Restaurant Commercials that Greatly Annoy Me

Where can I even start on this?

My current favorite is Domino’s Pizza’s CEO saying how their grilled sandwich is better than Subway’s. This is the latest in the refined art of the “CEO sale” approach. Are you kidding me? Both sandwiches are mediocre at best. That’s the equivalent of saying that vegemite is better than haggis. Ycch.

Speaking of Subway’s endless commercials with Jared, the hopeless formerly fat nerd who supposedly lost 200+ pounds walking to Subway and eating the same sandwich every day for two years, they border on the ridiculous. If you ask me, Jared probably had gastric by-pass surgery and then tried to suggest that he lost all that weight eating Subway food. Yeah right! I mean, come on. Have you tried his favorite sandwich? And now they’re going to add everyone’s favorite bong-using 8 gold medal winner Michael Phelps into the ad mix. I can’t wait. Better not let Jared near that bong. Wouldn’t want him getting the hungries.

Then there are the endless commercials for the Olive Garden: you know, “when you’re here, you’re family!” I find it difficult to believe that anyone eating the sterile pap the OG calls food would find that they are considered part of the family? Yeah, they’re family as long as they bring their Master Card! But you know the kids love the never-ending salad bowl and the bread sticks. And dear God, my kids did as well.

Equally inane are the commercials where the OG tries to convince you that their chefs go to Italy each year for training. In truth, a very small percentage of the managers and virtually none of the chefs got to Italy. If you were OG corporate, would you send some cook making $8 an hour to Italy? Sure you would.

Guy Fieri

Another group of commercials that absolutely kill me are the Red Lobster’s efforts. In the commercials, beautifully shot, you seem plump shrimp and lobsters tumbling in slow motion on the plate of the delighted diner. Bowls of clarified butter sit in anxious anticipation. And then when you actually go to Red Lobster, those plump shrimp are microscopic, there is no real lobster, and everything seems so much SMALLER!!! And it doesn’t taste anything like it you think it might in the glorious TV ads.

And then there’s the latest attempt by TGIF to reinvent itself with a series of commercials starring the Food Network’s spike-haired Guy Fieri, host of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. Now I’m not quibbling with Fieri’s knowledge of food, but I can’t abide his selling himself out to TGIF.

Fieri is a bombastic, larger than life food celebrity and his platinum blond image dominates the TGIF ads. In fact, I’ve seen several and all I can remember is him: not any of the dishes he’s plugging. Sorry, nothing against Fieri but TGIF is not a diner, nor a drive-in, or most certainly not a joint.

And how could we forget the incredibly obnoxious Papa John’s spots with Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. You want to talk about hubris? Jones, who has probably had as much face work as Cher and Joan Rivers combined, begins the spot by lecturing his players on over zealous end zone dances. He is interrupted by a Papa John’s pizza delivery which prompts Jones to begin his own strange, jerkily eerie (and highly digitized) dance routine. He ends the spot by gulping down a bite of pizza and attempting to project a look of pure pleasure. This one was even worse than the one that Donald Trump did for Domino’s or the one that he and Ivana did for Pizza Hut (in the middle of their divorce).