Funny Hometown Commercials

[drewprops]

Funny no-budget commercials by local businesses are one of my favorite things to watch, a part of Americana that is often overlooked. What are some of the funny ads that run in your hometown? Links to websites get extra points.


I'd say the #1 commercial in Atlanta are those done by "Wolfman and Donna" for "Gallery Furniture". They have this cheesy background music (which we all love) that sounds slightly akin to something written by the same guy who did the Price Is Right theme song. Peppy Strings is what I'd call it.

Wolfman and his daughter Donna have unabashed Southern accents and Wolfman bears a passing resemblance to the famous DJ from the 1950's, Wolfman Jack (note: passing speed would have to be about 65mph).

All of their commercials are done against greenscreen, always with some hysterically bad metaphor playing for why you should buy their furniture. There's always the tagline at the end "Hey, ask for the Wolfman!" which has also grown to encompass "Tell 'em Donna sent you!".



The car dealers are funny....Maxie Price was always asking somebody to hand him his "cryin' rag" because he was so broken up about selling his cars for such low prices...as a matter of fact, Maxie Price Motors is responsible for one of the hippest in-phrases to long-time residents of the area which is: "Where's Loganville?". The Atlanta Business Chronicle (http://atlanta.bizjournals.com/atlanta/stories/2002/02/18/smallb2.html) has a short article about Maxie.


So what are the funny, crazy, hysterical ads that run in YOUR hometown?

[monkeyastronaut]

I'm from Monterrey, Mexico, and we do too get a heavy dose of hometown commercials. They are pathetic. It's almost as if someone told them: "Make a cheesy 5 second jingle-song at the end and everyone will go crazy for your product/service".

High comedy.

[thuh Freak]

while i was in rochester, i saw some ridiculous and terrible ads. there was this car salesman. i don't remember the substance of much of his ads. but he'd always end with "and we'll see you right here" or something like that. sometimes crouching and/or pointing toward the ground (at the dealership). whenever his commercials would start, i would make a point of changing the channel. there was another commercial for a music shop of some kind. and, for some reason, they would often have a hand with an extra finger at some point in the ad. well, i'm not sure if there really was an extra finger, or if i was just really high and hallucinating, but it would always weird me out. and the dood in that commercial looked like ben franklin (or maybe it was a cutout, or a mask; again, i was pretty high a lot of the time, so i may be imagining that too). the voice over was very redunant (something like "five cds for x money" over and over again. it was enough to drive a stoner insane, luckily i had beat them to it.)

but one of the best local ads i ever seen was in ny. there's this place, a cross between a restaurant and a gym. you get lunch and boxing lessons or something. i don't really know what was going on, but i think it was called the boxing chef. ugly people told me i should go there for lunch, and box.

other commercials i enjoy are the ones that talk about the sabbath: sunday, sunDAY, SUNDAY. car races or some kind of event, or whatever. all i ever catch from those is the day. and they say the venue (raceway park, i think), in this high, squeeky voice. come to think of it, that might be a radio ad, cuz i dont remember any pictures.

[drewprops]

There's another local ad here that goes "Looky, looky, looky, here comes Cookie...Cook's, Pest Control~". It used to drive me crazy...now I sing along....grrrrrrrrr.

[iBrowse]

Hey thuh Freak, the place whose ad you're referring to is called Record Archive. Their ads are pretty lame, but their stores are cool enough to make up for it. When you were up here did you ever see an ad for the Great House of Guitars? Their ads are pretty bad too, especially around christmas time, which is kinda weird because that place has a bit of money, maybe because they make cheap commercials.

I love when the owner of a place has his family at the end of the ad. You know his kids get made fun of at school. I mean, I'd make fun of them.

[nwhysee]

Theres this ad for a jewelry store thats very weird, picture this:

It's a 30-something couple sitting on a bench, not that weird, except the bench is in a well kept backyard with lots of well maintained grass. Thats not so weird except its obvious that its green screened. Why? Because the sun is behind the couple, yet their shadow is also behind them, their shadow should be cast in front of them . Oh but thats not all, theres a huge commercial billboard with a smiling guy, right behind them, in the backyard. To make things better the guy on the billboard begins to move and talk to the couple (to which the couple has delayed responses).

[thuh Freak]

Originally posted by iBrowse
Hey thuh Freak, the place whose ad you're referring to is called Record Archive. Their ads are pretty lame, but their stores are cool enough to make up for it. When you were up here did you ever see an ad for the Great House of Guitars? Their ads are pretty bad too, especially around christmas time, which is kinda weird because that place has a bit of money, maybe because they make cheap commercials.

I love when the owner of a place has his family at the end of the ad. You know his kids get made fun of at school. I mean, I'd make fun of them.

i knew i remembered someone from ai being from the roche. can't say that i remember a guitar house ad though. its been a while since i've watched teevee in rochester. that car dealer had a kid in one of his ads, and iirc, she seemed pretty embarassed (or possibly he; memory aint what it used to be). "Record Archive" sounds hugely familiar.

[Mac Man 020581]

Originally posted by iBrowse
Hey thuh FreakI love when the owner of a place has his family at the end of the ad. You know his kids get made fun of at school. I mean, I'd make fun of them.
I go to school with them actually, one is in my grade. They are different people.

[Mac Man 020581]

Originally posted by thuh Freak
while i was in rochester, i saw some ridiculous and terrible ads. there was this car salesman. i don't remember the substance of much of his ads. but he'd always end with "and we'll see you right here" or something like that. sometimes crouching and/or pointing toward the ground (at the dealership). whenever his commercials would start, i would make a point of changing the channel.
Ah, you must be talking about Mike Ognibene Ford in Batavia, not Rochester.
http://www.mikeognibeneford.com/images/ford_r2_c3.jpg

The web site has something just for you thu Freak: http://www.mikeognibeneford.com. The commercials are on there too, for your viewing pleasure.

[iBrowse]

Originally posted by Mac Man 020581
I go to school with them actually, one is in my grade. They are different people.

What do you mean different people? ... Eh... Well the people I'm talking about go to a school about an hour out of the city, I think HFL. But there are a lot of cheesy car ads in these parts.

[Mac Man 020581]

Originally posted by iBrowse
What do you mean different people? ... Eh... Well the people I'm talking about go to a school about an hour out of the city, I think HFL. But there are a lot of cheesy car ads in these parts.
I thought you were talking about the kids of the owner of the House of Guitars? No, they don't go to school an hour away, they go to Irondequoit High School, in the town where the HOG is located.

[iBrowse]

Oh ok, I thought you meant the car guy. I didn't know the guy from HOG had kids. I love that store so much.

[CosmoNut]

We have a dealership called Sunflower Dodge near here in a town called Olathe (pron: Oh-lay-thuh). Several years ago their spokesman was this guy called "Hap Hazzard" who dressed in these awful mismatched plaid clothing and wore a cowboy hat. He'd talk in this awful southern accent and generally make a fool out of himself. The commercials got really bad when his *wife* "Miss Hap" would help him out. Thank God those are over.

Anyone from KC remember those?

[BR]

CRAZY GIDEON!

[DMBand0026]

Methinks the worst commercial ever would have to be one that showed for a number of years in the Chicagoland area. Anyone who has lived in Northern Illinois will remember these. The "Eagle Insurance Company" commercials. It was a poorly costumed man in an eagle suit, appropriately named "eagle man" who would "fly" around and save people from high insurance rates by "laying eggs" (thats right, a male eagle would lay eggs) and saying (in the worst voiceover I've ever heard) "I've got something..." pause "for yoouuuuuu". At this point there would be a big cloud of smoke and an egg would appear under Eagle Man. The egg than proceeded to hatch and have two or three baby eagles in it (obviously puppets) that would hold up the company's insurance rates in their beaks.
Now, this might not sound so bad, but all the actors in the commercials were ugly as sin and couldn't act to save their lives. I won't even go into how most of them could barely speak English. They would often dress up women as men by just giving them a mustache and having them talk in a low, gruff sort of voice.

This one gets my vote for the worst commercial ever.

[drewprops]

I guess they're free from this wonderful lunacy in other countries? (knowing full well they're not)

[709]

Oog. We've got a series of commercials for Menard's running around here, with a seemingly likeable old grey-haired guy pushing stand-up showers, toilets and other home-improvement thingys. Anyways, at the end of each one he'll be posing with x tool in hand bellowing his "aaatt menAAARRdddSSSSS..."...and then stands there frozen for a few seconds with the most maniacal grin I've ever seen on one of the elderly. Creeps the shit out of me every time.

[drewprops]

That creeped me out and I haven't even seen it!!

[midwinter]

When I was in college, there was a commercial for a store on the gulf coast. It was a shot of the front of the building from the parking lot, and the owner, looking like a giant, lay on top of the building. He would scream

"HELP! I'M TRAPPED ON TOP OF OBERLIE'S UNCLAIMED FREIGHT ON PASS ROAD IN GULFPORT!!!"

There was another commercial for "Paw-Paw's RV Store" somewhere down the road from me. It featured a little girl who would walk up to an RV, kick the tires, and say

"That's a good car, Paw-Paw!"

I even have a bumper-sticker of that on one of my guitar cases.

Cheers
Scott

[giant]

Originally posted by DMBand0026
Eagle

Oh, that one is classic.

Horrible as those commercials were, we all still remember them to this day. In other words, pure genius.

The other one I used to like was the one for some auto wrecker. It has this guy who goes out to his car, opens the door and the thing just falls off. Great physical comedy.

Then, of course, there are the other two classics:

588-2300 Empire!

and

"Where you always save more money"