4 Commercials Directed At An Audience That Doesn't Exist

Nobody likes commercials. They're intrusive little televised turdlets that take advantage of your relaxed state and attempt to sell you something which, 99 percent of the time, you couldn't make yourself have an interest in if you were being paid to do so with gold nuggets and BJs. They show up during something you want to watch like uninvited guests at a party and say shit you didn't ask to hear about, like a drunk uncle explaining his toe fungus. Fuck commercials. But especially fuck commercials that transcend that 99-percent uselessness into 100-percent inexplicable, who-the-fuck-is-this-directed-at realm of madness where you can't imagine anyone ever wanting to buy the product in question.

4 V.I.Poo

The first two times I saw this commercial, I was fairly convinced it was some kind of parody and that I had somehow missed what it was about, perhaps because of a phone call distracting me or one of those shoot-fighting matches with nefarious pirates from abroad. But that wasn't the case.

V.I.Poo is a substance you spray in the shitter so that when you shit, it seals the shit in, thus duping everyone else into thinking you never shat. And that's fine. Swell. Go ahead and pretend your colon is nothing but a hazy specter in the night, threatening to chowder up the bowl but never following through with it. I don't care -- or give a shit, as the case may be. (Hold for applause ...) But the commercial is so cock-eyed and ass-backwards that I wonder what kind of shit-deficient dunderheads they're trying to sell this bullshit to.

Why does the Billy Mays director guy walk into the crapper after this lady and waft up the scent? What kind of fecalphiliac are we dealing with here? I've heard Tarantino does some weird shit, but even the rumors about him haven't extended to desperately trying to snort shit fumes like your ass was a Neti Pot.

4 Commercials Directed At An Audience That Doesn't Exist — michaklootwijk/iStock

Unless you wipe with your feet. He'd probably be into that.

Who coined the term "Devil's Donuts"? Is that a colloquialism I've simply never run afoul of until now? Is that regional slang? If I go to Denver, are people going to be excusing themselves from the table to shuck a few Devil's Donuts? Because if that's not the case, this is unacceptable. This is worse than trying to make "fetch" happen. Don't try to make Devil's Donuts happen; it's not going to catch on, I can assure you. Have you ever watched Family Feud when someone gives a mind-numbingly dunce answer, and Steve Harvey looks at the camera like "This fuckin' guy" and waits for the X? That's the look life gives Devil's Donuts.

Realistically, how concerned have you been in your life about the ghosts of tacos past you've left behind in the bathroom, anyway? That's not to say I don't understand that some people seem to shit pure hatred and diesel -- I've gone to the bathroom after my dad before, and he made the paint bubble and the faucets sweat. It was a constant battle to maintain consciousness in those less-than-halcyon days. But is it really such a prevalent thought in your mind you need to buy a product to cover it up? I can only assume you live a life of leisure, luxury, and love if you have no greater concerns than errant swamp gas.

And that your toilet comes from the Trump School of Interior Design.

More likely, the deal is as I suspect, that no one actually needs this product. It's like the whoopee cushion or Activia yogurt: some random fucking thing with no real appeal that people buy on novelty whims just because. It's weird how many products seem to make a fortune that way.

3 Easy Rest

For reasons I can't account for, The Game Show Network seems to have its own commercials that don't exist elsewhere. They advertise a ton of Seen-On-TV junk, so if you ever sit down for their daily six-hour block of Family Feud, you're going to get a healthy dose of products that only cost $19.99, and if you act now, you get a second for free. This is one of their commercials that I have yet to fully unravel, as it's something of a puzzler to me.

On the surface, it's another typical adjustable bed commercial. Craftmatic's been on top of that shit since Sandford and Son was in prime-time. But then you watch it again and wonder "How much Ritalin was on set when they filmed this?"

"Ritalin."

Watch the lady at the 0:14 mark. Is there any chance this chick is not so high that she's seeing unicorns and dead relatives frolicking in the trees? She reacts as if Jesus gave her an uppercut made of rainbow healing when she hears about the bed contest. For that matter, watch the lady at 0:33 trying to puzzle out this Faustian bed deal. Is she an abnormally peppy grandma, or does someone have a car battery connected to the nipples here? They all need to dial it back a good 5-10 percent.

The product and contest themselves seem like they should be easy sells, so how did the casting director bungle this commercial so badly and end up trying to convince me to get a new bed on the strength of two ladies who remind me of grandma when she was dangerously off her meds? And if you think that's a joke, you never met my straight-up guano loco grandma. She once punched me in the face when I was a baby because she said I was cursing her out, no lie. It wasn't until many years later that I learned to curse her out, so her whole reaction was quite unfounded.

2 Bullet Express

Oh my god, this infomercial. I think, in one form or another, it has existed for the better part of a decade. They keep filming vaguely new ones, each built on the refuse pile of terrible acting from the previous one. This commercial doesn't advertise a product so much as dare you to buy it. You see how dumb this shit is, so why don't you try to see if you can recreate the dumbfuckery in your own kitchen.

The problem isn't the product (though if online reviews are to be believed, you might want to look into a different food processor). It's the Saturday afternoon theater group of actors who try to bring it to life like Frankenstein trying to use friction instead of electricity on his monster, being awkward and weird until it mercifully ends. I have no doubt that infomercials are cheesy intentionally; it probably gets more attention then trying to have Tom Hanks and Daniel Day-Lewis dramatically espouse the virtues of a machine that can make me a quesadilla in two minutes. But there's a fine line between cheese and "The fuck is this?"

The fact that this is 20 minutes long is the first thing you should take umbrage with. Who the hell needs 20 minutes to get the message here? If you need 20 minutes to be sold on a food processor, you shouldn't be trusted with a food processor in the first place. You're likely to get your face or your cat caught in there by accident.

And there is probably an infomercial out there trying sell you Super Magic Vinegar to clean up the blood.

Twelve seconds into this infomercial, we're introduced to some sour old harridan lamenting the lack of food at what we can assume is a dinner party. And sure, these two hosts are assholes for inviting people over to eat and not only having no food ready but also making them sit for 20 minutes while they make every meal in the same shitty piece of equipment, but show some fucking tact. You're a guest, you execrable crone.

No less than two seconds later, an older and cronier hag starts slinging shade, suggesting the hosts are either lazy shits or have spent all day boning. My interpretation is for the latter, because seriously, is the lady leading the infomercial wearing a nightgown?

At 0:30 seconds, we get our first real glimpse of this commercial's dark, terrible secret: Fatty McGoo. This guy is fat, and that means he's a fuckin' snack Sarlaac, eager to empty any and all foodstuffs into his craw. This will be an ongoing joke for 20 minutes. It's almost surprising that they don't make him perform tricks before giving him a chum bucket, given the way they beat you over the head that yes, fat asses will love this invention because it makes all your favorite fatty fatty fat fat treats in super-quick time, so you don't ever need to stop sweating while you chew. Let's go over the fat man highlight reel.

1:18 - Hey Tubbins, do you like pizza? Of course he does, as his wife/girlfriend/random stranger pats his gut, in case you didn't know she was suggesting that yes, he likes pizza. Look at his flab dumpster.

2:04 - Fatty turns into Gollum and runs away with the precious nachos, eager to quell the never-ending hunger with desiccated chicken and sloppy tomato on chips.

2:30 - Bobo doesn't want to be a part of this infomercial. He belches out around a mouthful of mushy tortilla and cheese that it's time to stop talking and make more food.

7:17 - Orson has been alone in a corner eating nachos for five solid minutes with no interaction. But now the puppet masters call on him so they can make him look like a fool by sending him on a wild goose chase for a cutting board and a knife while they make an entire salad in his absence, mocking him upon his limp return with items they don't require. Everyone laughs at the circus elephant.

Is this product solely for misanthropes, or can anyone buy it? They don't make it clear, but at the end of the day, this is a food processor, so shut up already.

Side note: The pizza they make at 1:30 or so is all you need to convince you that this whole infomercial is bullshit. My right nut says that pizza was barely even edible at best. What kind of jackwagon explodes a fucking tomato into pizza dough and calls that shit sauce? Not even salt and pepper, let alone any spices -- nothing but four brutalized shitty tomatoes? Go fuck your rancid failure of a pizza.

1 Charmin "Skids"

We've all seen the Charmin bears before, and we've all accepted that Charmin is convinced bears poop a lot. If there's any chance they weren't inspired by the saying "Does a bear shit in the woods?" I will eat my hat. And this hat is not meant for eating, strictly speaking. So in general, sure, use bears to sell toilet paper. You have to use something, I guess. But then there's this commercial. This one particular boondoggle of advertising.

The set up is this: Four teen bears are playing what appears to be a knockoff Chinese Xbox. One of them has just shit, and was so impressed by the Charmin that he brings it into the room with his friends, letting them know that it feels as though he's used a washcloth to wipe his ass, as opposed to traditional toilet paper.

Which we all know is sandpaper that flunked out of college.

The bear, whom we must now assume is the child of the homeowner, begins to explain that Charmin is some next-level ass-wipery -- like, almost voodoo-level shit tickets. In fact, Charmin is so good at sluicing the fudge from your crevasse that you could throw caution to the wind and dare to wear your underwear for more than one day -- the implication being that previously, you were spackling the back of your Hanes with a colonic paintball gun of odious malfeasance at every turn.

Mom breaks up the show by condemning the idea of a two-day underwear marathon, and we go into the predictable and mundane sales pitch. But then we take a hard left turn into unprecedented territory as the commercial wraps up. The lead bear proclaims that the paper cleans better, and then, as an afterthought, he turns to one friend and says, "You should try it, Skids."

Skids.

Maybe he's really good at power slides?

Imagine, if you will, being the one member of a circle of friends not known for being the funny one, the good athlete, the smart one, or anything even remotely positive. Instead, you're known as the kid who routinely fails at wiping his ass. And somehow, it's so obvious, somehow the state of your underwear has gotten into the public realm with such aplomb, that your identity has been swapped from whatever name you were given by your loving parents to Skids -- a reference to the shit that constantly mars your backside and has become the whole of your reality. You are a serial filth monger, an unrepentant dirty-assed carnival barker streaking across the white cotton of your very soul so that nothing about you, not one damn thing, is more remarkable or noteworthy than the fact you cannot and/or will not properly clean your balloon knot. What in the holy hell is going on here?

Who, who amongst us sees this and says, "Jesus, that bear is speaking right to me! I can't recall the last time I wasn't riding an auburn slip n' slide in my trousers. Thank god this product now exists." This is marketing bumblefuckery on a scale barely imaginable. This was OK'd probably by an entire board room of toilet paper executives, all of whom agreed that yes, we need to target the fucking skid mark market and we need to do so bluntly.

One of our most popular episodes from 2016 was when we invited Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark from 'My Favorite Murder' to talk about some of the best true-crime stories out there. So successful, in fact, that we're resurrecting it (get it?) for a part two! Metal Fang, the Strangling Executioner and the murderer living in the attic just weren't enough. So Jack O'Brien, Dan O'Brien and the Cracked staff welcome Karen and Georgia back for another creepy hour of serial killers and urban legends that are bound to make you terrified to go outside or talk to a stranger or do anything.

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