The planets must be aligned because it was exactly a year ago today that I wrote about the “still hilarious after all this time” Aleksandr the meerkat from the “just when you thought racism couldn’t get any funnier” CompareTheMarket.Com adverts.

Those of you with little better to waste your life upon will remember that I rather amusingly claimed that Omid Djalili would be starring in their next advert as the “compere” of a “market”. At the time it seemed like a rather harmless little joke. Well no-one’s laughing now.

Here’s Omid starring in the new advert for MoneySupermarket.com:

OK, OK. He’s not exactly compering the market. But surely this is a little too coincidental, wouldn’t you say?

Is this another case of TV’s Worst Adverts not getting the credit it deserves?

Virgin Trains have always traded on the sniggering schoolboy-ish thought that you’ll be “riding a virgin to Chipping Norton and back” but I’ve just sat open-mouthed watching an edited version of this advert for Virgin Trains – with that Robyn Addison from Survivors in it – in which the 3 scenes of “Becky” ogling the men in the field, the bottled water turning into gushing champagne and the train enters the “tunnel of love” are shown back-to-back that left me… well, speechless.

Is that..?

Did that just…?

Is that a euphemism for…?

Sadly, in the longer version, not only aren’t these scenes played one after the other but we’re also treated to a glimpse of Stoke-on-Trent which really underplays just how much of a sexagasmic experience riding on a Virgin train actually is.

Shame.

There aren’t many things that will get a policeman simulating oral sex in the street these days – except, of course, for the sight of a Tunnocks Caramel Wafer lorry:

Or as Cat, who submitted this bad ad, summarises:

I think this is an accidentally aired GCSE project.

The use of Comic Sans at the end is particularly craptastic.

But even though it does look like someone’s Media Studies course work gone wrong, I think it’s important we’re not too harsh on the makers of this advert – as they’ve clearly had to spend 2, maybe even 3, weeks’ pocket money on it. That’s nearly 10 Tunnocks Caramel Wafers they could have bought instead! Poor loves.

Oh well, 3 weeks miming eating a chocolate coated caramel wafer bar is a price worth paying for this masterpiece.

Nice one, Cat.

Here’s an advert that’s been getting a bit of press over the last couple of days so I thought I’d jump on the band wagon and stoke the fires of indifference that are sweeping the UK by adding it to TV’s Worst Adverts.

It seems that the new advert from Burger King for it’s “Texican” burger featuring a tall, bearded, scrawny Texan – who’s good at reaching high shelves and cleaning windows – and a midget Mexican wrestler – who’s good at opening jars, has a large fan base and enjoys swimming – has caused outrage in both Mexico and Mexican embassies the World over:

Yeah, according to the Independent this advert has left Jorge Zermeno, the Mexican ambassador to Spain, with a bad taste in his mouth – one even worse than actually eating a Texican. He is reported to have been so outraged by the depiction of the Mexican wrestler as both short and good at opening jars/swimming that he “wrote a formal complaint to Burger King, asking for the ad to be removed.”

So if once the dust has settled and this advert has been forgotten like yesterdays fart we only learn one thing from this whole sorry affair it’s do not mess with the Mexican ambassador unless you’re ready for him to unleash a can full of “formal letter of complaint” on your arse!

Is that headed note paper? You’re a nasty piece of work, ambassador. 

But like most people, what surprises me most is that a man as important as the Mexican ambassador to Spain can possibly find the time to get so worked up about an advert for a spicy cow’s buttock in a bap? 

I just can’t believe that he’s not either too lazy, commiting too much petty crime or is too high to worry about Mexicans being stereotyped?

Anyway, I think that we can all agree that there’s only one way to decide if this advert is really offensive to Mexicans, vote for it on TV’s Worst Adverts.

So get clicking, amigos – as long as you’re not too pissed on taquilla, busy stealing mules or sneaking into the US, that is.

Here’s part two of TV’s Worst Adverts‘ “Disturbingly Sexied Up” Trilogy – Birds Eye’s Salmon Fish Fingers advert.

If you did a survey of 1000 men, asking each of them to write a list 1000 things that they found “sexy”, on resultant and fairly comprehensive list of “one million things that turn men on” not one of them would have written the words “Fish Fingers”.

Not one.

In fact it’s been proven that it’s medically impossible to find sealife that’s been covered in breadcrumbs then frozen in anyway sexually exciting.

Daryl Hannah in Splash – Yes.

Daryl Hannah in Splash covered in breadcrumbs then frozen – No.

So my jaw never fails to hit the floor when I see that Birds Eye have tried to use sex to sell their new Salmon Fish Fingers:

Oh goodness.

When the *male* fish finger says “So much pink!” at the end, is he referring to a woman’s shaven bits?

If so, it’s all kinds of wrong.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

See Also

Peugeot 308 – DRIVESEXY

The What the Monkey category was made for adverts like this:

No. I’ve no idea either.

Strokes aren’t funny.

They can kill you or, at the very least, make you look like you’re permanently watching the Hollyoaks omnibus. So I’m not going to make fun of people who’ve had strokes nor of teenagers who simply don’t realise they’re wasting the best years of their life.

But this advert has left me a little worried:

If you’re anything like me, watching that advert has made you extremely paranoid and you’re now permanently on stroke-watch. So to help save lives, here are those symptoms again:

• Difficulty smiling.
• Can’t lift their arms up.
• Slurred speech.

Hang on a minute. That sounds like everybody I catch the bus to work with in the mornings is having a stroke. This is much more serious then I first imagined.

Not really, only joking. They’re really just miserable bastards who hate their miserable lives and their miserable jobs that they’re grinding out for the sake their miserable families. But hey, that’s the Midlands for you. 

Back to strokes… the most of important symptom of all that you should look out for is the “forehead on fire”. If someone’s face is burning down quicker than the Australian bush then they’re are definitely having a stroke. Well, they’re either having a stroke or they’re a Nazi and they’ve just opened the Arc of the Covenant in some unholy ceremony on a God forsaken lump of rock in the middle of nowhere. 

It’s definitely one of the two though, so always check for a leather trench coat and swastika armband before you call the for the ambulance, just in case.

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!

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?

If you can’t afford it gambling is one of the most ridiculous reckless things you can do.

Even if it’s a dead cert.

Even if you got the tip off a your mate whose uncle knows a bloke who knows John McCririck’s cleaner.

Even if it’s not a problem and you can handle it because it’s just not a problem and you can handle it. Look, it’s not a problem. I CAN HANDLE IT!

And what better way to (inadvertently) highlight just how ridiculously reckless gambling at, for example, Ladbrokescasino.com is by comparing it to rock-climbing using only your chin, or to swimming with sharks while covered in pork-products, or to skydiving using a crisp packet as a parachute?

Sadly, the ASA didn’t see it that way; so here are the 3 banned adverts:

The Climbing One:

The Shark One:

The Parachute One: