The Scrappy/Advertising

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Adman: Of course I can save your business, Homer! You know those obnoxious commercials with two guys talking back and forth? I invented them! [Homer Punches Him in the Face] (unfazed) Happens all the time.
—The Simpsons, "Mr. Plow"

The point of advertising is to try to sell you something, but these ways are so annoying, that they are much hated by viewers.

See also Spokes Sue.

  • Commercials THEMSELVES are The Scrappy of television, to the point that DVRs were invented to get by them. Car commercials are The Scrappy of commercials. Mainly for one reason.
  • It gets worse with internet commercials these buggers show up on your favorite video sites and force you to watch the same commercial again and again when ever you want to watch certain videos. They also show up when you least expect on other sites imagine your self casually surfing the web with your favorite tunes and then you hear some person trying to sell you cleaning agents and you can't shut them up since these adds are more often than not unable to be skipped or silenced. Car commercials are weak sauce compared to internet commercials. Just like how DVRs were made to bypass commercials, Adblockers were made to bypass ads.
    • Doubly so with banner ads that involve video. Too often you'll visit a site (Deviant ART seems to be predominate) where you don't even see all the crap at once, and suddenly get scared shitless because an ad starts going off and you forgot your speakers were turned up.
    • The most annoying thing is when you want a watch a commercial (like Super Bowl Ads for example) and you have to watch a commercial before that
      • That or when the ad before a video IS LONGER THAN THE VIDEO ITSELF.
  • Cell-phone ringtone company Jamster, for foisting the horrible creature known as "Crazy Frog" on the world. Their ads were practically all over syndicated television in the mid-2000s. "Axel F" by Harold Faltermeyer was never the same again.

And the frog comes making that annoying sound/If you hear it, then you'll understand...

  • UK Tropers will probably remember adverts for Cillit Bang. HI! I'M BARRY SCOTT AND I'M BEING PAID BY THE DECIBEL!
    • LOOK AT WHAT IT DID TO A PENNY!
      • Even his co-host hates him, notice the contempt in her voice when she says "You love that one.... * hateful look* Barry"
      • Any Product Pusher who uses No Indoor Voice is prone to Scrappyhood, Billy Mays for one. In fact, in the reality show, Billy Mays admits to hating his own commercials when he was laid up in bed and watching TV. Of course, he doesn't get as much hatred since his death.
  • Honecomb's furry "Me Want Honeycomb" monsters were the bane of any child growing up in The Nineties; coming close to the Trix Kids in Jerk Sue territory due to their propensity for yelling, stereotypical rebelliousness, and breaking things.
  • The rather distinctive-looking Howard Brown used to be the face of the advertising for Halifax (a major UK bank.) He appeared in a series of commercials singing various pop hits with new lyrics about banking. The ads became wildly popular but also attracted a ton of anti-fans who became sick of Brown's face and the awful music. Brown then started taking lesser roles in the ads and the main song was performed by someone else; particular loathing was directed at an ad that featured a fat woman instead. In 2008 it was decided to drop the musical adverts because of the recession, and the Hatedom breathed a sigh of relief. And then they go and make new adverts with particularly loathsome employees "rapping" along to Vanilla Ice. If this is the price of scraping out of recession, well...
  • The Howie Long Chevrolet commercials that ran from late 2008 through 2009 fit this trope. In the ads, Long simply came off as a jerkass talking down to the viewers. The most famous are a trio of ads where Long mocks the drivers of competitive pickup trucks because they are driving trucks that offer features and equipment that the Chevrolet does not. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGI8IRXRqpo) The reactions to these ads (and the whole campaign) in general was so overwhelmingly negative that Long was quickly dismissed, replaced by Tim Allen for the new "Chevy Runs Deep" campaign that is currently[when?] in use.
  • The "EEEEEE Midget". His schtick was bursting out of something (e.g. a trash can) with a scream of "EEEEEEEE!!!". He then delivered a hyper, stacato-delivery monologue about whatever product he was shilling. For a while in the late 90s/early turn of the century, he was in all sorts of commercials, doing guest appearances in just about everything. What might've been funny the first time quickly grew old, rendering him into a scrappy extraordinaire.
  • The Trix Rabbit tends to come across as The Woobie. It's the kids who become The Scrappy due to the severe Moral Dissonance of them never letting him have any Trix. It's not just them not letting him have any, at least once, they outright stole cereal from him that he bought for himself legitimately, as in with his own money.
  • For Canadians, the infamous "Canadian Tire Guy" became so widely reviled and mocked by such satire shows as This Hour Has 22 Minutes that he was replaced in 2006 by different ads. He was intended to be a friendly, helpful "everyman" character, but he was interpreted as smug and intrusive by the general public.
  • Halloooo! Frank Walker from National Tiiiiles wants to know why he's hated by every Australian with a radio and is still somehow in business.
  • Citizens of the greater Los Angeles area may be familiar with a certain mattress salesman for Sleep Train Mattress Center that screams, in the most annoying voice possible, the phrases "You're killing me, Larry!" and "We'll beat anyone's advertised price or YOUR mattress is FREEEEEEEE!!!111!", the latter being particularly stupid because the emphasis is on "free" but why would they EVER give it to you for free if the advertised price is more than 0?
  • The Hardee's Star. It's like they took that creepy Marshie from Homestar Runner, then made him into a canon attempt to sell fries... Maaaaade from the best stufffffff
  • Burger King has had a few over the years. The current[when?] mascot, The King, certainly has his fair share of haters. Being in at least one crappy video game and starring in banner ads that show him almost naked doesn't help the King's popularity, nor does the extreme effeminacy of the way he moves in said game.
    • Before The King, there was Herb, an extremely ill-conceived ad campaign centered around Herb, a strange nerd and the only man in America never to have had a Whopper.
  • Back in the 80s, the old lady in the Wendy's commercial that yelled "Where's the Beef?" was a one-time funny joke that got old quickly. When it got to the point that presidential candidates used it as a punchline during the 1984 election, the public's tolerance towards the ads wore thin. There's even a reference on The Simpsons where it is used as an example for the best way to get rid of an annoying advertisement.
  • Metro PCS has commercials starring a stereotypical Indian guy, who's best described as an Ethnic Scrappy.
  • Windowman from Safe Style Windows "YE BAAAAH WUN!!!!!!!!!! YE GET WUN FREE!!!!!!!!!! AH SEZ YE BAAAAH WUN!!!!!!!!!! YE GET WUN FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!" using some bloke from Coronation Street and cannon+ ball&view=3# some comedy duo [dead link] not seen on TV since The Eighties is less annoying, but only slightly.
    • GET THAT SOUND OUT OF MY BRAIN
  • The Six Flags Great America old guy midget as explained here.
  • The guys in the Staples commercials that yell "WOW! THAT'S A LOW PRICE!"
  • The infamously evil Arby's Oven Mitt. Apparently so many people hated the thing because of how Uncanny Valley it looked, Arby's actually got rid of it.
    • Unfortunately the guy they replaced him with is no better. Does anyone honestly believe you can just give a bank robber an Arby's sandwich and he'll just leave?
  • Currently[when?] in northeastern New Jersey (particularly in Hudson County) there are endless ads for the "Planet Honda" car dealership in Jersey City, featuring the most stereotypically annoying, loudmouthed car dealer guy, who MUST SCREAM EVERY WORD LIKE THIS!!!
  • Marcus Rivers, the PSP Spokesman. Given he was dropped about a month after he was introduced, clearly Sony got the message.
  • GO COMPAAARE! GO COMPAAAARE! Do nothing rash, conserve your cash at GO COMPAAARE! Everyone cheered when Jimmy Carr gave him quite the nutshot in this video.
  • Dee Lincoln, founder of the Del Frisco Double Eagle steakhouse chain in Dallas, did her own radio ads - much to the chagrin of radio listeners due to her Fran Drescher-like voice. (Like Drescher, she wasn't a bad-looking woman in person, but that sadly doesn't translate over radio.)
  • The Sham Wow guy. It's like they genetically engineered someone for the sole purpose of being piss boiling annoying and then gave him a job hocking fancy towels. His name is Vince Offer, and his ads are So Bad It's Good. This would continue with the Slap Chop ads where "you're gonna love my nuts".
  • The Frosties kid. An irritating teenage boy singing a song about Frosties which makes very little sense overall and has hamfisted attempts at forcing a rhyme (pie-rate?). There was a time when nearly every commercial break on British telly had this commercial in it.
  • The Talking Hat in the Steak N' Shake ads, along with the H.H. Gregg Ad (as in, the character is ACTUALLY a rolled up advertisement) are both characters who try to be lovable, friendly, and witty. They tend to get on peoples nerves with their fast paced talking style, however. Not surprisingly, both companies use the same ad agency, and one of them, if not both, is changing over to a new agency based on how ill-received the ads have been.
  • That damn kid from the Highlander commercials. You're 6, you don't know what's cool. Doesn't help that he acts like a douche bag simply because his friend's parents can't afford an expensive, luxury vehicle.
  • Pepsi Girl. No explanation necessary. If that two-word combination doesn't already have your blood pressure rising, count yourself lucky for not knowing her and move on to the next item.
  • Progressive's Flo. She's on constantly, and her voice is very grating on the ears.
    • A large part of it too is the audience's annoyance to her unending perkiness at all times, having literally no life outside of Progressive (as we see inside her home), and "perfect hair every time".
  • From Domino's there was Andy. A weird puppet-bear thing who totally gained potential consumer's confidence by slacking off at work and yet returning for several more commercials. At least Domino's showed mercy and stopped.
    • For Domino's in the 80's this was the Noid. Of course, this was intentional; Noid, annoying, get it?
  • Little Caesar's mascot, a guy in a toga and laurel wreath who says "Pizza! Pizza!" and not much else.
  • EVERY SINGLE baby that talks like a grown man.
  • What about that unsettlingly happy family from the Netflix commercials when first introducing the Instant Queue? How many Netflix customers wanted to switch to Block Buster Total Access after seeing one or two of those commercials?
  • The "Mac" of Apple's "Mac and PC" ads, largely due to the Strawman Product nature of the ads. In the early ads, the Mac guy came across as such a smug and arrogant jerk that it was actually turning people away from Apple computers. Apple responded by attempting to make the Mac guy more likable and the PC guy more of a jerk, but people still find the PC guy to be a lot more tolerable than the Mac guy.
  • The Fucillo Kia dealers who haunt Southwest Florida airwaves. Not only does the above No Indoor Voice apply, but these dealers apparently have nothing better to do than constantly film themselves, to the point that an entirely new commercial will air every two days, a plague that's been going on for almost a year now. The commercials are always the same. The man, Billy, is shouting at the camera, while the woman who's name he MAKES SURE you hear every other sentence, Caroline, is trying to talk over him. Neither come out coherently. Each commercial always ends with their signature catch phrase. "It's gonna be Yuuuuuuge!"
    • It's not just Southwest Florida. I'm from the Rochester, New York area [1] and those same commercials air all the time here, too. Actually, scratch that. They air everywhere in New York State that's not the Big Apple (and I heard rumor he's going downstate, too.). In Buffalo, Syracuse, Albany, Ithaca, Elmira, YOU FLIPPIN' NAME IT!! He's everywhere.
  • Maxwell the GEICO pig that goes whee deserves a mention. The fact that he was brought back in a commercial that had nothing to do with the company is irritating.
    • No one in the commercials themselves seem to really like him either.
    • Mind you, some people love him because he's just adorable.
    • For some people, every Geico advertising campaign, due to their endless quest to find endless ways to say the exact same thing over and over again, and the haunting suspicion that if they didn't spend so damn much on ads, they could afford to spend more liberally on their consumers, but the Caveman deserves special mention for being a spoof of justifiably offended victims of prejudice; something many feel is no laughing matter, and for briefly getting his own sitcom; the point at which people dreaded Geico's trend towards omnipresence truly had no limits.
      • Any insurance ad (especially auto-insurance) for the same reason, they show one after another 24/7. If they'd stop with the ads we wouldn't have to pay so much.
    • The Geico Gecko himself has reached this level for many. Before, he was a Not-Mascot, seemingly annoyed by everyone for the close pronunciation/wrong number calling of his name/species and spoke as so. At some point, with no seque, he suddenly became much more docile and soft spoken, as well as outright becoming the mascot for the company.
    • The Geico cavemen - the "joke" at first was pretty funny, with them taking offense when the pitchman claimed switching to Geico was so easy a caveman could do it. Unfortunately, they used this joke way too much, to the point where it was no longer funny. They even trying to make it into a spin-off sitcom - which was a complete flop.
  • Loud commercials. They tend to be about 5 points louder than actual shows (ie, the thing you want to hear) causing many to turn down their tv or just mute it. It got so bad that Congress-and this is true- actually signed in a law that said companies had to make their commercials quieter. It passed almost unanimously.
  • The people in the ATT 4g commercials. The ads are supposed to be promoting 4g but they make it seem like people with 4g are arrogant, idiotic snobs who look down on people without 4g.
  • The Jell-O Temptations commericals for playing Abusive Parents for laughs, and being Dude, Not Funny in general. There are people out there who are boycotting Kraft products because of how disgusting the commericals are.
  • The Luna Mattress commercials start with the parents of the home talking with a representative. Then, out of no where, and since no one in the room asked their daughter comes in and says "I'm going to be a tap dancer when I grow up!" She then taps off...leaving an annoying sound behind. See why it sounds more annoying than cute?
  • Simple: "Do you have a structured settlement and need cash now?"
  • Welsh pop singer Duffy became Scrappy to viewers all over Britain when she appeared in an infamous and widely mocked advert for Diet Coke. The ad showed her stealing a bicycle and riding through a supermarket while singing a horrible tuneless version of a Sammy Davis Jr hit. Duffy was meant to have been the face of Diet Coke throughout its "Hello You" campaign, but the advert was so poorly received that she was dropped.
  • The kids in 1-877 Kars 4 Kids. Never has a jingle for a nonprofit charity been such Ear Worm Hell. Most viewers feel more sorrier for the kids who have to sing it than the ones they're helping. There was also a pop rock remake of it, which was even worse.
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  1. ↑ It's on the part of Lake Ontario that kinda looks like a lip cleft.
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