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In a rare interview, Dish Network’s Charlie Ergen defends the satellite service’s commercial-skipping device. Which made us wonder about the top ten commercials that most deserve to be skipped — but the question’s more complicated than we thought, since many spots on worst-ad lists like this one struck as kinda awesome in a so-bad-it’s-hilarious way. Check out the roster below, and let us know which ones deserve oblivion — and which actually demand multiple views.
Number 10: Max from Blue Tax
It’s not just the terrible animation that renders Max repellent. It’s also the irritatingly mewling voice and dialogue that makes a conversation with your accountant seem fascinating by comparison.
Number 9: The Klondike prize
In this spot, a guy can only win a Klondike if he actually listens to his wife for five seconds — and his reaction before, during and after doing so is one of the most succinct depictions of total assholery I’ve ever seen. This guy deserves to be sent to the real Klondike. During January. Wearing only a thong.
Page down for more of our top ten commercials you should skip on Dish — or maybe not.
Number 8: The E*TRADE talking baby
Apparently, some people think these bits are amusing and/or adorable rather than off-the-charts disturbing. Some people are wrong.
Number 7: The FreeCreditScore.com mermaid
Yep, that’s none other than Courtney Stodden as the fishy-tailed bimbo in this idiotic ad, which would have to be 100 percent better to match the quality of those soft-core-porn comedies that fill the wee hours on Skinemax. Plus, there’s no happy ending.
Page down for more of our top ten commercials you should skip on Dish — or maybe not.
Number 6: Flo for Progressive
When does perkiness become a crime? Whatever point it is, Flo long since crossed from the realm of misdemeanors into serious felonies. If this grueling character was retired once and for all, that’d really be progress.
No. 5: The Jell-O smile
The expression on the kid’s face in this spot isn’t far removed from the grins left on victims of the Joker. Pudding as a recipe for supervillainy? Heath Ledger would understand.
Page down for more of our top ten commercials you should skip on Dish — or maybe not.
Number 4: Car Fox for CARFAX
There are a lot of spots with talking animals, and loads of them are annoying. But few product mascots are as unaccountably lame as Car Fox, who gives his famously sly breed a very bad name.
Number 3: AT&T one-man flash mob
This guy’s enthusiastic wrong-time choreography is supposed to be funny, and it would be if it didn’t pretty much thematically duplicate every nightmare I’ve ever had.
Page down for more of our top ten commercials you should skip on Dish — or maybe not.
Number 2: Summer’s Eve — “Hail to the V”
Now we enter into more debatable territory. Objectively speaking, this Michael Bay-scale tribute to the power of the vagina, as offered by a product intended to mask its scent, is absurd from first second to last. But its wrongheadedness is so audacious that the spot achieves a terrible grandeur. Turn away at your own risk.
Number 1: Luv’s “Poop, There It is”
Wow. This animated pageant of fecal prowess, set to the tune of onetime Denver duo Tag Team’s “Whoomp! (There It Is)” leaves me positively slack-jawed. Would Dish’s device save us from this masterpiece of stupidity — or rob us of the chance to marvel at it? You be the judge.
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More from our Llsts & Weirdness archive: “Photos: Top ten Texts From Last Night out of the 720.”
