After a 6 month long absence and making a return that’s about as welcome as the current recession – after all, it’s slept with your wife and smashed up your collection of iconic miniature tractors - TV’s Worst Adverts‘ Worst Advert Award has made a come back to, well, to TV’s Worst Adverts.

The last time we saw each other, Picture Loans had the voting sown up.  In fact Picture Loans won the award so many times in a row it was as suspicious, and about as interesting, as Ulrika winning the latest series of Celebrity Big Brother.

But how times have changed. Here’s the top 5:

1. Glade – Touch and Fresh – I Want to Poo at Paul’s House
2. Take A Break – Tragedy
3. The Skills Centre – Tony?
4. Picture Loans – Dad’s Found Your Scooter
5. The Priests – The Priests Album

So there you have it, Glade’s jaw-droppingly bizarre I Want to Poo at Paul’s House wins January 2009′s TV’s Worst Advert Award.

It might have been more appropriate for it to have been number two but, as we all know, there are times – when you’ve been out on the black stuff or you’ve not eaten enough museli, say – that you have to settle for a number one.

Well done anyway, Glade.

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Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the living room, something you just can’t bring yourself to give a toss about is back on our screens.

Yes, BT’s Adam and Jane are back on – at least they’re back on the nightmare box:

I had very low hopes for the future of the relationship when Adam went and took his “dream job” in Cornwall. 

You see, Jane was mad.So mad, in fact, that the only way she and Adam could communicate was using Instant Messenger – just like millions of fully grown British people do every day. Sadly for them, the internet was broken in Cornwall meaning poor old Adam couldn’t tell Jane what he was ‘feeling’.

Then Adam was so distracted by Owl TV that Jane wasn’t mentioned for a few months. 

But suddenly, out of the blue, a letter arrives from her!

Yawn.

The big problem I have with Adam and Jane is that I’ve got a deeper and more meaningful relationship with my right (and ocassionally my left) hand then they have with each other.

I don’t believe it which means I just don’t care.

Anyway, in spite of this apathy, TV’s Worst Adverts can exclusively reveal to you the question that Jane asked Adam – that Adam mysteriously answers “Yes” to: 

“Would you pay to watch Iron Man?”

So now we know, there’s no need to keep up this charade of a relationship, is there BT?

Judge for yourself.

Now, before I begin, I must give a full disclosure – the people at Foxy Bingo are good friends of TV’s Worst Adverts. When TWA turned one they were very generous to this blog’s readers. We’ll always like them for that.

But… I can’t help but think that TV’s Worst Adverts might have given Foxy Bingo something in return: the idea for ther new advert.

You see, when Foxy was reinvented for the last Foxy Bingo ad TV’s Worst Adverts mention that the new Foxy looked like Tony Manero and, would you Adam and Eve it, Foxy’s only doing his best Saturday Night Fever dance routine in their latest ad!

OK, I grant you that the last ad did feature a disco classic as the sound track but I can’t help but think this is a little more than a coincidence.

Has TV’s Worst Adverts finally given something back into the world of TV advertising?

If so, why is that dancing half-man/half-fox freaking me out so much?

Maybe we’ll never know.

If you’ were anything like me, there was nothing you loved more as a kid than air freshner.

Except maybe sweets.

And puppy dogs.

My love of these things lead me to spend many a happy hour round at the house of a neighbour. He was very generous and let me have as many liquorice comfits as I could eat then, high on E numbers and sugar, he let me chase his puppy dogs round his garden.

Anyways, all that liquorice, fresh air and exercise would leave me desperately needing a poo.

Not a problem, our neighbour was very kind too and he always let me use his toilet. Strange thing was though, he was very protective of his air freshner. He’d stand and watch me have a poo just to make sure “I didn’t use too much Touch and Fresh” when I’d finished.

Stranger still, he kept his air freshner very low down on the wall behind the toilet. And every time I bent down and gave it a couple of squirts it would make a sound like the click of a camera.

Weird.

The local children had a nickname for our neighbour. What was it, now?

Ah yes, I remember, “Paedo Paul”.

Dirty, Paedo Paul! Dirty!

Like many of the stars of 80′s TV shows who have had their series cancelled, Skeletor has fallen on hard times. Unable to find a proper job on “civvie street”, Snake Mountain has fallen into disrepair and God only knows when he last changed Panthor’s litter tray.

So poor old Skeletor has had bend over a think of Eternia while the man sticks it to him:

Not really.

This is, in fact, the horrifying sight of, the now 113 year old, Iggy Pop whoring his bag of bones for swiftcover.com car insurance.

Some folks on t’internet have claimed that, following the Johnny Rotten/Country Life butter affair, this advert sounds the death knell of punk.

Others refuse to believe that Iggy Pop, an icon of this anti-establishment rock music genre, could throw his principles out the window and flog car insurance?

What has he become? Some sort of stooge?

Anyways, if punk is dead (which it is) then, from the looks of him, I’m fairly certain Iggy Pop won’t be far behind.

“I’m selling you time.” Iggy tells us.

“Get a life!” Iggy emplores us.

If only poor old Iggy Pop would listen to his own advice and make better use of the precious little time he seems to have left and not churn out any more of this guff.

As if just having to take public transport in itself isn’t enough to make you want to commit hate crimes against complete strangers, a mobile phone company deciding it would be *fun* to take over the whole bloody station really is beyond the bloody pale:

Reasons to commit murder aside, John, who submitted this Bad Ad, thought the T-Mobile advert was a bit like this Dolly Rockers video – or as John put it: “They stole the idea from the Dolly Rockers”: 

In fact a quick YouTube search – for something like “Flashmob Dancing”  - returns loads of video’s that all look suspiciously *similar* to the T-Mobile ad.

One of the most weirdly wonderful is this one for Oxfam with pregnant women break dancing on the streets of London:

It seems that it’s getting harder for advertisers to have an original idea but easier to get caught. Ho hum.

In TV’s Worst Adverts’ role as a public servant, or some shit like that, here’s another potentially contentious Bad Ad submission. This one comes from TWA regular CovertJellyFish:

Hmmm… Let me make one thing absolutely clear to all advertising executives. CHILDREN SHOULD NOT BE SEEN ON TV.

If you have to have children on tv then you need to follow two rules:

1) DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES PICK UGLY CHILDREN.

2) DO NOT ATTEMPT TO MAKE THEM ENTERTAINING IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM.

Yes, after last year’s Drumming Gorilla and Trucks, Cadbury’s are back with a new Glass and a Half Full Productions advert – Body-Popping Eyebrows.

Unlike CovertJellyFish, I’m glad these kids are on our TV’s (beats watching talking animals at least).

I’m down with the electro-funk groove (Don’t Stop the Rock by Freestyle, in case you’re interested) and despite finding 2 gawky-looking kids staring at me – without blinking once! –  for a whole minute just a little unnerving, when the girl pulls out the balloon, I can’t help but smile. 

So go on, get voting and tell us what you think – Is it as tub-thumpingly good as the Gorilla or is it another Truck shaped, festering turd?

Just when you thought the banks couldn’t get any cuntier along comes the new Natwest advert:

But they’re not there to sell, oh no, they’re there to give you free, impartial financial guidance:

We pissed your money up the wall for the last decade so now you can’t have pudding any more.

Sorry.

Oh, one more thing: we’re going to have to sleep with your wife or we’re cancelling your overdraft.

Credit crunch on that, Fatso.

Fuckers.

Judge for yourself.

You know what it’s like, you want to get fit, you really do, but it’s raining outside.

No bother; have a cup of tea instead.

I wonder how much money I’ve wasted on the gym when I could have just been sat on the settee instead?

Judge for yourself.

Here we go, another post, another insurance comparison web site.

Confused.com has been in recent years the Daddy of shit TV adverts and they’re back but this time they’re trying something new.

Gone are the cardboard set, the pitiful “I’m confused <pained looked to camera> dot com” script, and the actors who mostly looked like they’re on day release from a secure unit.

In come real people - who all look like they’re on day release from a secure unit - and Vlog reviews of the new Confused.com web site.

Welcome to the future, people!

The first time I saw it, it reminded me of a recent episode of Screen Wipe in which Charlie Brooker said:

“In advertising, research consists of sitting on YouTube and stealing other peoples ideas…”

Except Confused have taken that a couple of nightmarish steps further and employed “prolific You Tubers” to make an advert that’s actually like watching a fucking YouTube video.

Or it’s like watching a YouTube video for some because I suspect that there are still more people in the UK who haven’t watched a video on the Tube than have. So to those poor ludite cavemen the new Confused advert is little more than an episode of You’ve Been Framed. But not a funny one with Harry Hill, a shit one with Lisa Riley.

Anyway, the ad below is, amazingly, even cheaper than the old lot and although all the content is user generate what they’d really like you to take away from it is just how friendly Confused.com is – because I went on one comparison site and it passed a comment about the size of my penis then told me to fuck off – and how easy to use Confused.com is – because on another site, that was so hard to use, I put in the wrong personal details and accidentally started a civil war in West Africa.

Ah, friendly and easy – just like my third year English teacher if only Confused.com were so enjoyable.