998 assault on Georgina Galanis, her then assistant; Campbell had assaulted Galanis with a telephone in a hotel room and threatened to throw her out of a moving car.’

…March 2005, the model was said to have slapped assistant Amanda Brack and beaten her around the head with a BlackBerry hand-held personal organiser. The star’s spokesman Rob Shuter denied the incident ever took place.’

As someone who has also been beaten around the head with a BlackBerry device, I find this to be no laughing matter.

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Beef Hardslab, Crunch Smackfight, Burt Groinbig

Here’s a great promo for FX’s The X Show which is bound to be confusing if seen while drifting off to sleep in front of the TV.

I have nothing else to say about this so I’ll just list as many funny names as I can think of. Dirk Bigthrust. Knuckles Fightman. Curls Barbell. Wide Chokekill. Trip Headkick. Sprint Fencejump. Mitt Romney.

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