In the Annoying Commercials department… (a rant)

by Diane Duane

Sometimes when I’m working, the TV is running in the background to provide innocuous “white noise”. Not real white noise, mind you… just a something-going-on mutter that helps me think. Naturally, somewhere along the line, this will involve commercials as well as content.

There are a few of these lately that seem to be turning up a lot, and they’re really getting on my wick, to the point where I’ll change channels to avoid them. These (at the moment) primarily being:

THE CUSHELLE KOALA

This creature is part of the toilet paper company’s project to rebrand Charmin (who else remembers Mr. Whipple?) as Cushelle. Frankly, I preferred Mr. Whipple. (Bizarre as he was.)

The whole romancing-the-roll thing strikes me as faintly peculiar. It’s toilet paper. Get a life, Koala.

 

 

…And then there’s the Birds Eye frozen food commercial series of the last couple years, featuring an exceptionally creepy Muppet-style polar bear. It lives in people’s freezers and lectures them in a sinister tone on their cooking talents, the content of their fish sticks (“fish fingers”, to the UK/Irish audience) and other such topics. Lately it’s even escaped from the freezer and has started manifesting itself to people on vacation (at the next table in the restaurant), etc. Bad enough that the rude creature disses your cooking, but it has to stalk you too? Sheesh.

 
One of these is worse than the rest. An unfortunate woman with a fish on a plate opens the freezer and finds the Bear eyeing her with obvious disdain for her ability in the kitchen. “Cooking fish?” A pregnant pause. “Tricky.” And then goes on to sell her bake-it-in-a-bag fish.

Oh, really? Scale-it-rinse-it-pat-it-dry-oil-it-salt-and-pepper-it, run-it-under-the-grill-for-seven-to-ten-minutes tricky? THAT tricky? Gaaaaaah. Here comes a whole generation of cooks put off cooking by the Bear That Lives In The Freezer.

(Please note: I do occasionally use this product. But I started using it before I saw the damn bear. If I’d had no previous experience of it, I ‘d by now have made a conscious decision never to go near it because of the Bear commercials.)

Enough ranting. Here’s one of a series that has been making me laugh: the commercials for the online insurer MoreThan, featuring “MoreThan Freeman”.

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12 comments

Caplanjr April 25, 2011 - 2:01 pm

Do you have commercials for prescription drugs in the UK? These are not only insulting, they imply you should second-guess your physician. We should ALL be ranting about them!

Shakatany April 25, 2011 - 2:38 pm

What I dislike is when the ads go into great detail all the possible adverse effects of the drug including possibly dying! It’s enough to make one foreswear ever taking something. Besides I want my doctor to learn about these drugs from reputable sources and not me telling him about them. I can’t help wondering how many hypochondriacs are pestering their doctors for drugs they heard about (sometimes it’s hard to discern what the drugs are actually for).

Caplanjr April 25, 2011 - 2:01 pm

Do you have commercials for prescription drugs in the UK? These are not only insulting, they imply you should second-guess your physician. We should ALL be ranting about them!

Shakatany April 25, 2011 - 2:38 pm

What I dislike is when the ads go into great detail all the possible adverse effects of the drug including possibly dying! It’s enough to make one foreswear ever taking something. Besides I want my doctor to learn about these drugs from reputable sources and not me telling him about them. I can’t help wondering how many hypochondriacs are pestering their doctors for drugs they heard about (sometimes it’s hard to discern what the drugs are actually for).

Shakatany April 25, 2011 - 2:42 pm

Way back in the 70s or so there were a series of ads here in the States for a detergent called Wisk where someone would point out the guy has a dirty collar and as he glares at his poor wife the chorus sings “Ring around the collar.” The ads were so annoying that to this day I have made it a point to never buy Wisk.

Shakatany April 25, 2011 - 2:42 pm

Way back in the 70s or so there were a series of ads here in the States for a detergent called Wisk where someone would point out the guy has a dirty collar and as he glares at his poor wife the chorus sings “Ring around the collar.” The ads were so annoying that to this day I have made it a point to never buy Wisk.

Steve H April 25, 2011 - 5:24 pm

In the states we had the terrifying “Snuggle fabric softener bear” … but “Cushelle” has a completely different sound and reminds me of something else … http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kushiel … which is entirely not something I want to wipe with.

A side note to Caplanjr… YES I do want to second-guess my physician. I would have been given an entirely inappropriate and unsafe drug if I had not looked the stuff up, read the research on its effects and how it was tested (and that the test protocol was broken and people were dying from it) and advised him that I preferred not to use that particular drug because of family history that made me more likely for that side effect.

It’s a VERY GOOD thing that we are no longer forcibly subjected by laws preventing the advertising of new medications, to drugs which we know nothing about, that our physician prescribes only because a drug company salesman visited and dropped off samples.

P.F. Bruns April 25, 2011 - 7:59 pm

“Cushelle” reminds me of a sneeze, or of a stripper name.

Steve H April 25, 2011 - 5:24 pm

In the states we had the terrifying “Snuggle fabric softener bear” … but “Cushelle” has a completely different sound and reminds me of something else … http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kushiel … which is entirely not something I want to wipe with.

A side note to Caplanjr… YES I do want to second-guess my physician. I would have been given an entirely inappropriate and unsafe drug if I had not looked the stuff up, read the research on its effects and how it was tested (and that the test protocol was broken and people were dying from it) and advised him that I preferred not to use that particular drug because of family history that made me more likely for that side effect.

It’s a VERY GOOD thing that we are no longer forcibly subjected by laws preventing the advertising of new medications, to drugs which we know nothing about, that our physician prescribes only because a drug company salesman visited and dropped off samples.

P.F. Bruns April 25, 2011 - 7:59 pm

“Cushelle” reminds me of a sneeze, or of a stripper name.

cjmr April 25, 2011 - 8:04 pm

Okay, his voice was *supposed to* sound like he was pretending to be Morgan Freeman.

cjmr April 25, 2011 - 8:04 pm

Okay, his voice was *supposed to* sound like he was pretending to be Morgan Freeman.

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