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Take A Second Tonight With TBS To Remember The Year's Memorable Plugs

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By WALT BELCHER, The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 26, 2007

In this age of digital recorders that make it so easy to skip commercials, you would think the 30-second advertisement would be an endangered species.

Think again. Commercials are alive and well and plentiful.

Some are better than the programs in which they are stuffed.

At 9 tonight, TBS pays tribute to the short-form sales pitch on "Funniest Commercials of the Year: 2007."

There's something funny about watching a program that features an hour of commercials.

The "funniest" were picked via online voting at veryfunnyads.com. More than half of the contenders were foreign entries from places such as France, Sweden, New Zealand and Italy.

Looking back over the past year, it's hard to remember 10 funny commercials that ran outside Super Bowl XLI.

Actually, it was hard to remember the commercials that ran during Super Bowl XLI without looking them up.

Even then I didn't recall some of them: Jessica Simpson chases down a pizza; David Letterman and Oprah Winfrey cuddle on a couch; an auctioneer marries a couple off at super speed so the guests can get to the Bud Light; two mechanics almost lock lips over a Snickers bar; talking lions make a pitch for Taco Bell's Steak Grilled Taquitos; and Kevin Federline works as a fast-food fry cook.

In hindsight, the last Super Bowl batch was not exactly knee-slapping, laugh-out-loud funny.

My favorite commercials since then:

•Jeep Liberty's "Rock Me Gently" commercial features a young man cruising through the countryside singing along to Andy Kim's 1974 hit. Soon he is joined by a singing squirrel, then songbirds and finally a wolf drops in, snatches a bird and spits it out. This is the funniest commercial of 2007.

•Coors Light has fun with NFL postgame news conferences featuring coaches such as Bill Parcells and Denny Green reacting to dumb questions from a trio of beer lovers.

•Tina Fey plays herself as a harried producer in a new American Express commercial. The creator, writer, producer and co-star of "30 Rock" has all kinds of problems, from the wrong kind of German shepherds for a skit to someone ordering 14,000 racquetballs on her credit card.

•Wendy's singing hamburger is downright freaky and funny. The Wendy's lover is a dude wearing that dopey red Pippi Longstocking wig. He's bragging about his double melt (two patties, bacon, cheese, cheese sauce and jalapeno peppers). The poor sap sitting next to him has a burger, and all it can do is sing Air Supply's "Making Love Out of Nothing at All."

•Pfizer Inc.'s "Viva Viagra" has to be the best pitch ever for curing erectile dysfunction. In a funky old bar, a group of middle-aged musicians are holding a jam session. They break into "Viva Las Vegas," but the lyrics have been changed slightly to sing the praises of Viagra:

"Got me a honey gonna set my soul I'm gonna set my soul on fire

At the end of the day I'm not a guy who's strayed cause she's my heart's desire.

Now this old toad is sick of the road I can't wait

Can't wait! Can't wait to go home."

Elvis is spinning in his grave, and we're laughing out loud.

•The Volkswagen Jetta's bird-dropping commercial wasn't exactly funny, but it was the weirdest ad in 2007.

A guy notices that the hood of his Jetta has been soiled by birds. He tries without success to scrape it off with a leaf. He looks around to make sure no one is looking, and then he licks up the mess.

When he picks up his date, he gives her a kiss. She pauses and seems to notice that there is something odd about the taste. But she heads out with him anyway.

The tag line is "The Jetta: It's a love thing." Right.

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