Style & Culture
Eric Killorin
Mon Apr 13 2015 17:05:29 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
10 Best Worst Car Commercials from the 90s and 90s.
As a capitalistic consumer culture, we sure have come a long way since the days when grainy graphics, sub-par sound effects, and obnoxious announcers-flooded Zenith television screens across America. Yes, I am talking about the glorious decade known as the 1980s. With fodder the likes of which legends are born, our cable-equipped living rooms were an easy target for marketing firms, and auto manufacturers were no different. Fortunately, advancements in CG graphics and sound editing alone have made more than enough of a difference in recent decades, with many automotive advertisements sticking to a certain status quo.
Sure there are still a few groaners out there that either make us want to change the channel or throw a shoe at the tube, but overall there has been a noticeable improvement in the quality of car ads since the early 2000s. This is in stark contrast to everything prior to the year 2000, when the average car commercial was hit or miss at best and was still prone to being nothing more than purchasing propaganda set to the wailing of a dozen synthesizers and some electric drums.
Just for fun I sat down and perused YouTube in search of the worst car commercials that I could find, and came up with a staggering number of contenders that were cause for a lengthy visit to the vomitarium. Everything from ridiculously bad scripting, to over the top camera angles that did neither the car nor the viewer any favors were unearthed, and I hastily reformulated my search. I didn’t want just pure rubbish; I wanted something that was both bad and entertaining at the same time. Where were all those bad ads from my childhood that made me feel both amused and nostalgic at the same time?
It was a painful process, but after several hours of excruciating agony I was finally able to glean a top ten list from the steaming heap of old-school excrement. These classics primarily consist of ads from the 1990s and 1980s, and feature everything from absurd musical numbers, to vile voiceovers, and over the top acting at every turn. It may not be pretty, but my lord is it entertaining. So without further ado let’s take a quick cruise down memory lane to review the best of the worst and maybe wonder what the hell we were thinking in the first place.