TVSquad

Early next year NBC Universal will launch Didja.com, a YouTube-like video site made just for advertisers. The site will feature TV spots both old and new, movie trailers and other brand-related stuff. Advertisers will also include special offers and promotions to coincide with their specific channel.

The idea was concocted by executives at the NBC Universal-owned USA cable network, so expect lots of ads for that particular network when the site launches. Eventually, other NBC Universal properties will show up on the site, as well.

Look, we all want old men to have sex, no one's arguing that point, but couldn't Viagra use a different approach with its commercials?

There's one airing right now that shows an older gentleman (not ancient, but probably in his 60s) washing his car. His wife sashays past him, gives him the "I want sex now" look over her shoulder, and steps into the house.

"A commercial has to be like a DVD extra. It has to be an added value, not an inconvenience."

That quote comes from Robert Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University. Thompson's quote is part of this article that looks at the myriad ways networks are trying to get around the problem of DVRs and ad skipping.

I lead off with Thompson's quote because I think he's right. It used to be enough to just inundate viewers with advertisements of various quality, but now that we have more control over what we watch, advertisers need to work harder to keep our attention.

Who the heck is Oleg, you ask? He's an animated taxi driver, part of a new series of animated shorts that FOX hopes will keep viewers tuned in during commercial breaks, rather than tuning them out or skipping over them with their fancy DVRs. After the jump is a video from WSJ.com featuring two hilarious clips of Oleg, and by "hilarious" I mean, "not very funny at all."

Via Pop Watch comes Phat Phree's list of the top 50 greatest local commercials of all time, complete with YouTube clips. In this case, "greatest" doesn't really mean "greatest" in the usual sense, but instead refers to local commercials that are so amazingly bad you just can't forget them. The top five commercials are all for Norton Furniture in Cleavland, Ohio, and hokey smokes, are they weird. It's like Peter Lorre's and Salvador Dali's brains had sex and these commercials were the result.

I've watched a few of the commericials, and they all have their own kind of odd charm. I can't recall any local ads worth mentioning from my Iowa youth, though: they were mostly your typical spots featuring bad acting and lame gags. Still, when budgets are low and you can't hire real actors, you have to do the best you can.

If any of you have find memories of gloriously bad local ads, share them in the comments.

If you missed it last year when TBS looked at the funniest commercials from around the world, don't worry, the network is gearing up once again to do the same thing. On December 27 at 9 pm TBS will air Funniest Commercials of the Year: 2006, hosted once again by Kevin Nealon. Over fifty ads will be showcased during the special, and you can also visit the TBS site Very Funny Ads and vote on ten select ads, which should help to alleviate some of the guilt you might have felt for not voting in the midterms. This is the third year for the special, which I believe was inspired by the classic Funniest Daguerreotypes of the Year: 1840. I'll never forget how hard I laughed seeing James Fenimore Cooper reading a copy of The Pathfinder upside down. Such buffoonery had never been seen by the likes of me or my kin, I can tell you that for sure. I laughed so uproariously I almost tripped over the dead bodies of all my family members who had keeled over from consumption the week before. Those were good times.