Ozzy vs. Bieber: Bid for Charity

In case you missed the Ozzy Best Buy ad that ran during the Super Bowl...

They're now auctioning off the space suits that Ozzy and Justin Bieber wore during the commercial, with proceeds going to the Sharon Osbourne Colon Cancer Program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Right now, Ozzy's suit has a lower bid than Bieber's. I'm not sure what a Bieber is, but don't let it beat the Effing Prince of Darkness!

Worst Commercials in America

The Consumerist recently awarded their winners of the Worst Ads in America.  Just in case you haven't experienced the nails-on-chalkboard, nausea-inducing, want-to-punch-inanimate-objects-in-the-face joy of these commercials... here are a few of the winners.

The Worst Ad in America:
Anyone else remember the bald guy as the neighbor from "The Single Guy"? Anyone else even remember "The Single Guy"?


Most Grating Performance From a Human:


Celebrity Who Must Have Lost the Most Money During the Housing Crash:
Jimmy Johnson is not only pimping supposedly johnson-enlarging pills, but he's such a pseudo-celeb that he has to make it clear that he's not the race car driver Jimmy Johnson... but they put him in front of a racecar wearing a racing jumpsuit.


Creepiest Commercial:
One word: Catheters.

Best Super Bowl Ad

And the Elwood Award for Best Super Bowl Ad of 2010 goes to...

The Late Show with David Letterman

OK, so it's a station promo and not even a real paid-for ad. But it was still funnier than anything else last night.

And if I have to see those stupid, creepy, talking E-Trade babies one more time I'm going to punch my television screen. Maybe not my new 42" HD plasma, but I'll go upstairs and punch my old worn down 13".

I've got better ads than the Super Bowl.

Maybe I'm looking back on the past with rose-colored glasses. Maybe I'm forgetting all the crappy ads that ran in past years. But didn't we get much better Super Bowl ads in the old days? Iconic ads like the Apple/MacIntosh "1984" ad, Mean Joe Green tossing the kid his jersey in exchange for a Coke, or the ad that launched Pepsi's new look/logo with Cindy Crawford? These were all iconic ads that often launched a company's entire ad campaign for the next year or longer. Even the Budweiser Frogs and the "Wassup!" guys - as annoying as they became - were fantastic ads when they launched.

But this year, as it's been for the last few years, I'm disappointed. A bunch of moderately entertaining ads. Some boring. One or two flashes of brilliance (check out the Career Builder ad for that). Actually you can check out all of the Super Bowl XLIII ads below and be disappointed for yourself.


But to give you something that's even worse than this year's lame crop Super Bowl ads, I've got a few of my favorite all-time local TV ads to share with you...

This Is It Furniture
These are some of the worst commercials ever. And I've loved them ever since I first saw them in college. They've been running these ads in Champaign, Illinois for at least a decade, and it's kinda depressing to have seen this guy drag his kids into the commercials to act as over the top as he does. He always shouts "Downer! Downer! Downer!" and you always get a free onion. Seriously - they have free onions for customers at the store. Don't ask me why.


Eagle Man Insurance
This is a great Chicagoland treasure from 1993. Possibly the worst commercial of all time - not just for the awful acting. Not just for the terrible 80's mall-hair on the girls. Not just for the guy in an eagle costume who looks like he's going to take a dump on the roof of the car. Somehow the sum of the ad is even more horrendous than its hilariously miserable parts.

More Bad Local Ads
If you enjoyed those, be sure to check out this guy's list of the 50 Greatest Local TV Commercials. Some truly great crap.

Europe Has It Right
I'll leave you by changing gears from bad ads to one good one. This commercial would never fly in the states, but it might just be one of the funniest and most effective messages you could come up with for the product.