TV commercials generally cost a lot to make and cost a lot to broadcast. A TV commercial that backfires can cost the most if it drives people away from the product or message. Here are a couple that do just that for me.

The first is a commercial I keep seeing where a skateboarding kid tosses an empty soda can into a garbage can. Very green, right? But then a pterodactyl swoops down and grabs him away, ostensibly to punish him by using him as regurgitated food for its kids. What was the kid’s crime? I thought we were against litter. Someone finally told me that the kid failed to recycle the can. I’m sorry, but the kid made a conscientious decision to avoid littering. Since when is a good deed not good enough to save you from hungry pterodactyls?

In this next one, some guy opens up a Snickers bar. So far, it works for me. Suddenly a very old-looking Patrick Ewing – proving he can’t even deliver a one-word line without making us cringe at his bad acting – rudely plows through the guy and dunks a basketball into an exploding basket. I used to like Snickers, but I’m avoiding them like poison now that I’ve been scared straight by this glandular freak.

More next week. What commercials have turned you off?

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