You Old Softy: A Closer Look at Erectile Dysfunction Ads
As the only person who possesses breasts on Pointless Banter (sorry guys, moobs don’t count) I can tell you that women are constantly assaulted by images that the Almighty Cock is King. With the Power of the Penis, a single Pizza Delivery Guy can turn lesbians straight. When coupled with a business degree, a suit and a smattering of greed, it can fuck the American economy right in its ear (I didn’t see anyone who possessed a vagina testifying in front of Congress about the Wall Street Bailout Bill, although I did see a bunch of pussies who didn’t want to give up their private jets.)
The penis: what can’t it do?
Here’s one thing it can’t do: get or maintain an erection as it gets older. That’s okay, though, the drug companies have come to your rescue! It’s just their advertising that’s a wee bit confusing. Here’s a look at the advertising campaigns from five of the most popular ED drugs.
I love Elvis. Elvis – even fat Elvis sweating gravy in that white polyester jumpsuit – is manly. And if Viagra was around when the King was alive, I bet he’d take it. Add in the idea that Lisa Marie’s “Church” probably wanted a slice of that Fat Elvis money cake and we’ve got Viva Viagra!
Now there’s that guy, you all know him: he’s constantly bragging about the chick he’s banging. She’s always a Playmate, a Supermodel, or lives in Canada. But do guys hang out and jam about how they’re going home to bang the wife? According to Viva Viagra, they do. (William, a Sneeze Reader, agrees.)
A longtime blog reader once confessed to me that he didn’t get all that excited about the thought of having sex with his wife. I told him that she probably wasn’t doing the dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy over the thought of his old, saggy Nutcracker either.
Rock Hard is one of the “natural” performance enhancers, promising to get it up and keep it up for 72 hours straight. Guys, I’m going to let you in on a little secret here: there are precious few women that want to have sex for 72 hours in a row. Even a couple of hours and it feels like you’ve been humping Velcro. Yeah, I know Sting has Tantric Sex which lasts for days with his wife Trudie Styler, but he’s also filthy rich and probably pays people to crap for him. The rest of us like to shower and walk the dog and catch The Real Housewives Marathon.
Rock Hard Weekend works the party route with the “Rock Hard Red Carpet.” (I was hoping that meant an entire lineup of redheads, but alas, I’m the only one that crass.) The Hollywood shindig is staffed (ahem) with an assortment of skankalicious babes paid to hang out and let you think you have a shot at nailing them. Hot chicks to shill product is nothing new. What I don’t get are the famous dudes that show up to pimp the product. Isn’t that advertising that you can no longer get and keep it up?
Guess Gene can't rock-n-roll all night anymore.
Every Cialis ad ends the same way: An older couple. Taking baths. Outside. In separate tubs. I’ve been on a few nice vacations in my life, but I’ve never been somewhere where they dragged a claw foot tub into the wilderness so I could clean myself.
Where are the native people holding the water buckets? Where are the towels? What abut shoes? The thought of myself at age 70 trying to get my saggy ass out of a slippery tub and walking barefoot and butt naked through the wilderness makes me want to break a hip now and get it over with. Not to mention that the only thing I want to do after a bath is nap. I’m already an old person.
The current Levitra ads say “See Our Ad in This Old House.” There’s the problem: home remodeling magazines are the gateway drug to antiquing. The issue isn’t that you can’t get it up because you’re older. You can’t get it up because you’re a woman. Although it made me wonder about why they don’t feature gay couples in ED ads. Get with it, drug companies! You can double your sales!
Enzyte is another “natural” male enhancer. But instead of using rock stars and skanky babes, they use…Santa.
Maybe there’s some sort of Secret Santa Fetish that I was previously unaware of, but I’m pretty sure that no one wants to sit on Santa Boner’s lap. Especially when he’s Bob from Accounting.
Don’t get me wrong: I support the Penis Economy. I look forward to the day that my husband and I have old people sex. But these drugs sell themselves. Dump the ad agencies and use that money you were spending there for something really important. Like developing a cure for cancer. Or jetpacks.
What commericals drive you batty?
Don’t get me started on my thoughts about commercials. Being in advertising, I have seen/heard my fair share of really shitty ads.
My favorites, as written about here, is the “Yaz” birth control pill. 10 seconds of why you should use it, 50 seconds of how your blood turns to syrup and your uterus might fall out if you do. That goes for any pharmaceutical ad nowadays.
Plus, you can’t beat a lot of those local cable commercials. You know the ones, shot with a Sony Camcorder circa 1993 with audio created in a wind tunnel. Always a douchebag owner of the company too that think he has a career in Hollywood after he shouts, “come on out to Rose City Motors and we’ll gitcha that darn tootin’ good deal!”
Straight out of film school I had this secret desire to shill myself out to make local public access ads. Then I saw this one day while hanging out at my parents’ house and realized someone had had the same dream:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_y1xfzV8dM
You’ve got to be kidding me. I think I am going to compile a list of the ten worst local TV commercials I’ve ever seen.
Like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dsetFya1hU&feature=related
What kind of VEE-hickle are you lookin’ for?
Maybe its a regional commercial but here in the D.C. there is a company called cash point or cash advance and they give cash loans based on a free and clear car titles. They are shot much like Matt above me described with a camcorder and the actors are either employees of the company or friends of the owners. They are just horrible.
There is also one for a company called Senate insurance. Their tag line is “tell those other car insurance companies to kiss my bumper…. just kiss it.”
Its so bad but I can’t turn my eyes away from them.
Public access commercials are the home movies of the 80s!
Surprisingly these are not public acess commercials, They show them on stations like NBC, TBS and such.
The Extenze commercial with the couple chatting about it cracks me up and makes me feel really uncomfortable at the same time. It’s just too real. Apparently it makes it bigger too, or claims this. My 8 year old likes to watch survivor, and they run them during that, I have to play skip the commercial often.
Extenze almost made the, er, cut.
Every time I see a Cialis commercial I think of Cuba Gooding Jr’s version of one
That Bob guy freaks me out with his shit-eatin grin. Terrifying is what that is. We have this local car dealership called Rocky’s (and the knock off Mexican one across the street called Bullwinkle’s) and they keep changing the guy who is supposedly “Rocky” because the real one was TOO overweight and TOO unattractive. So now they have a fake one who’s just kind of overweight and unattractive. Cheesetastic.
You know it’s bad when they’re recasting you on public access!
I still think about Bob Dole doing ED commercials after he lost the 1996 election… and that alone, traumatized me from these commercials for life. That plus the whole, “if you have an erection lasting longer than four hours, seek medical attention…” I feel for the people at ERs all across the country and think, there but for the grace of God. Then again, they probably have interesting “workplace” stories…
I bet a drug company could get Clinton’s endorsement for just a free lifetime supply, but with his record, that supply may just break the company… ;o)
I have written a new commercial for Viagra – There are 3 guys sitting around some random living room – you hear the sports announcer on the TV say, “here we are in the top of the first inning” – then the one guy’s wife walks by and gives him a wink – he jumps up and they disappear into the bedroom – the next scene he’s coming out of the bedroom, buckiling up and you hear the sports announcer on the TV say, “here we are in the bottom of the ninth inning” – his buddies all high five him – his wife then comes out of the bedroom with a noticeable limp, slyly wiping the corner of her mouth – then you hear the voiceover – “VIAGRA – Because it sure beats the shit out of watching baseball.”
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to grab my guitar, hop in my Corvette and get down to the barn to meet my buddies…
Hey, I like baseball!
Better than sex? Ha! I like baseball too – but I’d much rather be AT the game than watching it on TV!
I had initially included Bob Dole but I couldn’t find the ad!
I like the Santa commercial… but Bob, he is so UGLY…if you have the cock, you gotta have some sorta good looks too…
Growing up we had the Cowboy Used Car Salesman Asshole. The lot is all done up like a Chevy funded Saloon, and into a shaky, home video camera he says things like :
“Come on down to Sundance Chev-Ro-Lay (snort) where we’ll rustle you up a deal (snort) and if I make a Buck…it’s Sheer Luck! (snort)”
All the *snorts* are because he’s kind of a coke head.
How DARE you rip on Terry Hanks! I bought my first car from Sundance Chev-RO Lay from him 10 years ago. I wanted to ride the horses at that there ridin’ stable too. But I couldn’t. That would be creepy.
That was an uplifting post.
“What commericals drive you batty?”
The new Domino’s Pizza $5.99 commercial.. annoying as hell.
lmao o meeeee
Thank goodness I dont get the tele. However the Elvis song but with viagra reminded me of Japanese movies. The mouth moves but the words come out wrong well not wrong just off way off! The bath time and your comment made me laugh. put me in a tub like that I aint getting out! Calgon where are you? Last but not least ( i do have to get some sleep) :} Santa (grin) gets em everytime. mmm hmmm I wanna sit on his lap so he can give me some candyyyyyy and tell stories about mr. woody …. and etc. etc. lmao
Ok OK the jolly smile was abit freaky but If I were on of those women Id be thinking more like the movie with Dane Cook. brain fart
Am I the only one not wondering why Gene Simmons would even need ED pills given his fantastic tongue? Who really gives a shit if he can’t get his rocks off? Since when is it about the man?
The most freakish commercial I ever saw was for that weird vagina cup to replace tree-killing products like tampons and pads. I swear I was scarred, haven’t watched a commercial since, instead I’ve watched my father and husband and mastered the art of channel flipping at the speed of carpal tunnel.
Yes, but that tongue is attached to that creepy face!
Thank you! I have been saying forever now that ever single one of these ED commercials had the opposite effect of whatever the hell they were trying to do. “Smilin’ Bob” looks like he’s a closet perv with his robotic nature and his happy little “Stepford wife”, enjoying every double entendre about her husband’s schlong. And I can just see the “studio jam band” in one of those “Viva Viagra” commercials, starting to play their goofy ass love song to penis pills, when their manager comes in, horrified “Holy shit, what are you assholes doing? This studio is costing us $10,000 a day! We don’t have time for you to rape Elvis and my ears. We’ve got a Michael McDonald album to record!”
Other annoying commercials: Burger King, any of the myriad Geico ones and those Glade commercials where that stupid lady is trying to hide the fact she uses Glade. Ugh, one cattle prod to the forehead please.
The Burger King dude is creepy, but Flo, the chick from the Progressive ads actually has a HUGE following.
That alternately scares and saddens me.
Oh and also those “Progressive” ads with the crazy looking pale shopgirl.
Eagleman is really the worst commercial ever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rrn9RladZBc
Just my opinion, anyway.
LOL – I hadn’t read the comments before I dropped my post. Didn’t realize I’d just posted a duplicate!
I just want to go on the record as protesting the shortening of the problem name to ED. It sucks that when I meet someone new, they may immediately associate me with a flaccid phallus, or worse, the Enzyte theme song.
I propose that henceforth we refer to Erectile Disfunction as Limp Dick Syndrome, or LDS, and let the Mormons take some of the heat for a while.
On a side note, the Santa Bob commercial always reminds me a little of a certain scene in “Bad Santa.”
Noted. And least it didn’t remind you of “Bad Lieutenant.”
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Here’s a funny skit about impotence i found on you tube. Enjoy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT8KMxpycDI