Actor Jason Statham is pretty good looking, and I don’t mind his acting. So even though I was pretty late to the game, only discovering this ad a couple of months ago (as opposed to during the Super Bowl when it first aired), I was excited to see this commercial. Audi cleverly references the style and tone of one of Jason’s action movies, making this an ad you can almost forget is an ad.

Action-packed Audi ad with sexy Jason Statham

Lovable Bruce Campbell, of Evil Dead fame, has done a lot of good work in his life. But you probably don’t remember his short stint as an Old Spice pitchman. Check it.

Bruce Campbell likes Old Spice

Remember Bic Banana markers? Yeah, me neither. But this amazing commercial makes me want to go out and get some immediately. Legendary TV personality Charles Nelson Reilly dresses as a banana, sings a song about bananas and drawing, and generally makes a lot of references that could be construed as phallic if your mind is in the gutter like mine.

Charles Nelson Reilly for Bic Banana

I love me some cheap haircuts, and half the time I’m too cheap to even get those and end up letting my friends cut my hair (bad idea unless you’re getting a buzz cut). But when I do decide to go all out and pamper myself, I still can’t bear to spend more than $15 or $20 on a haircut. It just seems wrong, especially when hair grows out so fast. If you have thick or unruly hair, I could totally understand it, but my hair is as thin as a rail and I could basically cut it myself with nail clippers, so there’s not a lot I can do with it, style-wise. I usually get my hair cut at a local Brooklyn beauty shop these days, but when I lived in Tucson I was a Fashion Cuts girl all the way, and when I lived and worked in Manhattan, I went with Supercuts. I worked at a deli downstairs from one for a time, so the haircutters who I gave free coffee refills and so forth to every morning would cut me a deal on cuts and colors. I always gave them free reign to try whatever they wanted, and once my favorite stylist, Dorca, gave me purple hair with a blonde streak. She scolded me that my washed out Manic Panic red hair was getting unattractive, and that even if my boyfriend didn’t say anything about it, I should fix it up for his benefit. Oh, Dorca, where are you now?

ANYway, this Supercuts ad was just playing and I recognized the voice as Amy Sedaris’ immediately. Hell yeah! Cheap haircuts and my favorite funny woman, together at last.

Jerri Blank would go to Supercuts

Ed McMahon was a wonderful entertainer, and I think everyone’s a little bummed that he’s gone. But in honor of Ed, and in keeping with the theme of this website, I’d like to celebrate him with a look back at a really awesome Cash4Gold ad he made last year or so. He will be missed.

Ed McMahon sells his gold toilet

Tourism ads are everywhere right now, what with it being the height of the vacation season, and most of them seem to be for places I would never in a million years visit voluntarily, like, say, Michigan. But the new Pure Michigan ads are cool just because it seems to be John Goodman narrating them, and everything he does is awesome. I could be wrong, but it’s pretty hard to mistake a voice like that. Observe.

Update: Thanks to the very kind comment from Matt Bach (Public Relations Manager of the Flint Area Convention and Visitors Bureau in Flint, Michigan) as you can see below, I now know that it is not in fact John Goodman narrating the ads. It is fellow Michiganian (Michigeno?) Mr. Tim Allen, of Home Improvement fame! I actually have a real soft spot for that show, and Tim seems like a nice person, so that’s cool too. Thanks again, Matt!

Pure Michigan ‘Time’ Ad

Have you seen the new TV ad for Latisse, a magical eyelash growing serum that promises to help women (or men, I suppose) regrow missing lashes and/or lengthen and thicken their existing lashes? It’s downright terrifying.

Click here to watch it.

Brooke Shields stars in the commercial, which makes me wonder why she’s been receiving so much exposure lately. I don’t know exactly who’s behind her return to celebrity status, but I have some questions for them.

Anyway, Brooke’s involvement is irrelevant, because the product itself is what’s disturbing. The ad promises that Latisse will give you amazing huge eyelashes, but also warns that side effects include skin discoloration on your eyelid which MIGHT go away over time. And that’s not all. They also mention (I’m not kidding) that your eyes might permanently turn brown. Yes, your very irises. Brown. Forever. What??

This sounds like such a bad idea. And they’re marketing it like a beauty product, even though it’s a prescription drug. This is far worse than when they marketed medicine for Restless Leg Syndrome to the public in a deceptive way that made it seem like it was for anyone who was remotely fidgety. This is something normal everyday women who wear mascara or false lashes for an extra boost will think they need, and then we’ll find out that it actually blinds people and Latisse is going to have one major class action lawsuit on their hands. Or not, I just like to think about worst case scenarios. Like how I firmly believe that sunless tanner is going to turn out to cause skin cancer, and deoderant breast cancer, and birth control pills everything cancer. Either way, there’s no way in hell I’m putting this crazy crap on my eyes.

This old and much-aired ad for the ASPCA is just too sad. Sarah McLachlan I could do without, but until then I’m torn between joy at seeing cute animals and sadness that the world is so cruel. Talk about effective advertising!

Sad cute animals

In my haste to big up the K9 Advantix puppy, I almost forgot about the equally cute Cottonelle puppy. Granted, this dog has a major mark against him, namely the fact that he is creepily obsessed with asses. But he’s still cute as hell.

Update: A big thank you to reader Nora who pointed out (in the comments below) that the voice of the puppy is none other than Zach Braff from TV’s Scrubs! So strange, but it kinda makes sense.

Cottonelle commercial 1

Cottonelle commercial 2

When I first saw the recent ad campaign for Gatorade Tiger Focus, which is entitled Woods of Wisdom in case you didn’t get the Tiger Woods reference from the product name, I thought I was watching some kind of PSA for healthy childhood eating habits, or possibly an ad for The Jungle Book 2. But no, it’s just another weird, nonsensical production from Gatorade, joining the ranks of their Monty Python and the Holy Grail ripoff campaign and that “celebrities standing in a row cryptically wondering out loud what ‘G’ is” commercial, which adds insult to injury by forcing you go online to look up the fact that, surprise, it’s just Gatorade. It reminded me of Gabbo in the Simpsons, but less hilarious.

Anyway, although I am a Gatorade drinker and enjoyer, this Jungle Book ad annoys me. The only good part is the rap at the end, which at first I thought sounded like Big Boi. I couldn’t figure out who it was for sure so I asked the company, to which they told me “Bootsy Collins does all the music for these commercials and created the pieces specifically for this ad campaign.” Thanks Gatorade! I’m so happy that it turned out to be Bootsy. He’s like the ZZ Top of funk. His star-shaped Space Bass is at least as cool as ZZ’s furry guitars.

You can view the rap in question at about the 30 second mark here:

Have you watched this ad yet?  Calvin Klein was apparently forced not to air this “controversial” ad featuring sultry Eva Mendes.

Calvin Klein’s Secret Obsession ad

I really don’t see what the big deal is.  There’s a tiny flash of nip, and it’s tasteful as hell.  Sure, this is a Puritanical jerk country where Janet Jackson’s little flash caused a mighty stir, but when the rest of TV is chock full of other sexual innuendo and portrayals (i.e. CBS’ Swingtown, which for the record is really fun and addictive), not to mention horrific violence (think any crime or action show on TV) and so forth, it just seems ridiculous to care about seeing the human body as it exists naturally.  Kids know damn well what nipples look like — boys and girls both have them, after all — and it wouldn’t hurt to not put such a taboo on nudity that kids end up developing sexual complexes.  Maybe if we were all more comfortable with our bodies, there wouldn’t be such a need for extreme pornography and weird fetishes.

Plus, they already have nudity all over the ads in Europe, and they’re a lot more fucking sane than we are!  I say it’s time we start letting boobs on TV.  Boob equality!  I’ll bet the real reason they don’t do it is because our society is sexist, and they want to keep women in veils and long robes.  Just sayin’.