Top 10 Shocking Commercials With Chilling Real-World Connections

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With the right context, some commercials become downright hard to watch.  Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down the worst advertisements that aged like spoiled milk. These ads seemed harmless at the time, but knowing what we do now makes them unsettling, cringe-worthy, or downright disturbing.  Our countdown includes:  The Lance Armstrong Ad 🚴‍♂️  The James Dean Driving PSA 🚗  Jared Fogle’s Subway Commercials 🥪 …and more commercials that took a dark turn in hindsight.  💬 Did we miss any commercials that became uncomfortable with time? Let us know in the comments below!

Transcript

00:00I know it's just the holiday spirit coursing through my body and into my heart and up into my

00:05red and green brain. Welcome to WatchMojo and today we're counting down our picks for the

00:11worst advertisements that aged like milk. I used to fly around quite a bit you know I took a lot

00:17of unnecessary chances. Number 10 Lance Armstrong ad Nike. This is my body and I can do whatever I

00:27want to it. Accusations surrounding Lance Armstrong's use of performance enhancing drugs began as early

00:33as 1999 with European papers questioning the cyclist's ability to complete the Tour de France

00:39so effortlessly. America largely dismissed these accusations however with many companies publicly

00:46standing by the Texan born athlete. The critics say I'm arrogant. A doper. This included Nike who

00:57spotlighted Armstrong in their advertising throughout the 2000s. Some of these ads even directly

01:03reference the ongoing scandal with Armstrong retaliating against these allegations. It's

01:09hard not to cringe at the sarcasm now that we know exactly what else the athlete was on.

01:15One of Lance Armstrong's closest teammates Tyler Hamilton who was on the U.S. Postal team

01:19that won the Tour de France now claims there was an extensive doping program designed to

01:24keep Armstrong winning. Number 9 More Doctors Smoke Camels. Camel. 10 out of 10 modern doctors

01:31probably agree this camel ad campaign was a bad idea. Time out for many men of medicine usually

01:39means just long enough to enjoy a cigarette. The series of print and television advertisements

01:44were made at a time when health experts were still on the fence about the negative impacts

01:49of cigarettes. But their message has now aged so poorly that it may as well have been from

01:55another reality. Even at the time of airing the ads were, at best, morally dubious, as

02:03it's been alleged that Camel may have provided the doctors featured with free cigarettes prior

02:08to polling them. Unfortunately, pro-smoking ads like these used to be the norm. So much so

02:14that even Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble once acted as spokesmen for the deadly vice.

02:20I got a better idea. Let's take a Winston break.

02:23Number 8 Maria Bamford Christmas Ads. Target.

02:27We all know there is no I in team, but there is an I in win and in Christmas.

02:34Many celebrities cut their teeth in the industry by appearing in commercials. As a young boy, Leonardo

02:40DiCaprio could once be seen selling bubble yum, while Courtney Cox featured in an 80s commercial

02:46for Tampax. In 2009, Maria Bamford joined the ranks in a series of ads for Target's Christmas

02:58sale. Although the actress had been working in the comedy scene for a decade prior, the ads helped to

03:03introduce her name and face to the average American. This fame turned out to be a double-edged sword,

03:15as Bamford grew to regret performing in such an aggressively consumerist ad campaign. She would

03:21even go on to feature the situation and its impact on her mental health in her autobiographical series,

03:27Lady Dynamite. Don't you love shopping for dog supplies at Checklist? Me too.

03:33Number 7 The Noid. Domino's. Here's some news the Noid won't like. New Domino's Pan Pizza. In an effort to

03:43set themselves apart from other pizza chains, Domino's invented the Noid, a claymation supervillain

03:49bent on destroying pizza. They claimed that you could avoid the Noid, or anything bad that could

03:55happen to your pizza, by ordering from their restaurant. The slogan, while clever, got under the

04:05skin of Kenneth Lamar Noid in Georgia, who erroneously believed the ad campaign was about him.

04:11In Chamblee, Georgia on January 30th, 1989, he held two Domino's employees hostage for over five hours,

04:19demanding $100,000 from the restaurant chain's headquarters. A man with the last name Noid took a

04:25Domino's hostage, believing the Noid was created to mock him. His demands? Free pizza, a white limo,

04:31and the end of the Noid in Domino's advertising. The pizza chain claims that the situation had no

04:36impact on the ad campaign, but nowadays it's hard to see the character and not think of the alarming

04:42crime it unintentionally inspired. Number 6 The Pole Vaulter. AT&T. Imagine a world where you could do

04:51anything. Back in 1996, no one could have dreamed this then-innocuous AT&T ad for the Summer Olympics

05:00would one day be controversial. Sure, it doesn't quite make sense that a commercial highlighting an

05:06event happening in Georgia is set in New York, but the concept itself is an interesting one.

05:12Some athletes are born great. A pole vaulter runs up to a collection of tall buildings and then

05:18vaults between the Twin Towers. You can probably see where this is going. Not every pre-911 depiction of

05:25the Twin Towers is so disturbing, but the visual of the vaulter falling here ends up being a little

05:31too reminiscent of the imagery that would be front page news just 5 years later. And some athletes

05:38are forced into greatness by 50,000 screaming maniacs. Number 5 I'm Batman Snickers.

05:46Head trauma is no laughing matter. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, has been studied extensively

05:58in athletes, particularly football players, and can cause everything from deafness to dementia.

06:05Unfortunately, it seems Snickers didn't get the memo. In the 90s, before the average person had become

06:11aware of the serious nature of CTE, the candy company ran an ad in which a football player gets hit in the

06:16head and starts to believe he's Batman. He eats a Snickers, but it doesn't seem to help,

06:25as the ad ends with him heading off to the Batcave. It's admittedly a silly premise once thought ideal

06:31for a Super Bowl commercial, but watching it today, it's a little harder to laugh along.

06:36I am vengeance. I am the knight. I am Batman.

06:44Number 4 James Dean Driving PSA

06:47We asked Jimmy over today because he's a racing man himself. A real one, not a crazy one.

06:52In order to promote upcoming films, Warner Brothers decided to bring their biggest stars to the small

06:57screen, having frank and personal discussions with host Gig Young. One of these segments saw James

07:03Dean promoting giant and rebel without a cause, while talking about the dangers inherent in drag

07:10racing. He discusses his own history with racing as a legitimate sport, saying he'll take his chances

07:21any day, as long as it's on a track and not a highway. The segment ends with the star looking

07:27at the camera, telling audiences to drive safely, because one of the lives they could save might

07:33be his. Shortly thereafter, Dean lost his life in a fatal highway car crash.

07:43Number 3 Debunking Opioid Myths Purdue Pharma

07:47Some old commercials make you cringe. This one set its company up for lawsuits.

07:52Some patients may be afraid of taking opioids because they're perceived as too strong or addictive.

08:00But that is far from actual fact. In 1998, Purdue Pharma boldly told Americans not to be afraid of

08:07opioids, claiming that less than 1% of patients developed substance use disorder on the drug.

08:12They also downplayed its adverse effects. A new study out shows there may be gross underreporting of

08:18opioid related deaths, meaning the opioid crisis may be far worse than initially thought.

08:23Much of the clip is at best misinformed and at worst deceitful. At high doses, opioids can slow

08:30your breathing and heart rate to the point of death. And the sensations felt while taking them have been

08:34known to kickstart dependency in many individuals. The word epidemic gets used a lot these days, but

08:42it may be the case that that word is not strong enough to describe this country's recent surge

08:47in opioid addiction. 2. Fogel goes to court, Subway

08:52Hi, I'm Jared the Subway Guy, and this is my story. Tying your brand to any one person always

08:57has the potential for disaster, whether they're a pre-established celebrity or an average Joe.

09:03Nonetheless, Subway took a risk with Jared Fogel, a man who rose to prominence after an article in

09:08Men's Health detailed his significant weight loss while eating their food.

09:13Here is Jared Fogel. You may have seen him on the news.

09:15What initially seemed like an advertising match made in heaven slowly devolved into a PR nightmare

09:21when the spokesman was arrested for possession of illegal materials involving minors.

09:26Mr. Fogel, no denying your body's changed over the years.

09:30Of the many ads Fogel made with the company, the worst aged by far is one that sees the

09:42Indiana native being questioned in a courtroom. Suffice it to say, you don't want customers

09:48thinking about the real reason Fogel eventually faced a judge.

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10:081. Steve Irwin's Anti-Venom

10:11FedEx Known for his uniquely entertaining animal series,

10:15The Crocodile Hunter. Steve Irwin was a big name for any wildlife lover growing up in the late 90s

10:21and early 2000s. So it hit hard when the Australian zookeeper ultimately met an early end

10:28doing what he loved best. I realized that the passion, the enthusiasm, the excited love of his

10:34subject, Australian wildlife, none of it was an act. When the cameras stopped rolling, Steve didn't.

10:41In 2006, while filming an educational segment in the Great Barrier Reef,

10:45Irwin was fatally struck by the barb of a stingray.

10:48People ask me, how come my Toyotas can take so much of a beating and just keep bouncing back?

10:54Just six years prior, he had made a commercial with FedEx, which could now be read as an eerily

11:01prescient warning. The dark ad depicts Irwin being bitten by what he calls the most venomous

11:06snake in the world, and then collapsing when an anti-venom is not delivered in time.

11:11Luckily, we've had the anti-venom sent from America via FedEx in my line of work. If you're not

11:16absolutely sure, you're absolutely dead. Oh, crikey!

11:21Did we miss any advertisements that have become hard to watch with hindsight? Let us know in the

11:26comments.

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