Yes, it’s yet another “Is that (fill in name of actor) in a (fill in brand name) commercial?” post. I can’t help it if every C-list actor out there is trying to cash in by becoming a corporate whore. I would do the same!

Anyway, actress Sherri Saum, who I know as the devious Holland in Gossip Girl (the woman who lives downstairs from Lily and pretended to have an affair with Rufus), is the new face of Kohl’s. I don’t know if my first choice for spokesperson would be a woman who, at least in this role, is synonymous with being a bitchy skank. But why not? Even slutty downstairs neighbors need someplace to shop. Kohl’s: The Homewrecker Store.

P.S. I don’t know what the YouTube video poster was smoking when they thought that was Flo from the Progressive ads opposite Sherri.

I personally never had a problem using a bowl, and if my kids ever did, I would tell them to learn to use a damn bowl, not buy them a gravity-proof vessel like the Gyro Bowl. But then again, I’m not stupid.

Best line: “Look, it’s not even spilling pudding on my mom’s favorite cashmere sweater!” What’s that little demon child doing eating pudding over her mom’s sweater anyway? Seems like she’ll find a way to ruin the sweater despite the bowl, because she is evil. Just look in her eyes.

I also must take issue with the name of this product, because when I read it I think of a delicious Middle Eastern meal. Blatant false advertising, because I doubt this so-called Gyro Bowl comes with savory slices of greasy lamb included, and if it did I would be worried.

Oh, and here’s the company’s website, if you just can’t wait to go out and buy one of these magical devices.

This is the best video I could find, but since it’s off the website it’s all auto-starty and small. Sorry about that. If you see a better version on YouTube or whatnot, do let me know!

*Update: The video was too annoying so I took it out. Just click over to the company’s website to watch the ad.

I have been trying to track down this commercial for a while, and success is finally mine! Okay, it was a pretty stupid ad to begin with, but I still feel a sense of satisfaction in having achieved my goal. Presenting….the Spongetech SpongeBob Sponge.

The new commercial for the Water Jet hose attachment (it basically accomplishes the same thing as putting your thumb over the hose) suggests that it’s a miracle cleaning product. But while describing the product, the commercial (which is available on the Water Jet website) shows the water surging through a cross section diagram of the hose in a way that seems almost…sexual.

Phallic hardware is hardly a new invention, but even their bonus attachment ‘head’ looks…well, see for yourself:

Has anyone else seen an ad for the Sponge Bob sponge? I’ve only seen it a couple of times, and I can’t find anything about it (much less a video clip of the commercial) online. It’s a funny product, partly because it’s hideously overpriced. If anyone can find a website for it, or anything of the sort, do let me know!

I noticed the similarity between the stink creature in this Lysol ad and the Smoke Monster from Lost some time ago, but I finally found a video of the commercial to post. As it turns out, the YouTube user PigLouie beat me to the comparison, so kudos!

Lost Smoke Monster Lysol ad

Women have come a long way since the 1950s, but you wouldn’t know it by watching cleaning product ads. They always seem to portray kids and husbands making huge messes (one recent ad shows a husband using the blender without its lid like an idiot), then apparently leaving them and going to do something else. Because then the woman (it’s always the woman) goes around smiling like, oh those rascals, as she wipes everything up with what looks like minimal effort. If my boyfriend spilled a blender full of ice cream or something on the floor and didn’t clean it up, believe me, I wouldn’t lift a finger to help his sloppy ass.

This latest spot for Lime-A-Way bathroom cleaner also strikes me as rather dated in its attitude towards women. While walking through the grocery store and lying to various people about how she broke her arm, a housewife runs into another housewife with a similarly broken arm. The other housewife then commisserates about how scrubbing the bathtub leads to this problem all the time. Hey, maybe “hard water stains” is a euphemism for “abusive husband.” That would make a whole lot more sense.

She fell down some stairs, that’s the ticket

This is an oldie but a goodie, and it just happens to be one of the most disturbing commercials ever made. This is a follow up to a popular Brawny commercial wherein the Brawny Man ices a cake and otherwise acts like the perfect man on his wife’s birthday. For some reason the Brawny company decided to go way off the deep end on this one…it’s like David Lynch and Michel Gondry collaborated on an abstract short about Freudian castration anxieties, and this was the result.

The Brawny Giant

Has there ever been a better example of someone who’s way too concerned with what people think than the woman in the Glade (I’m sorry, Gladé) commercials lately? This character is so obsessed with people thinking she buys fancy French (”French…from France”) candles that she’s willing to lie to her friends and loved ones rather than confess she buys the grocery store shiz. But the lies don’t stop with the candles. At Christmastime, as you’ll see in the second ad, she is using the candle to pretend she baked fresh cookies, when in fact she only dumped out a bag of store brand cookies. What’s next? Lying about being on birth control to trap her husband? “I’m on that fancy French birth control…Yazé!”

Best moments: when a friend asks the woman if she’s baking a pie (in the first clip), and when she’s doing Yoga (in the third clip) and does a wacky double take upon being found out for the liar she is.

Glade Commercial 1 – Original

Glade Commercial 2 – Xmas

Glade Commercial 3 – Yoga

I am not a fan of the animated bears that have been the face of Charmin for the past couple of years. For one thing, they remind me of the Berenstain Bears, but how to wipe my ass is one thing I never wanted that delightful bear family to teach me. For another, these bears seem perfectly content to crap out in the open, with toilet paper hanging from a nearby tree. If you’re going to humanize them to the point where they use toilet paper, at least give them a stall. Here’s one of the most disturbing ones:

The Charmin Bears

You know those creepy Pledge cleaning product ads, where some faceless British-sounding narrator diabolically traps innocent women in glass boxes with furniture in them, and forces them to clean against their will? At the end of this one, the woman even knocks and asks if she can go home.

In another of these ads, a woman’s white couch is lowered into the room covered with black cats. In a recent one, the disembodied man in charge tells a mother to clean an entire room, despite her protestations that she has to pick her kids up. Then at the end she leans her hand on it, and the narrator clears his throat and, with fright, the woman quickly wipes the spot her hand had made.

Does this remind anybody else of the evil Jigsaw dude in the atrocious Saw movies? Here’s the trailer for the second film to refresh your memory.

I keep expecting the Pledge narrator to say, “Come on, Emily. With the cleaning power of Pledge, you’ll have plenty of time to pick your kids up. Now where did I put that bottle of Pledge? Oh right. It’s embedded behind your left eyeball! It’s your choice, Emily. Use the feather duster I’ve left you to gouge your eye out and clean the room, or the kids die!”

Seriously. These cleaning product people have issues.