Hilariously Bad Adverts - Ones that make you cringe or laugh for all the wrong reasons

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In 2009, pressure group Turn Right USA thought that this bizarre-ass shit would be the end of Los Angeles city councilwoman Janice Hahn. Because nothing says "don't vote for this person" than associating them with strippers, rap, and...communism?

Even funnier are the annotations, which have bizarre ad hominem attacks on journalists who contradicted them. Also, the ending disclaimer tells the McCain-Feingold act to suck it.

(Ms. Hahn won by almost 75 percent, and would later go on to serve in congress.)


Remember this gem? Of course you do.

Turns out, there was a reason behind this...unique marketing pitch:

The FDA went after their ass when they said that their "homeopathic remedy" provided "fast, safe, effective headache relief", because that was a lie. There's no medicine or anything in it, it's just an inert stick of wax with an extremely tiny amount of a poisonous flower. (So tiny, that it does nothing. Isn't homeopathy great?)

So, since they weren't allowed to say that it worked, they were forced to say the only things about it that wasn't a lie: the name of the product, and how to use it.


If you were around during the 80's, you probably vaguely remember this infomercial. Or, more than likely, thought it was a fever dream you had. The story behind this is more bizarre than you could ever imagine...

Baltimore-area entrepreneur Santo Victor Rigatuso (aka Santo Gold, aka Robert "Bob" Harris) started the Santo Gold jewelry business (and the associated late-night infomercials) in the early 80's after evading mail fraud charges over his previous business (he sold a watch for both men and women that played the song "Yellow Rose of Texas"...but only the men's version actually played the song). To drum up sales, he would mail his fake "gold" to potential customers, unsolicited, cash on delivery. This got him in trouble with the postal service when he sent some samples to a postal inspector in Pennsylvania.

In the meantime, he raised $2 million dollars for the "science fiction space wrestling comedy movie" Blood Circus, which was another form of marketing for his business. The film was about man-eating aliens coming to Earth and fighting the best wrestlers from America and the Soviet Union, and starred actual WWF wrestlers. Rigatuso appeared as a singer named Santo Gold, singing a song about the Santo Gold jewelry company before the final battle (filmed at the Baltimore Civic Auditorium). Extras in the movie had to pay Rigatuso $10 each before appearing in the movie.

Once his legal troubled blew over, he resumed the infomercials, now with scenes from Blood Circus awkwardly shoe-horned in. He hoped that this would help him find a distributor. To avoid trouble with the postal service, he shipped his products through UPS.

By 1987, his method of "awkwardly shoehorning in clips from the movie into unrelated infomercials" had failed to give Blood Circus a distributor, and Rigatuso pulled the plug on the infomercials. But he tried promoting the film anyways, first with a 1-900 number that would play audio clips from the movie for $2 a pop, then by giving away a free tape with the first 10 minutes of it free to new customers.

Eventually, in November, Rigatuso decided to personally rent out a couple movie theaters in Baltimore and show the movie there, bypassing commercial distribution. The few who did see it there were given "scream bags", featuring a long poem about the movie and a coupon for a free diamond ring.

BloodCircusScreamBag.jpg


The film was quickly withdrawn, and was considered a lost film.

Rigatuso then got even scummier by mailing pre-paid credit cards to Santo Gold buyers that had hidden fees attached and were only good for Rigatuso's merchandise, then put out radio ads selling shares in a dead millionaire's estate for $50 (that was a lie). At this point, he was finally charged with mail fraud and tax evasion, and spent ten months in prison.

He then laid low for the next eighteen years until coming out of hiding to sue indie rocker Santi White, whose stage name at the time was Santogold, saying that she was impeding his music career. (Keep in mind, he only made one song). To support his case, he vandalized her Wikipedia article, defended himself in the talk page with a sockpuppet (which provided most of the material here, because he basically sold them his entire life story) then actually started making music again (with music videos featuring Blood Circus clips) Wanting to avoid dealing with this obviously crazy person, Santi White changed her stage name to Santigold. Around this time, Rigatuso claimed to have found a copy of Blood Circus, and was seeking partners for distribution.

In 2011, he tired to auction a copy (along with rights to the Blood Circus property) on eBay for $21 million. Nobody bid. Rigatuso offers a "making of Blood Circus" DVD on his garish website, but no one appears to have purchased a copy (and I couldn't get past the awful website!)
 
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NumberingYourState dijo:
Mr. Clean creeps me out. He is a hired killer.

Mister Clean will clean your whole house... of everyone that's in it...
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We should respect the classics
Edit: Didn't see that someone made a better post in time

Geico seems to be taking 'memey' approaches to their commercials lately
 
Última edición por un moderador:
It's kinda bad alright, but it was more of a mindfuck than anything. This was one of the first commercials shown in Poland, in 1989 just as communism was about to end (there was no such thing as a TV commercial under communism - and the twilight years were somewhat liberalized), for a flypaper-like product (but for cockroaches). So whoever spliced this had no idea what a commercial is supposed to be and went for a kinda David Lynch-esque territory.
 
Dr. Tremolo dijo:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=fSiepbrBudsIt's kinda bad alright, but it was more of a mindfuck than anything. This was one of the first commercials shown in Poland, in 1989 just as communism was about to end (there was no such thing as a TV commercial under communism - and the twilight years were somewhat liberalized), for a flypaper-like product (but for cockroaches). So whoever spliced this had no idea what a commercial is supposed to be and went for a kinda David Lynch-esque territory.
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This looks like it's from an unauthorized Soviet remake of Videodrome.

Speaking of:


"In Soviet Russia, meat slaughters you"
 
Última edición:
Googling the name of Harry Egipt (the guy who did the Estonian chicken commercial) led me to this. It's a fascinating insight as to how and why Soviet TV ads were made.

Long story short, only one studio in the USSR made advertisements. The products advertised were either not available in stores, or never really existed in the first place. The people actually making the commercials were often artsy film-school types. The whole reason why this enterprise was allowed? Because everyone else was doing it.

Anyways, back to crappy ads.

 
Lucky Wildcard dijo:
*Checks thread*

YES! I get to post these! Behold, from Chicago, Illinois, Eagleman commercials for auto insurance!

https://youtube.com/watch?v=AsJLSdYLq6ohttps://youtube.com/watch?v=kL1QUmeEZQchttps://youtube.com/watch?v=OyJXxnJKWkE
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I think I first saw the first ad in Spanish.

Dr. Tremolo dijo:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=fSiepbrBudsIt's kinda bad alright, but it was more of a mindfuck than anything. This was one of the first commercials shown in Poland, in 1989 just as communism was about to end (there was no such thing as a TV commercial under communism - and the twilight years were somewhat liberalized), for a flypaper-like product (but for cockroaches). So whoever spliced this had no idea what a commercial is supposed to be and went for a kinda David Lynch-esque territory.
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I love how they put "La Cucaracha" in the ad.
 
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