I must start off by apologising for a pretty slow month here on TVs Worst Adverts. What with it being the “season to be jolly” I’ve found it hard to get very angry at TV adverts and on top of that Windows is trying to uninstall itself one file at a time from my computer.
Anyway, enough excuses, even without many new entries other people have still been angry enough to vote for old adverts and even submit some new ones (that I will be getting round to in the New Year). So thanks very much to everyone who did submit an advert.
And I just want to say thanks to everyone who has participated on TVs Worst Adverts this year. All of the comments, all the submissions and all of the messages. Thanks, I’ve been amazed by the response that this blog has received and I’m genuinely very grateful.
Splitting his days between drinking various different coloured cups of Kenco coffee and bullying the poor, ginger-haired Kenco Gap Year Student.
Yes, the Kenco Gap Year Student is currently filling the Frank Spencer shaped void on the TV. He’s an idiot who’s travelling the World looking for a village to settle down in. A boy so completely lacking in wit that he simply refuses to learn a damned thing about the high quality arabica coffee beans used by Kenco despite Mr Makousa telling him “a damned well thousand times, you idiot!”.
Which brings us to Mr Makousa.
Ah, Mr Makousa, why are you such a smug, self satisfied, sanctimonious bastard? What’s that? Much like the author of this blog, you say? The cheek!
When not sipping one of Kenco’s many fine cups of coffee or sorting out another bloody mess that cloth-eared Gap Year Student has created, he’s thinking up abysmal pun-based put-downs aimed at the Gap Year Student.
“Remind me again, who are you?”
“I’m your Gap Year Student, Mr Makousa”
“More like a gap between the ears!”
Ouch, Mr Makousa, you are a card!
But I find these adverts a little disturbing.
On top of the obvious bullying of the mentally retarded, I think there is something more sinister going on in this advert.
Kenco are certainly trying to depict Mr Makousa as “black plantation owner in Africa” for there is an African music sound track. But is this Kenco trying to make us think that all of their coffee is *Fair Trade* because the plantations they get their beans from are all run by *locals*?
If so, it’s a sham.
Because the plantation isn’t in Africa, it’s in Costa Rico (or at least it is in one of the adverts).
And, hark! What is that I can hear over the dulcet tones of the Africa choir? It’s Mr Makouza’s Home Counties’ accent (OK, it was originally North East but it’s definitely more Home Counties now).
I can’t help but feel that this advert plays on our inherent “it’s a black fella he must be African” racism, mixes it up with a little stunning foreign scenery then rams it home with some Ladysmith Black Mombassa to trick us into thinking their coffee is something that it might not necessarily be.
And all of the time they’re doing this they’re cleverly distracting up with some good old fashioned belly laughs at the decrepit.
Which is strange because I come from a family of mechanics and grew up obsessed with cars and motor racing.
But Top Gear has so very little to do with cars now-a-days. In fact it’s as close to motoring journalism as the porno version of Animal Farm is to an animal husbandry documentary.
No. For me, Top Gear now falls into the category “wankertainmentâ€. Made for wankers by wankers. You have to be a wanker to find it entertaining and if you find it entertaining you are, ergo, a wanker (FYI: Other shows in this category are Soccer AM and anything with Vernon Kaye).
It takes the 70’s stereotype of a car being an extension of a man’s penis and has it surgically extended then chews on a barrel of Viagra.
If making a great car is like making great art then Top Gear’s approach to this art is akin standing in front of the Venus de Milo and shouting at the top of your voice “NICE TITS†across the Louvre.
God, I hate Top Gear.
Oh and don’t get me started on Clarkson.
The tight jeans. The sports jacket. The Rolly from Eastenders with a mullet hair cut. He managed to position himself as possibly the most uncool man on the face of the Earth then had the bare faced cheek to preside over “The Cool Wall” which involved the use of the butt clenchingly uncool phrase “Sub-zero”.
Christ almighty! He makes Ian Hislop seem like the Fonz!
Although, much like Ann Widdecombe, I have a grudging respect for Clarkson’s style of speaking his mind, unlike Widdecombe however, I don’t agree with a single word he says.
Much of his most controversial comments I suspect are deliberately antagonistic and I’d even go as far to say that in private he might be quite a reasonable bloke.
But I’m sure that I wasn’t alone when I heard that a presenter of Top Gear had had an high-speed accident when I thought “Please let it be Clarksonâ€. Not that I wish him to die or even to be seriously injured but there would be a sweet irony considering the content of his show.
But as we all now know it wasn’t Clarkson, it was Hammond.
Hammond seems like a perfectly affable if not lowest common denominator presenter. And despite jokes made at his expense about being left brain damaged after his high-speed crash, he still has the sense to cash in on the affection the public seem to have for him.
His latest venture is a DVD game that lets you have all the fun of watching Top Gear in a wankertaining DVD format.
A down beat Richard (as if he’s just realised how cheap and dirty his career has become) tells us that:
“You don’t have to be a petrol head to play.”
No Richard, maybe you don’t. But you do have to be a wanker.
Filmed in an empty studio with sets hand drawn by a blind paraplegic. Badly scripted, badly acted, and badly filmed.
They were the rubbish advert barometer. But no more.
The advert for the gadgethelpline.com takes TV advertising to a new low in terms of quality.
Note from Silky: Sadly the advert is no longer available on the Tube, so here’s the opening credits to the Inspector Gadget cartoon instead:
Some speak of this being a work of genius and it’s amateurish production values does give it a certain charm but come on.
In fact it’s so cheap that I get the feeling that it might have been filmed in the basement of a house in Aurora. Which can only mean that in the next instalment we should expect a lot of “extreme close ups”.
Pausing briefly inside the door, Bond lit his 60th cigarette of the day and made his way across the unnervingly sticky carpet to the bar.
“Alright, love?” The bar maid asked Bond as he approached.
“Vodka Martini. Shaken not stirred”. Bond asked barely acknowledging the leopard skin clad temptress behind the bar.
“You what, duck? We only do pints and alchopops.”
“Oh.” Bond surveyed the glass fronted chiller behind the bar. “WKD. Blue. No straw.”
As the overpowering sweetness of Bond’s drink hit the back of his throat his mind suddenly became focused again on his job.
“I want to see the Ambassador.” He snapped at the bar maid.
“What?”
“I want to see Ambassador. The man in charge.” His voice now had a steely edge.
“Oh! You mean Terry, the Manager”.
Terry Phillips was an intriguing man. He was near bald. He stood no more than 5 foot 4 tall and was nearly as wide. He wore dark shoes, dark slacks, a dark jacket with a dark pin stripe suite. Dressed by River Island, Bond had expected no less.
If Phillips was surprised to see Bond still alive and back in his bingo hall, his face didn’t show it. He gestured for bond to following him, past the caller’s table, past the 8 foot alabaster statue of cupid, past the broken cigarette machine to his office.
As they stepped through the door, Bond knew the time was now or never. He felt the sinews in his body tighten, the hair on his neck stood to attention and his collar tighten. He lunged forward grabbing Phillips by the arm, twisting and locking it so tight that if Phillips struggled his arm would break by its own volition.
“What the chuffing ‘ell are you doing?” Phillips’ cool broke for the first time.
“You’re a spy, Phillips and you’ve got something I want”. Bond’s voice remained calm and authoritative yet urgent.
“Spy? What? Of course I’m not a spy.”
“How do you explain this then?”
Bond released his hold and ripped the sleeve on Phillips’ jacket revealing an inverted “M” tattooed on his left forearm.
“You’ve been marked by SMERSH. See ’shpion’”.
“No! You’re looking at it upside down!” Phillips rolled his sleeve further up his arm. “Its says ‘MUM’, you bleeding idiot!”.
Bond inspected the tattoo: “MUM”. ‘Damn it’ he though.
“Now maybe we can stop this faffing around and you can tell me what you want”. Phillips straightened his jacket and some of the dignity one expects of a Bingo Hall Manager returned.
“You’ve got the Golden Chocolates. I want them.” With egg tattoo on his face Bond was in no mood to mince his words.
“Well, why didn’t you say so!” A smile quickly spread the width of Phillips chubby little spud head.
He reached to the top draw of his desk, slid it open and pull out its content.
He threw down a tray of 24 chocolates. Each wrapped in sumptuous gold foil and sat arrogantly in individual brown paper cups.
“There you are, laddy. The Ferreror Rocher. I keep ‘em back ‘ere for special, like.”
Bonds lips were dry with expectation. His pulse quickened again but he retained his composure as he picked the tray of the table.
“Abassador,” He said slyly to Phillips “with these Rocher, you’re really spoiling us!”.
“Please, call me Terry”.
Bond popped one of the hazelnut encrusted chocolate globes into his mouth and bit down slowly.
Woe, woe, and thrice woe for my jumper has stretched.
Yes, sometimes life can be a right ball ache. You know how it is, you’re trying to put clothes on to go out somewhere (lets’ say, ooh, to Iceland, shall we?) but your jumper’s suddenly too big; stretched in the wash, damn it!
Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Who? I thought it was Paul Burrell finally scraping the bottom of the barrel”.
But you’re wrong.
It is Howard from the “in no way trashy and definitely not only watched by a very small under-class living on a council estate on the outskirts of Coventry” Ideal World shopping channel.
Come on you must know him, it’s Howard! No, not the one from the Halifax adverts.
Howard! He used to do voice overs on the BBC’s Points of Views. No, not ringing any bells? Haven’t you seen any of his 4 series of ITV1 Wales DIY show, Inspirations?
Tsk! Call yourself celebrity obsessed? How very dare you!
Well, to be honest, I’d not heard of him either. But amazingly, a man who needs 2 or 3 new letters adding to the end of the alphabet to accurately classify his celebrity status isn’t the worst thing about this advert.
No, it’s the fact that Woolite decided to describe their product as: “More than detergent, it’s Safe-Tergent!”.
What the monkey? “Safe-Tergent”?
Surely, surely, surely at some point, someone said: “YOU MUST BE FUCKING JOKING! SAFE-TERGENT??”.
Yes, we might have gone a bit safety-mad recently, but protecting our clothes from the threat of bobbles with “Safe-Tergent” takes the biscuit. Or it would do if it weren’t for Woolite trademarking “Safe-Tergent” actually taking the biscuit!
Honestly, there can’t be two washing powder companies unlucky enough to have a madman as their Marketing Manager, can there? I think, Woolite, I think that your “Safe-Tergent” might be, er, safe from copyright infringement.
I’m hoping that this advert is tapping into the whole Cillit Bang “knowingly camp as a Boy Scouts jamboree” style of advertising. But after the “Safe-Tergent” affair, I’m not so sure.
Either way, here’s the advert. You might want to cover your eyes….
I must start off by apologising for a pretty slow month here on TVs Worst Adverts. What with it being the “season to be jolly” I’ve found it hard to get very angry at TV adverts and on top of that Windows is trying to uninstall itself one file at a time from my computer.
(4.7)
