As Seen on TV: The 10 Most Laughably Misleading Ads

What they're selling:
A bungee cord contraption designed by old-school sports legend Ike Berger, a gold medal weightlifter in the 1908 Olympics. He evidently wants in on some of that sweet mail-order action that the estate of Charles Atlas has been milking for the better part of a century. This device apparently works out every conceivable part of your body, possibly while wearing your gold medal and gazing emptily into the far off distance.

The hyperbole:
About 50 seconds in, there is a sequence that demonstrates how effort-driven and boring regular exercises are. Crunches, push-ups, machines at the gym ... you'll burn more energy in your exaggerated, anguished facial expressions than the actual workout.

Meanwhile, the grandma looks like she needs to re-read the manual.

People that workout do not have a bored/exasperated look on their face during their workouts. Rather, the commercial seems to be depicting what lazy people THINK they would look like if someone forced their fat asses into the gym.

The reality:
For many movements, the device seems to be interfering with the natural resistance provided by gravity. In those instances, it is clearly shittier than having nothing at all. Also, you're going to use that thing for about five minutes before it slips off your foot and smacks you in the face.

What they are selling:
Tiddy Bear, a furry teddy-bear thing that attaches to seatbelts with a strap-and-snap mechanism that's state of the art, assuming you've never heard of Velcro. It attaches in a way that lets you move it "up and down to relieve pressure wherever you need it" to relieve the unbearable, searing pain of an automobile seat belt.

The hyperbole:
The ad opens with a sequence featuring two chicks who are obviously frustrated with the lack of furry stimulation to their upper torso. The Maria Shriver look-alike (18 seconds in) tells us that seatbelts make it hard for her to breathe. Instead of investing in a ribcage implant to provide the protection her internal organs so desperately need, she opted for the Tiddy Bear.

The reality:
The basic idea probably has its place (i.e. a comfortable pad that attaches to your seatbelt), but the execution, here, is awful. Who the hell would find an irregularly shaped bear comfortable? What kind of fucktard would wear that monstrosity proudly on their chest?

We've gone all this way without mentioning the obvious fact that we're supposed to hear "Titty Bear" when they say the product name. That ill-fitting name and the near-uselessness of the product makes us suspect some company inherited a warehouse filled with 100,000 of these in unmarked boxes. Then they sat around for a whole afternoon trying to figure out what the fuck they were for, and finally ran out of time and just settled on "Seatbelt cushion."

What they're selling:
A cooking pot with miraculous drainage holes built into the lid, eliminating the need for colanders, strainers, or leaving a small crack to let the water drain from your pot into the sink.

The hyperbole:
From the sink full of dishes this product avoids (apparently a colander is actually a sink full of pots and pans), to the pound of spaghetti that plops into the sink and down the drain, to the guy who tries to strain his pasta using a plate, this one is chock full.

For our money, the cameo by cocksucker husband, who irritably taps his watch when his wife drops the pasta, is the clear winner. The expected "Where's my dinner bitch?" comment is never uttered, but it is practically swirling around on screen in capitalized letters like tiny angry-man sugar plums.

Also, on top of saving your marriage, the amazingly versatile Pasta Pro fits both gas and electric stoves.

You try to pull that shit with a regular pot, the bastard's likely to burst into flame. You won't have time to worry about that, though, as the fierce blows rain down from your husband's belt.

The reality:
Let's just go right to a customer review on this one:

"After I had dumped the water out of the pot, the steam or something caused the lid to adhere to the pot. I couldn't get it off! I ended up throwing it all out."

What they're selling:
Powerjet, a garden-hose attachment from back in the day that helped you wash your car in ways that countless similar hose attachments apparently didn't.

The hyperbole:
The opening 10-second sequence is a tour de force for "car wash guy." We don't even get an establishing shot of him doing his thing. Instead, the ad begins cold with him standing stupidly in front of a soapy car while holding his flaccid hose.

It only takes about a second for the infuriating truth to sink in, because the timer or something has run out on the water. He's dressed casually and washing his car, so you would assume that time is on his side. You would be wrong. He is in a fucking hurry. From the moment he notices the water has stopped, he stalks around like a cornered animal, clawing at his pockets for quarters, and lashing out at nearby equipment. That is, until the climax of the scene when he collapses on his car in despair, for a lack of change and a surplus of soap.

The denouement, and our highlight, is a dazzling feat of nonsensical stagecraft: a final insulting splash of soapy water out of fucking nowhere.

Our interpretation? Self-service car washes are self-aware and, more importantly, malevolent.

The reality:
The problem that they are setting up for their product to solve seems to be emotional instability, not dirty cars.

The novelty of the Powerjet is supposed to be the little compartment for adding soap. Soap wasn't car wash guy's problem. In fact, based on what we know about him so far, giving him more soap would risk driving him to psychosis and murder. A subsequent dramatic collapse onto whatever happens to be available at the time is quite possible, and even likely.

What they're selling:
A knife set, shown cutting various objects that you want to destroy, disfigure, or eat.

The hyperbole:
The fun starts around 27 seconds in, with a gory scene where a woman stabs a tomato and apparently nicks its artery.

The next shot shows us a guy who is apparently "ruining his meal" by carving his turkey perfectly, completely without the help of a Miracle Blade.

Finally, we are shown a guy dressed like a construction worker cutting some meat with a hacksaw, wearing safety hat and glasses no less.

We realize he's supposed to be a playful caricature, which is odd considering the entire joke here seems to be that the knives you have at home are probably fine and don't really need replacing.

It seriously makes us wonder if somebody at the ad company just said "fuck it" and decided to see if the manufacturer and/or the customers would notice an intentionally retarded ad.

Well, the verdict is apparently in. The intro says they're the best-selling knives in America.

The reality:
According to the reviews, the only complaint is too much of a good thing:

"... well I ended up in the emergency room with stitches .... just be careful they are really quite sharp."

Hopefully that person wasn't peeling a potato when that happened. Otherwise, we owe the Handy Peel an apology.

You can find more of Glenn's stuff on his blog SoapBoxFrequent.

If you liked this article, check out blogger Ross Wolinsky's article on The 10 Most Ridiculous Inventions Ever Patented .