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

It's been said before, but the pictures on boardgame boxes don't reflect reality. It's always a perfect family sitting round the table with perfect grins from ear to ear. In reality someone is losing their temper and throwing the board across the room and storming off, or someone is doing furtive under-the-table deals in monopoly to make someone else lose.

On the 'female products' - saw an awful one yesterday. Targeted at 'women over 40 who suffer bladder weakness at night'

2 more that get me reaching for the remote...

Disney Resort Florida..."Mmmmmmummy says its mmmmmmmmagical" - little brat! . And gawd help that couple when they fancy a bit of rumpy-pumpy. When Mmmmmmummy gets back into bed and asks whether hubby's asleep he whispers very quietly "no, I'm too excited" and the brats from the other room pipe up with "we heard that". Sheesh! No chance of a quiet quickie there then!

The other one that actually makes me shout at the screen...

Specsavers. The Jerry Springer spoof one where the ugly Doris in the even uglier specs is whinging about the dork in fairly normal glasses. She says that if he doesn't change his glasses then she will leave him. How annoying is this ad?

I remember when I was a nipper Disney seemed so magical and I would've given anything to go there or see their films. Now I'm grown up they just seem like Macdonald's with false smiles.

Any detergent ad where the mother (its always the mother) smiles fondly when her little mites show up covered in every kind of imaginable filth.

I think this gives kids a dangerously false idea of how adults really behave.

"I've seen some adverts that are grotesquely sexist- portraying a 'stupid' husband and a 'clever' wife. Were the roles reversed it would never get shown." Oh, no? What about the ads for Flash products, where the 'husband' (Karl Howman, I think) proves he's so much smarter than his wife because he uses Flash products to clean the bathroom / kitchen and she's amazed at how quickly the work was done. Ads like that (and all the other 'battle of the sexes' ads) make me cringe.

There's one 'battle of the sexes' ad where a woman builds a self-assembly bookcase in the time it takes her husband to make the tea. Richard reckons this ad proves how smart the husband is, 'cos he gets his wife to build the bookcase and he just makes the tea. How building a bookcase is reason to use a particular hand cream is beyond me.

Even in the Flash one the guy comes across as a lazy good-for-nothing. Although he does get the upper hand on his wife, true...

There was one ad in particular, which I seem to have wiped the details about from my memory, where the wife is _really_ unpleasant to her husband and the implication of the advert is how good it is to be like her... It was almost the equivalent of a husband punching his wife in the face and then bragging to camera.

Any ad that does 'battle of the sexes' with either side shown only as feeble gets my goat.

There was a really annoying advert of this type for an insurance company (like we need more reasons to hate them) There's this couple and she has found a deal (on the internet i think) and he tries to say that his dad knew another company or something and she replies 'but im not your dad' as if to imply both he and his dad are stupid morons. She is so annoying i decreed never to go out with a girl like that and never to buy insurance from that company - but i cant remember who it is. D'oh. I think they actually did another ad with the same couple that was just as cringe - inducing

That one was the AA. I remember thinking that the woman was somewhat smug.

I really hate those adverts for baby nappies that show an endless stream of infant bums. I don't want to see that!

Wow that was quick jimbob - Ta.
Glad im not the only one. I hope they had AA breakdown cover - imagine having to sit in a broken down car with her for more than 10 mins...

Wasnt there an ad featuring adult bums for loo roll or something - it always seemed to come on just as i tucking into my dinner.

Sorry just to jump I here, but: Battle of the Sexes Adverts. Just who admits to liking them at all? Surely they just irritate everyone, which kinda undoes the whole point of the advert. People don’t buy the product, in fact many loath the advert so much they may *avoid* said product.

One that got my goat quite a while back was for some easy-cook sauce thingy. You had this man cooking (already raising eyebrows, men can’t cook can they?!?). Anyway, he was cooking and obviously using this sauce (Mexican maybe?). Meanwhile his wife/partner/whatever was talking to her friend on the phone. She’s obviously asked what she’s cooking for dinner (because, that’s just what women do on the phone, right?), but this woman doesn’t know because the man is cooking. She then proceeds to tell her friend just how awful she expects the meal to be. She even gets quite rude, hinting that she’d never enjoy anything he cooked, and implying that it looked and smelt bad. However, when he serves the meal she is very pleased, and says something to the effect of “You can cook more often then.”

This made me so angry! After what that had was saying about his cooking, the bloke should have just poured it over her head! But no, in the end, he’s pleased he’s “impressed” her. Maddnes.

L.I.

Hi L.I.! No need to apologise - jump in anytime!

I know the one you mean, in fact it is still running and i saw it only the other day, and thought exactly the same. If i was that guy i'd definately have thrown some arsenic or better still some laxatives in! The stereotype that men can't cook is so out of date i cant believe it is still used

There's a stupid advert where women are saying you wouldn't believe their age. It professes that the cream will make your forehead creases look ten years younger, your crows feet twelve years younger etc. If you have wrinkles, you don't want them however young they are. The advert appears to be dubbed in places and one woman says she is 38 (?) when her lips are saying otherwise. She probably originally said 32 and people thought yeah so what, that's what I would have said so the dubber lies and says an inflated untrue age. Not sure it's a cheap budget foreign add either, as everyone else appears to be in rhythm wth the mouth movements.

I, too, hate the one with the little boy screwing up his face at the bad odour of his number 2's. This is such bad taste and surely makes most people feel ill especially at tea time.

I like the advert at the moment where the son is teleconferencing his mum and dad on holiday and the house is a tip so he just pushes everything to the edges outside the perameters of the camera. Then you see the Mum and Dad sitting thier end in their undies from the waist down. See it's funny now but they tend to repeat and repeat until you are sick of them. A whole range of them done at once are the best kind - like they used to do with Maureen Lipman and BT. Those were the best.

There must be 2 different versions of that webcam ad...the one I have seen has his girlfriend walking through and ruffling his hair...not seen the one with ma and pa in their undies though!

I really don't like all the RSPCA ads...they make me cry - and if I'm feeling particularly emotional I sob for ages (and then run and find my cats and cuddle them to pieces whilst they look at me as if I'm mad).

RSPCA ads, and other "protection of animal" style ads sometimes get on my nerves. I'm very aware that animal cruelty *is* a serious problem, and yes it needs to be brought to the publics attention, and yes the RSPCA do incredible work. However, I disagree with how they portray some of the animals. Sometimes they’re given “voices” and a little history. I can see why this appeals to human nature, but personification of the little animals is sometimes taken too far.

There’s a certain advert for a dog charity I think where a we ‘hear’ a cowering dogs ‘thoughts’. I’m happy to admit I’m not an animal psychologist, but I some how doubt it’s thinking “Ohh no! My master will beat me. I’ll hide here and hope the Charity rescues me!” Or there’s another scene with an ‘older’ dog, voiced my a mature male. This dog seems to be suffering loss of memory “How did I end up outside?”

I just think the personification gets a bit silly. Having said that, it’s probably what has the most impact, and so I assume that’s why they continue using them.

L. I.

One of the worst 'animal protection' adverts I've ever seen was in a magazine some years ago. It showed a cute little kitten, and the text went on to about the fact that dogs and cats are eaten in countries like Korea and Viet Nam. There was no mention of the animals being killed in an inhumane manner, just the picture of the kitten, which gave me the feeling that I was being told "These people are doing a bad thing because they eat dogs and cats." I have no objection to people eating any animal they want, as long as the animal is killed in a humane manner. The 'woolly thinking' that seemed to go into that advertisement put me off that charity (IFAW) for life.

David Bedford has won his case against 118118, btw. However, the judge ruled that he hasn't suffered financially and therefore didn't ban the ad.

My dad reminded me of this one last night.

We all know that although there are no adverts per se ont the BBC, Auntie is not averse to flogging her own products and services.

There is a current advert for BBCi Digital Teletext thingy doing the rounds on terrestrial TV, with Jensen Button. I presume they chose him because he's a racing driver and they wanted to give the sensation of speed to the service. However, Button is about as charismatic as a dead haddock, and the script is pure tosh. Also, anyone who has tried to use the BBCi thingy on freeview will tell you it is slow, tedious, difficult to navigate and not a significant improvement over the old text system.

It is therefore a) annoying b) inaccurate and b) rubbish.

Just seen the new Capital One ad. I wouldn't hate them quite so much if they didn't keep sending me paper spam.

Any with Carol "smiley, smiley, smile, smile, smiley" Smiley in. The loan* one irks me the most.










*Your home may be at risk - yea she might try to paint it!