I am never sure if I should be pleased or annoyed when other people spot the same things that I spot. Like, for example, those “doing it wrong” clips on TV shopping ads.
You know the ones I mean. Let’s say they are trying to sell you a new chopping knife and, as an indication of how your life will improve, they show you a hand-cam, black and white clip of some complete fucking moron who can’t do any basic task without getting everything on the floor, up her nose and in her underwear.
These clips usually end with the stressed sweaty women blowing a sprig of hair from her face with a wistful expression. If only life could be better, she thinks. If only I weren’t such an enormous waste of space. If only I had a special salad-chopping machine or a tiny vacuum cleaner or a grill endorsed by a boxer.
These clips are enthralling. They show people who are so utterly hopeless that they should never be allowed to leave their own bedrooms, and then only if their bedrooms have no sharp edges or heavy objects.
And now some genius has made a wonderful compilation of the best ones. So here we have it, the “doing it wrong” compilation. And let me just warn you – the pace is frenetic, the cutting is relentless and the idiocy is completely off the scale.
Makes you want to buy just about everything ever made, doesn’t it? And if you buy it all RIGHT NOW, we will give you a free planet to put it on. So call now, lines are open until the end of time.
/ paddy
Sir Pe
May 2, 2010 at 9:55 am
Hahaha, brilliant video, thanks for the laugh :-)
I just can’t help wondering how the out-takes for these videos look. You know the 99 times when they accidentally do it right. I mean it can’t be easy to be so completely and utterly clumsy and stupid as the people portrayed in the finished clips…
paddyK
May 2, 2010 at 5:17 pm
That’s all getting very meta…
ladyfi
May 2, 2010 at 9:57 am
I’m obviously an idiot – and proud of it! – because some of my cooking looks just like the offerings in this video…
paddyK
May 2, 2010 at 5:17 pm
But I bet you could crack the egg in the pan, right?
christinaseehusen
May 2, 2010 at 1:30 pm
Brilliant video – so well clipped and choice of music is perfect! Love the one beating the egg outside of the fryingpan, directly into the gas flame. Wonder what remedy is offered for that mistake? An egg-basher? Egg catcher? Thingy that protects flames from floating eggyolks?
paddyK
May 2, 2010 at 5:18 pm
A giant funnel on the frying pan? A new brain? A divorce?
Nick Johnson
May 2, 2010 at 4:24 pm
I just find myself wondering what half of the products these ads were for could have been. Do people really have that much trouble pouring milk on cereal?
Melliferax
May 2, 2010 at 5:07 pm
Not to mention eating hamburgers. I too can’t help but wonder what magically useful item they’re trying to sell with these warning clips. Thankfully I shall never know…
paddyK
May 2, 2010 at 5:24 pm
I have tried to find it, but how the fuck would I search for something like that? “Idiot hamburger?” I have no idea.
paddyK
May 2, 2010 at 5:19 pm
And why are kids using huge containers to pour it? Maybe they are sweatshop workers. Troubling.
Wynn
May 2, 2010 at 8:24 pm
You just can’t help to develop a certain amount of hatred towards those commercials. Gosh woman, you KNOW you can’t get a whole tomato through the opening in the lid on a blender. FFS.
paddyK
May 3, 2010 at 8:47 am
I want to see a docu-soap with only people like this in it. It would be a huge hit.
Wynn
May 3, 2010 at 9:38 am
That’s a GREAT idea, pitch it!
Patti
May 2, 2010 at 8:43 pm
Very amusing! I especially love missing the frying pan with the egg… I’m hoping the solution isn’t just a larger frying pan. Clearly the size ratio for egg to pan is just not large enough.
Glen Gordon
May 3, 2010 at 4:07 am
Probably an ad for some plastic “egg mc-cracker” but this is one of those things in life where the mystery is satisfying in and of itself. It’s like those Zen questions meant to meditate on in isolation. They purposely have a million and one possible answers all of which can be correct in their own way like maybe… “What’s the sound of one egg cracking?”
paddyK
May 3, 2010 at 8:48 am
That woman just needs better glasses.
Anonymous
May 3, 2010 at 9:05 am
That was the one part of the clip that had me splurting coffee over my keyboard.
DrDan
May 3, 2010 at 11:20 pm
oh crap, how embarassing
you could get at least 30% of that stuff on video by following me about for a week
No need for any complicated product to solve the problem though, most of the consequences of my general uselessness can be remedied by the application of a damp cloth.
paddyK
May 5, 2010 at 10:04 am
Do you get your cables in a huge knot too? I hate when that happens.
anaglyph
May 5, 2010 at 8:45 am
Is it one gadget that fixes all those things? Where can I get it?
paddyK
May 5, 2010 at 10:00 am
Yes, and it’s called my mum.