TVSquad

Let's do a little "Whatever happened to..."

Commercials can be a really strong jump start for memories and nostalgia. In fact, I think they can sometimes trigger a certain feeling in us even more than TV shows because they were repeated 700 times when we kids and we remember them strongly, even though we don't see them any longer.

After the jump we catch up with three classic commercial icons from the 80s. One famous for swinging a hammer, one famous for getting confronted by his dad, and one famous for fishing.

Have you ever noticed that men are often the butt of jokes on television? Whether it's the goofy, lazy husband on sitcoms or the incompetent, oversexed guy on TV commercials, men are often shown in a bad light (I know, I know, woman only make 70 cents for every $1.00 a man makes, but it's almost Father's Day so let's talk about this, OK?). AskMen.com has a list of the 10 worst male-bashing commercials on television.

Let's talk about cereal commercials (again).

I thought of all of the cereal commercials we've had over the years after seeing the latest ads for Fiber One. Yes, to answer your question, that is Kate and Allie's Fred Koehler playing the store clerk who calls the manager over after the customer has a question about the lack of twigs in his cereal (that's Koehler with Johnathon Schaech). At first I thought to myself, "why is he doing cereal commercials instead of TV shows and movies?," but then I figured, hey, we all have to pay the bills, and Fiber One cereal is good! I just saw a sequel to the ad that features new Fiber One/Yoplait Yogurt and in it you see Kathryn Joosten, a great actress who played Mrs. Landingham on The West Wing and Mrs. McCluskey on Desperate Housewives and...well, a million other roles. So it's actually very cool to see them doing this stuff along with their many other roles.

A new column here at TV Squad, where we talk about all of the things you're missing when you hit fast forward on your DVRs.

This week, I'd like to talk to you about Cheerios.

Specifically, I'd like to talk to you about the Cheerios commercial that has been running for several months. You know it. It's the one where the dad is going to eat Cheerios for six weeks to lower his cholesterol and his son has six weeks to do a report on Shakespeare. I have a question about this particular ad, which seems to be on 33 times a day right now.

Does the dad hate his son?

A new column here at TV Squad, where we talk about all of the things you're missing when you hit fast forward on your DVRs.

I thought I'd kick off the very first Brought To You By...column by talking about yesterday's Super Bowl ads (apparently there was also a game of some sort played...). USA Today did their annual ranking of the best and worst of the ads, having a bunch of viewers watch the ads with meters and give an opinion on the good and the bad, and for some reason Bud got the top spot, the way they do every single year. It must be that the people who vote on these things like horses, wacky comedy, or they're all drunk (on Budweiser). The company got three of the top ten slots, and number one went to the spot where the dog trained the horse, accompanied by the Rocky theme. It's bad enough that Bud seems to win over viewers every year, but this dog/horse ad wasn't even the best of the Bud ads yesterday!

Anyway, I have my own thoughts on the best and worst, and I'll list them after the jump.

How much would you spend for a 30 second commercial on Grey's Anatomy? It's the most expensive TV show to advertise on, according to Ad Age magazine. It costs $419,000 for a half minute.

In second place is Sunday Night Football, which costs $358,000, and then The Simpsons, which is a cool $315,000. Rounding out the top 10 are Heroes ($296,000), Desperate Housewives ($270,000), CSI ($248,000), Two and a Half Men ($231,000), Survivor and Private Practice (tied at $208,000 each), and then Prison Break ($200,000).

It's really great to watch TV all day and night for a living. But then again, it's not that great to watch TV all day and night, because there's a lot of crap you have to put up with to get to the good stuff. Take commercials. Now, I actually like commercials, the good ones, but there are so many bad ones that...ugh. Here are five new-ish ones that have been driving me batty.

1. That Honda commercial with Danica Patrick: She's on her way to meet someone and is running late, so she drives fast and is pulled over by a state trooper. She says to herself "it's showtime" and decides to undo her shirt a little and make sure her makeup is OK, to show the cop her breasts and flirt so she won't get a ticket. Congratulations, Danica. All the progress you made by being a female race car driver was just set back five years. A true role model for all the little girls out there.

NBC is really thinking of new advertising strategies, eh?

First they have all the product placement and product placement plots on shows like 30 Rock, The Office, and Studio 60, and now they've reached a deal with Philips Electronics for the company to be the lone sponsor of next Monday's edition of NBC Nightly News. It's part of a $2 million deal the network did with Philips, and will include other cable shows and their weather network.

Of course, one sponsor has been done several times before, even this season. Smith had an episode that was completely sponsored by The Departed, the recent Martin Scorcese crime flick. It was presented with fewer commercial interruption, or however they phrase it. The NBC Nightly News will be presented the same way. Instead of having fourteen commercials during the 30 minute show there will be three, all by Philips.

Reminds me of the days when one company would sponsor a show. The Colgate Comedy Hour or Milk of Magnesia sponsoring the game shows in the 50s. All that was stopped when the sponsors started having too much input into how the shows were done, but I wonder if were inching towards something similar now.