TVSquad

I'm not sure if anyone else in the world is experiencing this, but every time I watch ABC World News with Charles Gibson, something happens that confuses and scares me a little.

During the commercials, the vocal track is completely silent, and all I hear is the music track.

It's good to know that in times of economic uncertainty and the impending collapse of our infrastructure that our leaders are taking the time to combat the true faces of evil in our world -- penis pill ads.

U.S. Rep Jim Moran of Virginia recently sent letters to three major drug manufacturing companies (Pfizer, Eli Lily, and GlaxoSmithKline) asking them to "tone down" the nature and material of their erectile dysfunction ads on TV.

Moran's beef (ahem) with the companies are how they affect the children, stating, "Parents should be able to watch a football game with their kids without having to either mute the television or explain the side effects of a life enhancement drug." The issue seems to be a personal one for the representative. I mean with the television ads, not ED, although I can't say that with any certainty, or maybe I just don't want to.

Let's talk (again) about commercials we hate.

Or maybe I should say commercials I hate, though I think you'll agree with me on some of these. They run the gamut from silly to ineffective, from dumb to just plain jaw-dropping. Let's start with jaw-dropping.

1. DirecTV's Poltergeist ad. This is...creepy and tasteless. Do the makers of this ad really not know that young Poltergeist star Heather O'Rourke died at a really young age? Even if they didn't (I'm kidding, of course they did), the star of the ad, Craig T. Nelson, is aware of it. So why use footage of her in the ad? It's just bizarre to me. Then again I'm not a DirecTV exec. They must know that what they're doing by using footage of a deceased child star (and a stand-in) to sell satellite TV service.