When they knocked the tot out of my friend’s hand, I said nothing

Here’s another regional gem, this one from the Sonic fast food franchise. The commercial is pretty funny, a guy tries to eat a tater tot, and his friend smacks it away. Actually there is nothing funny about that, I get angry just thinking about it.

Sonic’s campaign comes off well, perhaps taking a clue from the low-budget “I’m Lovin’ It” McDonalds campaign and presenting the commercial with as little attention to production values as possible. Aside from just consisting of a few basic shots of two guys talking in their car, the quality of the video looks like radio-shack-bought camera quality. Maybe it’s supposed to look like a hidden camera. Maybe these are just two guys who don’t know they are being filmed. Oh man this is totally blowing my mind.

It all adds to the shtick of the spots, and is one of those strange examples of an awful commercial being very good.

(Oh there is more…)

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Somebody call Al Sharpton

Since the Checkers franchise is a regional chain, not everyone in America has the pleasure of knowing Rap Cat, the rappingest cat this side of the White Castle demilitarized zone line.

The “thing” about Checkers is that it has two drive thrus, so the current television campaign plays on this by imagining a beef between the left and right side drive thrus. The left side, with the white guy, always seems to beat the right side, with the black guy, which makes race-conscious middle America a little uneasy. And now the left side drive thru is co-opting the right side’s music with the corporate-shilling, no skills-having Rap Cat. Rap Cat was born sold out, people, just look at him, and listen to his over-produced rhymes that are in no way shape or form “phat”.

I do like this commercial, if just for it being so very stupid. The right side guy’s reaction to Rap Cat, as if to say, “somebody call Al Sharpton”, at least allows the commercial to par the hole.

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Wait a minute, male birds don’t lay eggs

Sometimes, ads are so bad you think surely they must be hoaxes, maybe the result of a practical joke gone too far at an ad agency. “Bill, I bet you a hundred dollars I could present the worst ad in the world to the client and they would accept it.”

But then sometimes an ad is so much worse than that you know it cannot be a hoax. It’s the result of serious planning and effort, but from someone who is very sick in the head but who still has the wherewithal to draft and execute a plan,  and you begin to be very afraid. You close your blinds, stay in bed for four days straight, and eat nothing but microwave chicken pot pies and gin.

Well, I mean that’s just what I do. Your personal experiences may vary.

The infamous Eagle Man commercials of the Minor Chicago Area have by now made their way around the YouTube, and you can read more than you ever wanted to know about them on their wikipedia entry.

This spot is one of those magic bullet commercials that do their job by being supremely awful. Everything about it is horrendous, from the voice of the commercial producer digitally slowed down to disguise his identity, to the strange and out of place reaction shot of the women to the hatching egg, and most especially in the disgusting birthing noise the egg makes as it comes out of the male bald eagle’s..

Wait a minute, where does an egg come out of a male bird? Oh. My. God.

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Taco Bell Talking LionsSuper Bowl XLI Commercial

This year there must have been some traveling CGI salesman who convinced all the advertisers that talking animals was going to be the “in” thing during the Super Bowl.

I already took a look at Bud Light’s talking gorillas. They are rejoined by several other enchanted animals, first up are the Taco Bell lions.

For a Taco Bell commercial, this is a little above average. For commercials in general, it’s below average. (But it’s Taco Bell, who cares.

The effects on the lions, similar to the CGI Bud Light gorillas, are a little more sophisticated than the little wiggling mouths that used to adorn all the special effects talking beasties. You have some better mouth / eye movements, and cohesive facial reactions. Despite all this the lions, like the gorillas, come off soulless and fake. I agree with Gore Verbinski, director of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, who preaches that “CGI” is not a verb. Computer graphics isn’t a magic wand that will make a production look awesome, or replace the need for brick-and-mortar special effects.

Blockbuster Mouse ClickingSuper Bowl XLI Commercial

That said, I’d much rather see the entire animal stylized in CGI, as we see in this commercial for Blockbusters. Some hamsters or something are clicking on a mouse and torturing it to death. It might actually die off screen, I don’t know, I had the sound turned down.

This spot was much funnier and engaging to me than the gorillas or lions, and the animals aren’t presented as completely photo-realistic. The ability to completely control the characters and breathe life into them makes up for the “hey that’s a real lion talking” wow factor.

Comcast Talking TurtlesSuper Bowl XLI Commercial

Normally I’d advocate using puppetry over CGI wherever possible. Until I saw this stinker from the current Comcast campaign.

The talking turtles kind of look like petrified stool samples, and I found myself generally annoyed by this spot. Maybe by the time I saw it I was so fed up with talking animals this one just didn’t stand a chance.

I think they spent four dollars making these puppets. And part of their budget went into buying a three-dollar cup of Starbucks coffee. They must have made one puppet and split-screened it to save money. Anyway, whatever, I am so over the talking turtles. They are dead to me.

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#6: Chrysler / SunCom co-op

I’m not big on top 10 “whatever” lists, and didn’t plan on doing one for the worst commercials of 2006. Until I ran into a few lists that other publications had done. Namely, this list by Slate.com made me cock my head to the side like a confused dog and whimper out a confused grunt. Really Slate, do you really think these are the first ten worst commercials of the year? Or are they just the first ten commercials you found? In fact one of them (the Fudgems one) after viewing I decided must be one of the BEST of 2006. (I did agree with the article on at least one contender.)

(Oh there is more…)

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