Have you ever seen a fictional advertisement and thought, How can I get my hands on that? Or did the made-up product or service advertised, or even the general tone of the commercial, merely leave you amused, or even disturbed? Whichever the case, we have collected many of the most memorable fake ads from movies and TV shows in this fun retrospective.
Recruitment Video (Starship Troopers)
Director Paul Verhoeven's 1997 adaptation of Robert A. Heinlein Starship Troopers is a classic '90s movie that got bad reviews because critics and audiences at the time misunderstood its satirical elements. However, the United Citizen Federation's overtly ridiculous ad to recruit soldiers makes one wonder how the man-versus-alien thriller's anti-fascist and anti-war messages could have gone over people's heads so easily.
Al Harrington's Wacky Inflatable Arm-Flailing Tube Man Emporium and Warehouse (Family Guy)
Family Guy is a treasure trove of random, completely out-of-left-field humor, and one of the most definitive examples is an ad for the Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man Emporium and Warehouse. CEO Al Harrington candidly reveals that he has more of these attention-drawing-but-ultimately-useless products than necessary due to a shipping error, which explains why he is so wildly enthusiastic to sell them off.
Aveda (Zoolander)
In Zoolander, director and star Ben Stiller's eponymous character has joined his family's mining business when a reminder of his modeling career appears on the TV at the bar where miners frequent. It is an ad for an unspecified product from real-life beauty supply company Aveda in which Zoolander portrays a mermai– sorry, "merman," much to his father and brothers' embarrassment.
Ants In My Eyes Johnson's Electronics (Rick And Morty)
One of the best Rick and Morty episodes, "Interdimensional Cable," sees the titular grandfather-grandson duo surfing TV stations from alternate realities, from which some very strange advertisements originate. One of the most bizarre is for an electronics shop owned and operated by Ants in My Eyes Johnson, who gets his name from the fact that he is literally blinded by the bugs constantly crawling around his eyeballs. Did I mention the poor guy also lacks the ability to feel anything?
Rekall (Total Recall)
One of Arnold Schwarzenegger's best movies, 1990's Total Recall, sees the actor play an average man who discovers that the life he knows is a lie. He makes this discovery after seeing an ad for a futuristic company called Rekall, which implants fabricated memories into the mind of the consumer, and decides to pay them a visit.
Cheddar Goblin (Mandy)
Panos Cosmatos, writer and director of Mandy, loves to mess with moviegoers' heads, as evidenced by the TV advertisement that Red (Nicolas Cage) sees just moments after witnessing his titular lover's traumatic murder in the acclaimed revenge movie. Directed by Too Many Cooks creator Chris Casper Kelly, "Cheddar Goblin" is the ultimate '80s-era, child-oriented food commercial, depicting a little green monster that vomits macaroni and cheese, much to the delight of a hungry boy and girl.
TripleDent Gum (Inside Out)
There is nothing particularly amusing in essence about the ad for TripleDent Gum, as seen in the 2015 Pixar movie favorite, Inside Out. However, the commercial and its catchy jingle serve as a hilarious representation of the kind of ads that you cannot seem to remove from your memory, no matter how hard you try.
Life Extension (Vanilla Sky)
Before the beloved Black Mirror episode, "San Junipero," impressed audiences with the concept of uploading your conscience into a VR simulation, Vanilla Sky toyed with a similar idea. In Cameron Crowe's remake of the Spanish sci-fi thriller, Open Your Eyes, David Aames (Tom Cruise) learns of a service called Life Extension, which allows consumers to be cryogenically frozen and kept in a state of constant lucid dreaming, which he considers participating in after suffering a disfiguring accident.
Happy Fun Ball (Saturday Night Live)
One of the funniest fake products seen on Saturday Night Live is Happy Fun Ball, which, at first, seems like a perfectly suitable children's toy. However, no parent would allow their child (or any living soul) near this cursed object after hearing the ad's lengthy disclaimer.
Soul Glo (Coming To America)
Writer Nile Rodgers' jingle for the spray-on hair-styling product Soul Glo is so groovy, it is no wonder that Akeem (Eddie Murphy) considers using it in hopes of winning the heart of Lisa (Shari Headley). However, later in 1988's Coming to America, it becomes clear the spray does nothing but make one's hair perpetually wet and greasy.
Adult Entertainment For Women (30 Rock)
On 30 Rock, Liz Lemon (series creator Tina Fey) comes across an ad for what is described as "adult entertainment for women," which is equipped with music that suggests something more explicit. It turns out that it is really just footage of a handsome guy giving generic, affirmative replies while the female customer is allowed to vent whatever is bothering her at the moment.
Yo-Magic (WandaVision)
Each episode of Marvel's experimental Disney+ original series, WandaVision, featured a faux ad that reflected the era of sitcom television homaged in the episode and its underlying theme. One of the more unique (and unsettling) is a stop-motion animated ad for a yogurt brand called Yo-Magic, in which a boy stranded on a desert island is offered a cup, but his struggles to open it last the remainder of his life.
Stratton Oakmont, Inc. (The Wolf Of Wall Street)
Martin Scorsese's 2013 biopic starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Jordan Belfort may be called The Wolf of Wall Street. However, it opens with the sight of a lion walking the halls of Stratton Oakmont, Inc., in a fictional ad for the real, defunct brokerage firm.
MagnaVolt (RoboCop 2)
The key to the RoboCop movies' success is the action movie classics' underlying consumerist satire, as demonstrated in darkly hilarious faux ads. For instance, 1990's RoboCop 2 introduces a product called MagnaVolt, which essentially turns your car's driver seat into an electric chair that burns thieves to a crisp the moment they sit down after breaking in. Hopefully, it doesn't malfunction while the owner is seated.
Buzz Lightyear (Toy Story)
Whenever I watch Toy Story, I always take for granted how perfectly the official ad for the Buzz Lightyear action figure captures the tone of child-oriented marketing in the mid-1990s. I am usually distracted from that by Buzz's (Tim Allen) heartbreaking realization that he is not an actual space ranger after stumbling upon a TV playing the commercial at Sid's house.
Almost Pizza (Saturday Night Live)
Many of the best pre-recorded SNL sketches are the series' commercial parodies, such as Season 37's "Almost Pizza." It's an ad for a product that Bill Hader's character assumes is just frozen pizza until his wife (played by Kristen Wiig) tells him that it is not quite that, but close enough. However, by the end of the ad, we learn the product is not edible, is sentient, and is distributed by Pfizer.
Scot Free (The Kentucky Fried Movie)
Director John Landis' classic parody film, 1977's The Kentucky Fried Movie, is made up of various humorous vignettes and faux advertisements for uproarious products, such as Scot Free. It is a board game in which the object is to get rid of all evidence that ties you to a political assassination.
Betelgeuse's Bio-Exorcism Service (Beetlejuice)
In Tim Burton's 1988 horror-comedy classic Beetlejuice, the first we see of Michael Keaton's title role (whose name is actually spelled "Betelgeuse") is in a TV commercial only the ghostly Adam (Alec Baldwin) and Barbara Maitland (Geena Davis) can see. Adopting a used car salesman energy, he advertises his services as a self-described "bio-exorcist," meaning he specializes in helping other spirits like him rid their homes of the new living inhabitants.
Purrpetual Pets (M3GAN)
The fun sci-fi Blumhouse movie favorite, M3GAN, opens with an ad for a futuristic product that anyone who has ever lost a pet might be interested in, called Purrpetual Pets. However, the animal replacement robots look nothing like any animal on Earth, and youngsters can only interact with them by using a tablet app.
Community: The Game (Community)
The final scene of the Community finale is a commercial for a board game inspired by the beloved TV sitcom that becomes bleakly self-aware when the family depicted in the ad begins to realize they are just characters created for a joke. The scene also concludes on a meta note with a disclaimer that essentially breaks down the show's storied legacy on and offscreen, while also taking a few jabs at creator Dan Harmon.
B'ougar (Tim And Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!)
Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim's sketch comedy series, Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, has presented many ridiculous and even unsettling products that come from a company called Cinco. One of them, called the B'ougar, is a sculpture of a creature with the body of a bear and the voice of a cougar. It is meant to be planted in your bedroom so you can have something reasonable to be afraid of if you wake up in the middle of the night.
Big Red (Saturday Night Live)
Not to be confused with a brand of cinnamon gum, Big Red is the name of a household toy that originates from a faux ad on SNL. It is a sculpture of a Viking that, when activated, spins around and squirts from its horns red paint that may prove irritating if exposed to human skin, but the cheery family in the ad seems to pay no mind to that warning.
Ichiban (Friends)
One of the most ridiculous episodes of Friends sees Joey (Matt LeBlanc) showing Chandler (Matthew Perry) a clip from his acting highlight reel video. It is a bizarre ad for a Japanese brand of lipstick designed for men, which Joey, unexpectedly, proves to be a natural at selling.
Kitten Mittons (It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia)
Charlie Kelly (Charlie Day) is just about the most absent-minded and incompetent member of the It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia gang, and few moments from the series prove this better than his homemade ad for what he calls "Kitten Mittons." Beyond the fact that the name is incorrectly spelled, the product offers a solution to a relatively non-existent problem, and Charlie's awkward, high-pitched delivery makes the scene an all-timer for cringe comedy.
Nexus (WandaVision)
Just like the series itself, the faux ads in WandaVision become darker in tone with each episode, arguably reaching their peak with Nexus. The product is an antidepressant that is promised to help anchor the consumer back to their reality... or "the reality of your choice."
Conan The Librarian (UHF)
No movie and TV show from the 1980s was safe from parody in "Weird Al" Yankovic's underrated spoof, UHF, which features a wonderful variety of fake movie trailers. For instance, there is one ad for a film called Conan the Librarian, which reimagines Arnold Schwarzenegger's medieval hero as a bookkeeper.
Genaro's (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang)
Writer and director Shane Black's acclaimed neo-Noir, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, sees Harry Lockhart (Robert Downey Jr.) stumbling onto a case that involves his childhood crush, Harmony Lane (Michelle Monaghan). At one point, we get a glimpse into her acting career, which includes a bizarre commercial for a brand of beer called Genaro's, which features a talking CGI bear (voiced by Laurence Fishburne) at a German festival.
Nukem (RoboCop)
If you ever played games like Risk and Battleship but felt the stakes were not high enough, Nukem is right for you! Featured in 1987's RoboCop, the object of the game is to enforce cataclysmic attacks on the foreign nations owned by your opponents.
Colon Blow (Saturday Night Live)
Some of SNL's best commercial parodies identify a known solution to a common issue and exaggerate its effectiveness to unnecessarily extreme levels. For instance, in the ad for a cereal called Colon Blow, an unseen announcer tells Phil Hartman's character that one bowl of it contains 30,000 times the amount of fiber you would find in an average bowl of cereal.
Smilex (Batman)
In 1989's Batman, The Joker (Jack Nicholson) hacks into a TV station to broadcast a product called Smilex. In truth, the ad serves as a warning to the people of Gotham that the clownish criminal has tainted various makeup products with the poisonous product.
Globo Gym (Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story)
The opening scene of 2004's Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story is an ad for Average Joe's Gym's far more popular competitor, Globo Gym. Founder White Goodman (Ben Stiller) acts as the spokesperson, and his most essential marketing tool is put-downs.
Morrie's Wigs (Goodfellas)
Morrie Kessler (Chuck Low) is an associate of the Lucchese crime family, who is introduced in 1990's Goodfellas through an ad for his wig store. He prides his business for selling toupees that stay on in windy days and during dips in the pool.
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