What Measure Is a Non-Human?/Advertising

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Many insecticide commercials (Raid in particular) feature talking cartoon bugs fleeing in terror before being mercilessly destroyed by a cheerful housewife with a spray can. One Raid commercial even had a cockroach maternity ward get wiped out this way.
  • A similar commercial for stain remover had a talking carpet stain get dissolved and wiped out of existence by a cheerful housewife while he directly begged her to spare his life. And the smile never leaves her face.
  • A commercial from years ago, for some store or another, had two talking trees announcing the store had a big sale on all wooden products. One of the trees asked where they'd get all that wood from. Cue the offscreen sound of a chainsaw starting up, and the two trees screaming in terror.
  • An Ikea commercial showing an old lamp being replaced and abandoned.

Many of you feel bad for this lamp. That is because you are crazy. It has no feelings! And the new one is much better.

  • In a strange subversion, Swiffer commercials used to have a mop being sad that a woman replaced it with a new Swiffer. People must have felt sorry for it, because in later commercials the mop actually gets into a relationship with several other objects. The commercials even say to not feel sorry for the mop.
    • More recent Swiffer ads show a mud stain that looks and acts like a human Valley Girl in a brown dress or a film that looks and acts like a human classic movie star in a gray dress who refuse to let a mop take them away and fall in love with the Swiffer. My dad said he also saw one with a male piece of dirt.
  • Similar to the Raid example, Domestos bleach adverts in the UK (and possibly other countries) depicted anthropomorphic germs being melted by the bleach at the end of each advert, accompanied with the slogan "Millions of Germs Will Die" delivered in a flat, deadpan voice, often with the germ screaming in terror. The early adverts were borderline sinister, so in the years since they have attempted Rule of Funny to various degrees.
  • Played for laughs with this Geico commercial, where McGruff the Crime Dog can't seem to get respect from human police who treat him like a pet.

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