h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

One that always makes me laugh out loud is for some kind of deodorant where a guy falls off his horse, over a cliff, and just manages to grab hold of a handy branch. On looking up, he sees opposite a woman hanging from a branch nearby as though she's been there for hours. All she says is 'hi'.

I can't explain why I find this so hysterical, I just do.

Other humourous adds include Tango and Irn-Bru.
The original Tango one, with the little orange bloke running up and slapping some poor sod in a football-stylee-replay was astoundingly funny. Also led to many a violent act at school and it's eventual banning (I think).
Irn-Bru are just plain wierd. I like the one with the Granny on the stair lift, allthough the older ones, with the Rod Stewert rip-off and the guy being beaten up by a can machine were very good as well.

Hmmm, The Campaign for Surrealist Violence in Adverts, CamSuVA. Join today

One of my favourite, at the moment anyway, is one for Impulse body spray.
A woman wanders past a bloke who immediately rises and begins to follow her. He brushes past a big, beefy biker type, past two voluptuous women and so on. With each 'encounter' the lass being followed looks more and more pleased with herself. Finally she crosses a road and he's just about to follow, stepping in the path of a bus. He's stopped by his dog barking, which turns out to be a guide dog. Turns out he's blind.
/Then/ she remembers putting on her Impulse

While I'm thinking about it, one of my all time favourites would have to be an old Fosters ad. A flatbed ute is parked outside an outback pub, stacked high with cartons of Fosters, and more are being brought out. With each carton you hear the ute creak in protest. One bloke turns to another and asks:
"What about something for the ladies?"
The second bloke nods and turns to the barman, "And 2 bottles of sherry thanks mate."
The sherry is brought out and placed on the back of the ute with the beer and the ute immediately collapses.
Second bloke turns to the first and says,
"I think we've overdone it on the sherry again."
"Yeah"

A few of my favourites:

Cresta (1980s soft drink) - An animated polar bear wearing shades, does bodybuilding exercised while shouting "Rimsky Korsakopf! Ike! Ike! Grrrrrr! Terrrrrrifffic!"

Pepsi - various, but especially the one from the 1970s that starts "Lipsmackin' Motivatin' Hi-Walkin' Cool-talkin' Ever givin' Fast-livin' Cool-drinkin' Pepsi!" or somesuch...

Budweiser and Bud Light - Frogs, Lizards, Ants and Anteaters... They should get David Attenborough as their spokesperson! (Or Rolf Harris...?)

Irn Bru - all the "Pepsi" take-offs, especially the teenage girl who throws her boyfriend over a tree before breaking several lampposts etc. with her bare hands...

All four are for beverages - do you see a pattern forming here?

What about Tango, with phrases like "Non Tango drinkers sponge off people like you and me!"
Guinness ones are also extremely good, though they aren't as funny, they are still brilliant.

Tango ads never really worked for me, although the "Boxing ring on the clifftop" one was rather clever... The problem is that I've never appreciated humour through embarrassment - I always find myself empathising with the character being embarrasses (eg hit with a fish by a dwarf painted orange... you get the idea...)

Are you often attacked by orange Dwarves?
I am currently quite taken with the current Tampax (I think) advert. The one where she sits around saying that she COULD go sking, skating, sky-diving, etc whilst wearing it. Could, but doesn't. Kind of a parody on the previous ones.

Hey, I live in Aberdeen... It's just one of those unavoidable little irritations, along with the dinosaurs eating the buses and rampaging chocolate-eating monsters...