The Remote Island : Commercials

Domino's Phallic Pasta Ad is Too Hot For TV [VIDEO]

Olivia Purnell — Tue, 05 May 2009 16:00:00 GMT

Domino's Pasta Dude commercial stars a penis-shaped piece of pasta rapping while thrusting his noodley hips repeatedly at a family of four and saying the phrase "Pasta Dude" (read: "Prostitute").

It's not really hot, so much as disturbing.

Dominos Pasta DUDE!

Honestly, without that hat, this would have just been a bad ad featuring rapping rotini with googley eyes. When you add that little blue beanie, suddenly there's a dancing circumcised penis air-humping to sell spaghetti to Tom, Dick, and Jane in middle America. Domino's: Tom, Dick, and Jane don't like rap. They also prefer their pasta sans penis.

(buzzfeed.com)

Previously:

"Baby Got Back" + Spongebob Squarepants = New Controversial Burger King Ad [VIDEO]

Is This Ad Offensive? [VIDEO]

Salma Hayek's First TV Commercial [VIDEO]

This Pizza Comercial Really Creeps Us Out

Zooey Deschanel Croons About Cotton [VIDEO]

Olivia Purnell — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 16:00:00 GMT

We're on the fence about Zooey Deschanel. Yes, she's a hip and cute actress/singer. But is she so hipster cute that she's utterly and unforgivably irritating (Sienna Miller, anyone?) or is Zooey just cute enough that she's magical? Do we like her voice (we're pretty sure it's soothing and lovely) or do we want to pull off our lobes as punishment to our ears for subjecting us to her warble?

Much like Zooey herself, we can't decide if we love or hate her foray into the world of Television. It's a cotton comercial.

Check it out and tell us: Isn't there something wierd about the way she pronounces fabric?

We don't love this Fabric of Our Lives Remix. In fact, we're a little irritated by it. Then again, most commercials featuring highly adorable dresses and cardigans irritate us these days. We want approximately 90% of the 47 outfits featured in that 32 second commercial. There is a recession going on, cotton executives! Put Zooey in cotton work wear. Maybe feature some kind of a breathable cotton janitorial ensemble or an unemployment smock.

(videogum.com)

Previously:

Is This Ad Offensive [VIDEO]

Salma Hayek's First TV Commercial [VIDEO]

Padma Lakshmi Does Improv Comedy, We Issue A Call To Arms

Salma Hayek's First TV Commercial [VIDEO]

Jake Kalish — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 13:30:00 GMT

The unbearably gorgeous Salma with ridiculous '80's hair and headband, in an ad for Burger Boy, a Mexican fast food chain.

Much love to BuzzFeed for the heads-up...

PREVIOUSLY:

Salma Hayek Honeymoons With "30 Rock"

Salma Hayek Breastfeeds Random Baby On "Nightline"

Hellooooo, Nurse!: Salma Hayek TONIGHT On "30 Rock"

Alec Baldwin Has Something To Say About Salma Hayek

Zillion TV: Cruelly Inevitable

Jake Kalish — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 21:15:00 GMT

Increasing numbers of viewers are watching TV not at its regularly scheduled time - DVR'd, Tivoed, On Demand, on the web, even by buying DVD's. Which is a bitch for advertisers. Of course, it was only a matter of time before ad men caught up to all this. Welcome Zillion TV. What's Zillion TV? Glad you asked...

The company, backed by several major Hollywood studios, is set to introduce Wednesday an ad-supported video-on-demand system in which commercials are tailored to viewers, who can't fast-forward through them. ZillionTV enables viewers to choose the categories of advertising that are most interesting to them, and commercials fitting the bill are inserted into TV shows and movies that are streamed via broadband onto TV screens. Content comes from Warner Bros., Sony Pictures, NBC Universal, 20th Century Fox Television and Disney, all of which are equity stakeholders in the new company. Forty other partners also supply content, and discussions are under way with Viacom and CBS. ZillionTV operates through a device it calls ZBar that it supplies for free. Users must, however, pay a one-time activation fee of up to $100, said CEO Mitch Berman, a TV industry veteran who helped found E!

See, you can't get away from the ads, as Jimmy Fallon's first broadcast made painfully clear. ("Lick It For Ten" product placement disguised as a sketch? "The Green Room, Sponsored By Bud Lime"?) But now the ads are going to cater to you. This Zillion TV, which will be coming in the fourth quarter and by years' end will have over 15,000 titles, sounds like some sort of wild futuristic marketing model:

Users maneuver through the ZillionTV interface with a motion-sensing remote similar to a Nintendo Wii controller. "The whole screen on your TV becomes interactive," Berman said. The remote has a "Buy Now" button so that advertised items can be purchased on the spot through a virtual store operated by Visa, the credit card company that also is a ZillionTV stakeholder. The system also features a rewards program: The more commercials watched, the more points earned.

It's officially over. Throwing away all the worldly possessions and moving to an ashram now. Tell someone to tell our mystic leader to tell us how The L Word ends.

Fly Me To The Moon: A McDonald's Ad Retrospective

Lindy Parker — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 21:00:00 GMT

Lately, we've been thinking back over the litany of McDonald's commercials that won their way into our hearts through constant repetition during our Saturday morning cartoons, and we've stumbled upon something that previously escaped our notice: Is McDonald's obsessed with the moon?

Mac Tonight! That's clever -- and sad that we're just now getting it. We weren't really on top of a pun when we were five or six in the same way we might be now. Here's another one from our childhood years in the UK...

Astro-naughty! Yay, puns! It's like the world is new this time around! Here's one designed to sell one of the grossest items to terrorize the McDonald's menu (not counting our complicated relationship with the McGriddle)...

We bet that thing tastes even worse once it's been freeze dried into a colorless wafer. Here's one we find confusing...

So many questions: Why is the astronaut the only one speaking English? Couldn't they have gotten an Israeli astronaut? Or at least dubbed the voice? Why are the coke and burger only floating during their close up?

Conclusion: The McDonald's corporation is helmed by werewolves. We're think we might be onto something here.

Today in Super Bowl Commercials: E*Trade Talking Baby Outtakes

Lindy Parker — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 16:00:00 GMT

Clearly the good people at E*trade are hard at work to bring us something that will keep us in our seats during Super Bowl commercial breaks as opposed to in the kitchen getting more chili or whatever.

Here's some of the things that didn't make the cut for this year's commercial...

The thing is, we find the talking babies as amusing as the next person, but our favorite E*trade Super Bowl commercial is still that one with the monkey garage band...

Nostradamus Never Said Nothin' About The Snuggie

Bryan Christian — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 16:35:00 GMT

OK, so hard as it was, we tore ourselves away from last night's Battlestar Galactica marathon -- OMG OMG OMG! -- and watched History Channel's Nostradamus: 2012, an exploration of the noted Middle Ages seer and his supposed predictions about worldwide catastrophe in four years, which normally we'd have a, maaaaybe, mild-to-medium interest in, but we've got a good friend who's CONVINCED that 2012 is, in fact, gonna be some hardcore shit, even though how hard can it be when this? So we watched.

And? Well, it was mostly a bunch of horseshit. It was sort of as if the History Channel had jammed a bunch of their other documentaries on the environment, astronomy, and (wha?) history, and slapped the number 2012 on it. Imagine An Inconvienent Truth with more historical re-enactments, obnoxious music, and a little rhyming and you sort of get the idea. Not very scary stuff, unless you scared by "experts" with funny facial hair and SNOOOOZE.

But there was one thing that did scare us senseless: The Snuggie! Have you seen this commercial? It's a CULT, we tell you! SOYLENT GREEN IS SNUGGIES!

What's next? "You wanna keep you feet warm but are tired of having to choose your own shoes. Why not leave the thinking to us?"

[Shudder]

Days of Christmas Product Placement: KFC Cares

Lindy Parker — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 20:00:00 GMT

In the spirit of the holidays, Kentucky Fried Chicken is donating a portion of its proceeds to the Singapore Association for the Deaf. We kind of love this commercial, and we feel like if you're going to be a billion dollar fast food empire, you might as well use your resources for a good cause. There's just one thing that perplexes us though, and it's right at the end...

Here's the full commercial...

We're sort of weirded out by that message at the end: "Money saved from the making of this commercial..." What does that mean? Does it mean it usually costs them an arm and a drumstick to produce those meticulously lit close-ups of chicken falling into a bucket, but people signing Jingle Bells is a real bargain? How curious.

Can Topless NSFW Women In Parachutes Sell Washing Machines?

Bryan Christian — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 16:41:00 GMT

'Cause if there's a store where we could buy one from, say, an army of half-naked, skydiving European beauties like the one in this commercial... well, we weren't in the market for a washing machine or anything, but, you know... give us a sec to get our check book?

Click through for the charming but definitely booby-packed and fully-NSFW full commercial -- after the jump.

Link:

[via Geekologie]

PREVIOUSLY:

More Hilary Duff: Virginity, Lap Dances and CNN

Jenna Jameson And William Shatner Are A Match Made In Television Heaven

Jennifer Aniston Gets Naked For GQ!

Please Stop Screaming, Window-Fix

Jake Kalish — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 18:24:00 GMT

Some of the greatest, most memorable times of any TV viewer's life are spent watching truly awful local commercials -- and there's a doozy out now in the New York area. Thank you, Window-Fix. Trust us, we wil never, ever forget to ask about your self-cleaning glass.

Wake Up And Smile: Will Ferrell Reminds Everyone How Great His Bush Is

Bryan Christian — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:26:00 GMT

PLUS: the make your own Muppet tool that isn't, which Lost star is showing up on Chuck, the guest stars that will get murdered on all those CBS crime shows this November sweeps -- and the Spike Jonze Gap ad that was too weird to be used. And BREAKING: William Shatner is even more of a jerk than we'd realized.

-- Is it cynical to think that Will Ferrell's return to SNL as George Bush had less to do with Jason Sudeikis (the current go-to Bush in the cast) being busy playing Todd Palin and more to do with that whole "bringing my Bush impression to Broadway in January" thing? Well... yeah. Also: who cares? Ferrell's the best Bush impersonator this nation's had -- the only one who's tapped into both the sublime idiocy and also the weird, pitiful self discipline of the man -- and we'll be happy to see it every chance we get between now and January. And then we'll never want to think of who's been running the country the last eight years as long as we Christing live.

-- OK, well, we should hvae seen this one coming. William Shatner was, in fact, invited to the wedding of George Takei. So all that weird angry moaning he's been doing? Hmm... if evil Bill Shatner has facial hair, does balding Bill Shatner signify a complete and total idiot?

-- Normally if there was a "Make Your Own Muppet" tool out there where you can design and order a personalized Muppet, we'd be yammering about it non-stop, showing you our various attempts at bio/felt-engineering and changing our bio pictures to ones made to look like us, blah blah blah, basically we'd drive you nuts about it. Well, good thing for you that the FAO Schwartz Muppet Whatnot Workshop is kind of underwhelming, limiting you to endless variations on the extras from Sesame Street and The Muppet Show that you barely remember and never allowing you to actually make one that looks like someone real, like yourself. Sure, you can do some bobblehead-type level characters, but we tried to make one of us and wound up with a more homuncular version of Don Music. We're, like, 85% sure that we don't like that.

-- Lost's late great Charlie, Dominic Monaghan, will play a remarkably similar character on Chuck: a rock star in the middle of a strange and deadly conspiracy. Monaghan says he took the role because he wanted to work with creator Josh Schwartz; our guess is he's hoping that having basically the same role will give him the same shot with Yvonne Strahovski that he had with Evangeline Lilly.

-- Now that it's handily won the premiere season, CBS has announced its plans for November sweeps. Guest appearances we'll keep an eye out for include The OC's Melinda Clarke returning as that goth-y kinkstress on CSI, Lucy Lawless dropping by CSI: Miami, and Eric Braeden from The Young and the Restless making an appearance on... what? Oh, like you never stay home and watch soaps sometimes?

-- And, because it's Friday, and we'd all like to do this sort off thing now and again, have a look at the funny and mildly unsettling ad that Spike Jonze directed for The Gap, wherein everyone in the world joins in and trashes an outlet of the monolithically powerful hoodie purveyor. That they ultimately rejected, by the way. We're kind of with The Gap on this one, actually. What do you guys think?

Video Fun: Johnny Rotten Flicks A Bloated, Buttery "V" To His Entire Punk Legacy

Bryan Christian — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 17:31:00 GMT

And just so we're clear, we don't mean "V" as in "Victory." Click through for the video.

We Admit It: We Kind Of Dug The Jerry Seinfeld / Bill Gates Windows Ads

Bryan Christian — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 15:29:00 GMT

Hey listen, we're not saying they were good ads. They were probably bad ads where Microsoft's bottom line was concerned, actually, but they were weird, and they had that pathetic guy from The Wire and Flight of the Conchords acting all "angry-dad-ish", which was kind of cool. Anyway, it's a moot point, because now Seinfeld's gone -- the campaign is moving in a new direction, and was supposedly always supposed to. The new direction of the campaign has nothing to do with the fact that most people hated them, guys, just move along.

So the plan was always to build a lot of hype and pay a shit-ton of cash for two OK-but-underwhelming ads, and then when they bomb act like they never happened? Ahhh... good luck with that rebranding effort, guys!

AdCrush: That Girl From The Twix Ad

Bryan Christian — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 16:31:00 GMT

Her name is Abigail Spencer, guys. Start Googling!

[via Goldenfiddle]

Cat Power Covers Bowie For Car Commercial

Bryan Christian — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 15:29:00 GMT

Not the first commercial Chan Marshall, in her newfound sobriety and ok-ness with her success, has done in the last couple years. Not even the first cover, in point of fact. But we kind of dig it. Thoughts?

Click through for the two other ads she's done: one for DeBeers and one for Cingular, which doesn't even exist anymore!

DeBeers

Cingular

Couldn't Get Rid Of Those Cavemen THAT Easy

Bryan Christian — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 17:36:00 GMT

You'd think that, as with actual evolution, once those Geico cavemen lost their tenuous fingerhold on their place in the line-up, they'd disappear forever. But no; sounds like they'll be coming back in ESPN ads next season. And that's a good idea because why? Well, 'cause ESPN and ABC are both owned by Disney, sez Jossip. And... what, exactly? How much did they pay for the rights for those guys that they gotta flog them every which way they can? Well, whatever; we eagerly await the big-budget Bruckheimer action trilogy and the commemorative chess set. Oh, also: argh.

See The Eva Mendes / Calvin Klein Ad Deemed "Too Hot For TV"

Bryan Christian — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 17:30:00 GMT

Here's what we don't get: this is a commercial for the new version of Obsession called "Secret Obsession" -- and yet, the commercial is so much less inscrutable than the old Obsession ads. Like, what's so secret? That Eva Mendes is hot? That Eva Mendes is really, really hot?

Hey, we got an idea...

"True Blood" Campaign Sucking All The Fun Out Of Viral Videos

Bryan Christian — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:30:00 GMT

We had been getting curious -- maybe even excited -- about True Blood, the Louisiana-set vampire drama from Alan Ball and HBO that premieres this fall. We're pining for something langorous and Gothic-y these days. Not sure why... Maybe it's the heat. Maybe it's that with the Emmys we were reminded of how much we miss Damages. Anyhow. Notice that we used the "past tense" there. Because we're starting to find the whole Tru Blood / Blood Copy / yada yada web and print campaign a little exhausting. Sure, we get that they've gotta establish that the vampires of True Blood live in a world where they can choose between drinking human blood and a synthetic blood replacement beverage, and what does that do to vampires and the world, etc., etc. That sounds great. What sounds crap, however, is the possibility that True Blood will swerve as wildly between the crass, crummy commercials and fake-news-clips in rotation on HBO and the stilted, over-written vids of this viral campaign. Click through for a few examples after the jump.

Japandering: Which U.S. Company Is Using Sex to Sell Meat Overseas?

Nicole Ankowski — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 14:27:00 GMT

Actually, with this restaurant chain, we use the term “meat” loosely. And with these commercials, we use the term “sex” loosely, as well…

The McGrand Tomato! When can I get one?! Yes, if you guessed McDonald’s, you’re Mc-fuckin’-accurate.

We love the slow, creepy reveal of the hamburger in each of these commercials, as if the models make it a practice to hide McGrand Tomato sandwiches in their armpits. They’re certainly not eating them…

[Angry Zen Master]

They Might Be Donuts

Ben Kallen — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 18:30:00 GMT

If you live in an area where the Dunkin' Donuts chain is ubiquitous, you may have noticed a certain familiar sound in their commercials over the past couple of years. But if you don't, you'll need to be let in on something sort of cool: One of our favorite bands ever, They Might Be Giants, has been recording super-brief rock jingles for them.

Even if you only know the quirky band as the guys who wrote "Birdhouse in Your Soul," the song Olive and Vivian sang on Pushing Daisies last year, you'll enjoy these odes to iced coffee a lot more than the average commercial ditty. (Though they are ads: Expect about 25 seconds of musical goodness before an annoying voiceover ruins the fun.)

You can find the whole list here, or just go straight to the latest two:

Also, from Pushing Daisies: