Our DVRs are amazing. They have given us the power to watch what we want when we want. More importantly, they have allowed us to skip over every single annoying commercial break. But every now and then, we find ourselves having to watch a show or a game in real time. And that’s why no matter what we do, we can’t avoid certain annoying spokespeople popping up on our TV from time to time. Here’s a list of some we wish they would stop letting on the air already.

10 Mac and PC from Apple
One is the old, stodgy, ancient thing of the past. The other is the new, cool, hip kid on the block. By now, you’ve probably already decided which side of the battle you’re on, so no smart-ass remark from Justin Long in a hoodie is going to convince you to dish out the cash for a whole new computer. Maybe once Apple realizes this, Long can just go back to doing what he does best: popping up in forgetful supporting roles in hit comedies.

9 Mike O’Malley from Time Warner Cable
Why is that guy who always wears a baseball cap too high on his head and used to host a bunch of Nickelodeon game shows when I was a kid constantly on TV trying to get us to switch over to Time Warner Cable? First of all, I have Time Warner Cable, and it’s horrible. Second of all, if you want us to buy your mediocre product try using a ridiculously attractive woman instead of a middle-aged man with a receding hairline. That’s how Adam Sandler got people to see Just Go With It.

8 The Baby from E-Trade
It’s a one-time gag… A baby talking finance. It was great, but then E-Trade decided it would be a good idea to keep shoving that damn baby in our faces. Even going so far as replacing the kid each time he got just a little too old to be considered cute. How about this rule of thumb: if the actor in your commercials has gotten too old and stale to keep around, chances are the joke has too.

7 Flo from Progressive
Oh, Flo and her “over-the-top” excitement for the insurance she sells. Do you know anyone else working in retail who is this enthusiastic about the product they’re selling? Maybe at the Disney store, but this is insurance. As far as I’m concerned Flo’s gotta go. None of us should even consider Progressive until she does.

6 The King from Burger King
The King isn’t so much annoying as he is creepy. Whoever thought we would be more likely to run out and grab a Whopper because a man in a giant plastic head resembling a royal, mustached Mel Gibson is stalking us was way off. The only thing that would be more terrifying is if the actual Mel Gibson were stalking us. Just ask Oksana.

5 The “Can You Hear Me Now?” Guy from Verizon
The company that prides itself on its incredible network has a geeky spokesperson who spends all of his time wandering around the world trying to find a spot where the person on the other end of the line can actually hear him. The commercials usually just manage to catch the tail end of his journey (“Can you hear me now? Good!”), but what about all the trouble he had to go through to finally get that connection? Wouldn’t a better catch phrase for a company trying to rave about its network be “I can hear you perfectly no matter where I happen to be standing at any single moment in time”?

4 The General from The General Auto Insurance
Cheap animation, bad acting, and a catchy song… No, it’s not an episode of South Park. It’s a commercial for auto insurance. The General (who looks like an animated Wilford Brimley) interacts with live action people, gets them all excited about insurance rates, and then leaves you with his obnoxious theme song, which gets stuck in your head for the rest of the week. On the other hand, it sure beats having any song by The Black Eyed Peas stuck in there.

3 The Duck from Aflac
The worst part about the duck from Aflac is that it affects my daily life. For some reason, I can no longer say things like “half-black”, “ass slap”, “Zach Braff” (and let’s be honest, who can go more than a day without saying those things?) or anything else that rhymes with Aflac without my voice going into a Gilbert Gottfried squawk… All because of these dumb commercials starring a duck suffering from Tourette’s.

2 Jared Fogle from Subway
Talk about beating a dead horse. Jared Fogle first popped up on our television screens way back in 1999. And he’s still going! I think we get it by now, Subway. If we’re ridiculously obese and want to lose a bunch of weight, but still remain somewhat pudgy, we should eat your sandwiches for every meal. Case closed.

1 The FreeCreditReport.com Band
2007 was the year that FreeCreditReport.com introduced us to a new campaign, involving a trio of singing douchebags and a collection of some of the most agitating jingles in advertising history. It was also the year that they introduced me to severe headaches and audio induced vomiting. I hadn’t had that kind of reaction to music since Nickelback hit the airwaves. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the importance of keeping an eye on your credit and making sure you have a decent credit score… but having those stupid anthems about unfortunate financial luck drilled repeatedly into my head has made me less interested in my finances and more focused on backhanding anyone with curly hair and a smirk.

See more photos at the image source

The NY Daily News reports:

The NY Pizza Burger, expected to debut early next month in midtown, features a gut-busting four broiled Whopper burgers.

It’s topped with pepperoni, mozzarella and marinara sauce, all stacked on a 9-1/2-inch sesame seed bun. The burger is cut into six pizza-style slices, allowing diners to share the agita and the ecstasy.

The massive meal will join the menu at the Whopper Bar in Times Square, the new 24-hour, seven-day-a-week flagship fast food outlet.

Burger King says the NY Pizza Burger contains 420 calories and 24 grams of fat per serving.

Per serving…meaning that the sandwich as a whole equals — drumroll, please — 2,520 calories and 144 grams of fat, making it the fattiest item made available by a national fast food chain.

On the plus side, if you’ve ever wanted to die at the hands of a hamburger, now’s your chance. You could shove the NY Pizza Burger on someone’s face like a pillow, beat them over the head with it, or eat it. Three ways to die. A way easier method of hamburger death than attempting to enrage Mayor McCheese. He’s very zen when it comes to confrontation.

NY Pizza Burger, set to debut at Burger King, includes four Whoppers and a whopping 2,520 calories [NY Daily News]
Behold the BK Whopper Bar Featuring the NY Pizza Burger [Eater NY]

Robinson threatened to kill her if she didn’t give up the money. He briefly put his gun down to load the money up into a bag.

It was then that the employee grabbed the gun. Robinson and the worker started to wrestle and the worker shot him in the thigh. She then held Robinson in a headlock and called police, who brought Robinson to jail.

You may be surprised by this act of courage, but that’s just how they roll at Burger King. During training sessions, sometimes the King will pop up behind a prospect and threaten to slit their throat if they don’t give up their money. If the worker acquiesces or wets themselves, they’re fired on the spot. But if they disarm the King and take him down with a Judo throw, he knows they’re ready to serve for his cause. All I’m saying is don’t be surprised when the King ends up as our dictator after a coup staged by his army of minimum wage employees. There’s a world of secrets behind the lifeless, creepy mask.

Woman working at Pine Bluff, Ark., Burger King takes gun when robber puts it down, shoots him [KFSM Arkansas]

“It’s as if we’re back in the 1950s the way pop culture portrays women, but with New Age technology,” says Terry O’Neill, president of the National Organization for Women.

Martin Lindstrom, a marketing consultant, questions whether sex in ads really sells. While viewers are quick to recall sexual imagery, they mostly forget what brand is behind the ad, he says. “What does sex really have to do with burgers?”

That’s not the point, says Andy Puzder, CEO of Carl’s Jr. “You can say 1,000 times that you have a great burger and no one will listen to you, but if you put a beautiful woman in the ad, they will.”

[USA Today]

Burger King, the Florida-based fast-food giant, has added three Kids Meals designed to be lower in fat, sodium and calories.
The meals are part of its Positive Steps program and brings the number of choices to four, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported Wednesday.

Meals in the program must have no more than 560 total calories, with no more than 30 percent of those calories from fat and 10 percent from added sugars. The amount of sodium must be below 600 milligrams.

The new meals include two bite-sized hamburgers with fried apple slices, low-calorie dipping sauce and calcium-fortified apple juice.

Whew, thank God they got so healthy. Kids, you’re going to be okay. Now, instead of those terrible french fried potatoes, you’ll merely be eating a deep fried apple. So much better for you! Gee Burger King, what other life saving initiatives are you going to undertake? Maybe a needle exchange program for addicts in impoverished needles in which you give your needle to Burger King and they give you back one that they just imported from a waste bin in a hospital in Kenya? No, don’t worry, it’s cool, they totally blew on it before putting it into your vein.

[via]

Fast-food chain Burger King has created “Whopper Sacrifice,” a Facebook app that will give you a coupon for a free hamburger if you delete 10 people from your friends list.

Burger King has put out some interesting campaigns as of late (“Whopper Virgin,” “Subservient Chicken”), but this one piques our interest because of how gleefully it pokes fun at our social-networking obsessions. “Now is the time to put your fair-weather Web friendships to the test,” the Whopper Sacrifice site explains. “Install Whopper Sacrifice on your Facebook profile, and we’ll reward you with a free flame-broiled Whopper when you sacrifice ten of your friends.

The funniest part: The “sacrifices” show up in your activity feed. So it’ll say, for example, “Caroline sacrificed Josh Lowensohn for a free Whopper.” Unfortunately, you can’t delete your whole friends list and eat free (however unhealthily) for a week. The promotion is limited to one coupon per Facebook account.

You can get the app here if you’re interested.

I’ve sacrificed friends for a lot of things; my career, women, school, to attempt to appease the gods. But I don’t know about giving it up for a quarter pound of meat that will only result in more pressure for my arteries. Though I guess it’d be a pretty convenient way out of friendships with people you don’t like. Nothing says that you don’t value someone quite like trading them in for a torrid love affair with a guy in a mask and a crown.

In related news, this is an encouraging step towards a company asking us to murder someone for their product. Hopefully for something better than a Whopper, but still fairly trivial. There’d be nothing more gratifying than people killing each other in gruesome ways for a George Foreman grill or tickets to a Menudo reunion concert.

[via]

The campaign is something called “Veg City” and includes the brutal murder of tomatoes, drunken debauchery on New Years, pickles buying sex from fat potatoes (shamefully…I’ve been there man), and the attempted assassination of some onion dictator. Needless to say, I’d like to know more about the lives of these vegetables yet I have no desire to ever put any of them in my mouth for any reason. So I’m not sure if Burger King accomplished their advertising goals. Check the images, via Brutalissimo, out below…

After watching its bigger rival McDonald’s Corp. try to woo mom, Burger King Corp. is launching a new marketing and promotional campaign Monday meant to grab her attention.

“A large part of our customer base is parents with children,” said Russ Klein, president of global strategy, marketing and innovation. “As a parent, the challenge is always trying to get the kinds of things you want to but have some dimension of fun.”

The centerpiece of the effort, Klein said, is a new kids meal featuring a four-ounce serving of Kraft macaroni and cheese, lowfat milk and the company’s “Fresh Apple Fries”, which are uncooked apple slices shaped like french fries and served with low-fat caramel dipping sauce. The meal will go on sale Monday for $3.49 and will be a permanent fixture on Burger King’s menu.

The launch will be followed by an in-restaurant merchandising and television ad campaign, with the first commercial airing July 7. That spot will introduce “Little King” meant to be the masked king’s young son.

*shudder. The Burger King campaign has toed the line between creepy and creative for a while now. Never has a singular character so completely horrified me yet made me want a hamburger. Other than Al Roker.

But of course, the King has an innate ability of terrifying the masses that makes the notion of him siring a spawn seem tame. So to celebrate his newfound fatherhood, let’s take a look at the top 5 creepiest moments of the Burger King.

Number 5: Two forces of evil collide

There is no name more feared by football fans across the country than Drew Rosenhaus. While always claiming to fight for his players, Rosenhaus is cutthroat, aggressive, and kind of evil. So what can soften his image a bit? Having him represent the King in negotiations.

Look at him there…soulless, stoic gaze. Not a hint of a soul. How can he walk among us? And then there’s the King standing next to him. Ho ho ho when it comes to an obvious set-up and punchline, I am the King.

Number 4: Where is your God now?

The simplest item on the list but probably the most poignant and chilling.

I have a fairly iron will, but if I woke up in my bed with the King laying next to me, staring at me, I don’t care if he’s wielding a sandwich. I’m running for my life. I’m also probably wondering what the viscous liquid running down the back of my pants is, but there’s really no time for questions.

Number 3: He can run too

I’d like to think I can at least get away from the Burger King if he ever wanted to come after me. Not likely, if this video holds to form.

Traditional monsters of film tend to be slow and plodding. Zombies, Jason, Freddy Krueger…not really speedsters. But the King appears to be running a 4.3 40 and has amazing field vision. Needless to say, if the King wants to catch you, you’re going to end up caught. And with a face full of meat. Which kind of meat depends on how lucky you are that day, I suppose.

Number 2: The King is giant

A tie-in with an ape-based epic gave birth to this horrific vision. No, not a tie-in with Dunston Checks In unfortunately…rather, A Kong-sized King.

Sure, at first it’s all burgers on fingertips and Rockette-styled kicking. But it’s not all fun and free artery-cloggings. Eventually the King is going to wonder why your relationship hasn’t “escalated”. And I’d be damned if I were the one coming face-to-face with what’s under a 70-foot tall King’s spandex.

Number 1: A sexy dance for you perhaps?

England is kind of awesome when it comes to their programming. Less restrictions means more room for creativity. Unfortunately, that allowed the geniuses at Burger King’s UK advertising agency to craft this horrific idea.

I can imagine nothing that would make me swear off the sexual services industry faster than having the King appear before me at a peep show, then shoving meat into my face. On the plus side, he’s about as nimble as I’d expect a man in a tunic to be. So that’s pretty cool.

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