Quotes & Sayings About Commercials On Television

We've been trained to spend money since we were born with all these commercials with toys and G.I. Joes and Transformers. But there's so many things in the supermarket, there's so many things on television that automatically, when you turn it on, are saying, 'Buy! Buy! Buy! Buy! Buy! Buy! Buy!' — Donald Faison

Richard Nixon was just offered $2 million by Schick to do a television commercial - for Gillette. — Gerald R. Ford

You can't just repurpose old material created for one platform, throw it up on another one, and then be surprised when everyone yawns in your face. No one would ever think it was a good idea to use a print ad for a television commercial, or confuse a banner ad for a radio spot. Like their traditional media platform cousins, every social media platform has its own language. — Gary Vaynerchuk

Television screens saturated with commercials promote the utopian and childish idea that all problems have fast, simple, and technological solutions. You must banish from your mind the naive but commonplace notion that commercials are about products. They are about products in the same sense that the story of Jonah is about the anatomy of whales. — Neil Postman

When I was in advertising, I did a great deal of work on television commercials. A co-worker and I wrote a screenplay, which led to a few more screenplays, and some were optioned by production companies. I was advised to move to California but didn't want to make the move. I decided to use another form of storytelling, so I wrote a novel. — M.J. Rose

Since Liz's adolescence, when viewing television commercials that celebrated the ostensibly unconditional love of mothers for their children, or on spotting merchandise in stores that honored this unique bond with poems or effusive declarations - picture frames, magnets, oven mitts - she had felt like a foreign exchange student observing the customs of another country. — Curtis Sittenfeld

With a trampoline heart she saw the Bridge to her left: its modern shape, its optimistic uparching. Familiar from postcards and television commercials, here now, here-now, was the very thing itself, neat and enthralling. There were tiny flags on top and the silhouetted ant forms of people arduously climbing the steep bow. It looked stamped against the sky, as if nothing could remove it. It looked indelible. A coathanger, guidebooks said, but it was so much grander than this implied. — Gail Jones

You can't reach America's youth with off the mark radio ads or insulting television commercials — Steve Rifkind

PREFACE A New Look at the Legacy of Albert Einstein Genius. Absent-minded professor. The father of relativity. The mythical figure of Albert Einstein - hair flaming in the wind, sockless, wearing an oversized sweatshirt, puffing on his pipe, oblivious to his surroundings - is etched indelibly on our minds. "A pop icon on a par with Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe, he stares enigmatically from postcards, magazine covers, T-shirts, and larger-than-life posters. A Beverly Hills agent markets his image for television commercials. He would have hated it all," writes biographer Denis Brian. Einstein is among the greatest scientists of all time, a towering figure who ranks alongside Isaac Newton for his contributions. Not surprisingly, Time magazine voted him the Person of the Century. Many historians have placed him among the hundred most influential people of the last thousand years. — Michio Kaku

Everything on television announced a new and better India for women. Her favorite Tamil soap opera was about an educated single girl who worked in an office. In her favorite commercials, a South Indian movie siren named Asin was recommending, along with Mirinda orange soda, more fun, a little wildness. This new India of feisty, convention-defying women wasn't a place Meena knew how to get to. — Katherine Boo

The threat to free television. The reason television is free is because it is a life support system for commercials. That fundamental aspect is about to change. — Dick Wolf

I rolled my eyes. Of course. Whatever you wanted to see, but you couldn't see it very well, there were lots of commercials, and it never quite hit the spot. Television in hell — Sarah Fine

Commercials on television are similar to sex and taxes; the more talk there is about them, the less likely they are to be curbed. — Jack Gould

I think the challenge in hour television or half-hour television is that the more it's around, certainly on commercial television, the less time you have to tell stories these days, because the more commercials they're putting in. — Scott Bakula

I didn't want to do film or commercials or television. — Stephen Moyer

Commercials are not the only junk food in the speech market - indeed, when compared to shallow news reporting, vacuous television shows, or political doublespeak, commercials are not even the most harmful to mental health. — Rodney A. Smolla

As a John Kerry supporter, I wanted to send him a check. But then it occurred to me that most of that money would end up in the hands of advertising agencies and television networks. And the money would be used to create deceptive commercials that flatter our point of view and shade the facts our way. And I wasn't comfortable with that. But on the other hand, that's how the game is played. You're always grappling. — George Meyer

Pepper woke up thinking of butts.
And nothing else.
Ladies' butts.
Skinny butts, big butts, saddlebag butts, flabby and firm butts, the kind that sit so high they seem like part of the woman's back, the kind that ride low and form a UU just above the thighs like in the old television commercials for Hanes Underalls, butts that wiggle and butts that jiggle, sagging butts and robust butts, butts that hardly make an impression under a pair of jeans; sidewinder butts and trumpet butts
the ones so meaty they actually spread out until they appear to be a woman's thighs (ass so fat you can see it from the front), butts as knotty as acorns, butts as smooth as a slice of Gouda, butts with pimples and butts with cellulite, the kind that have pockmarks or red splotches, butts with tattoos and butts with bullet scars. Butts you can cup in your warm hands. Butts and butts and butts.
In other words, Pepper woke up horny. — Victor LaValle

Seeing a murder on television ... can help work off one's antagonisms. And if you haven't any antagonisms, the commercials will give you some. — Alfred Hitchcock

The once inviolate frame within which programs or commercials were displayed on television - always separately - has been violated to a pulp. Program content is seen increasingly as a mere backdrop on which ads are posted like billboards on a fence. — Tom Shales

At the same time I grew increasingly dissatisfied and irritable with what we are prone to call normal life. Except for wine, music, and books, I disliked shopping. Television grated on my nerves, the commercials in particular, so I got rid of the television. I found it harder and harder to rouse any interest in sports, celebrities, electronic gadgets, the chatter of the culture, the latest this or that. Nor did I have any desire to own a house, or get rich, or start a family. I wanted to keep traveling and see the world, live an eventful, unpredictable life with as much personal freedom as possible, and have a few adventures along the way. — Richard Grant

Growing up in Seattle, I had the opportunity to take classes since I was 7 years old. I did theatre. I auditioned for film, television, commercials, and built up not just a resume but also some confidence. I learned how to master my craft before arriving in Los Angeles. — Zoe McLellan

Be very careful of what you allow to infiltrate your consciousness and subconsciousness. When you watch too much television, you'll start to feel inferior from all the commercials hard selling the idea that you're not complete unless you buy their product [ ... ] The ad agencies appeal to your fear of not being wanted or loved. It's the same with the local news. They get you to stay tuned with a constant stream of fear tactics [ ... ] It's as if our culture is addicted to fear and the flat screen is our drug dealer. Don't allow that crap into your head! — RuPaul

The Bush campaign for re-election has officially begun. They're actually running television commercials. Have you seen any of the television commercials? In one of the commercials, you see George Bush for thirty seconds. In another commercial, you get to see George Bush for sixty seconds - kind of like his stint in the National Guard. — David Letterman

Give the public the 'image' of what it thinks it ought to be, or what television commercials or glossy magazine ads have convinced us we ought to be, and we will buy more of the product, become closer to the image, and further from reality. — Madeleine L'Engle

Hey, if I had my choice for social engineering, I'd declare an automatic R-rating for any movie that depicts television commercials. There's a truly dangerous influence on our children. — Marshall Herskovitz

The boy I used to know as Thomas Merker has been erased
replaced with a personality programmed by television and commercials to act a certain way. — Brian James

Many decisions about the form and content of news programs are made on the basis of information about the viewer, the purpose of which is to keep the viewers watching so that they will be exposed to the commercials — Neil Postman

I cry at anything remotely touching - smile at me warmly and I'm off ... television also does it, everything from 'X-Factor' to cereal commercials. I cry when I am tired. I also cry when I laugh. — Natalie Massenet

Consider the oddity of those drug commercials on television. Fifteen seconds of the purported therapeutic effort, followed by about 45 seconds of a rapidly muttered list of horrific possible side effects. When the ad is over, I can't remember a thing about what the pill is supposed to do, except perhaps cause nausea, liver damage, projectile vomiting, a nasty rash, a four-hour erection, and sudden death. Sudden death is my favorite because there is something comical about it being a side effect. What exactly is the main effect in that case? Relief from abdominal bloating? — Charles Krauthammer

The thing is, that great actors are everywhere. They're everywhere. They're doing good parts on television. They're doing television commercials. They're doing local theater. There are so few opportunities. — David Fincher

She gradually became aware of how dumb the damn show was she was watching and she stared at it, wondering how in the hell they could put anything so absurdly infantile and intellectually and esthetically insulting on television, and she started asking herself over and over how they could do it, what kind of nonsense this is, and she continued to stare and shake her head, more and more of her mind being absorbed by the absurdity she was watching, suddenly leaning back on the couch as a section of the show ended and a commercial came blaringly on and she stared at them too, wondering what sort of cretins watch this garbage and are influenced by it and actually go out and buy those things, and she shook her head, unbelievable, it is simply unbelievable, how can they manage to make so many obnoxious commercials, one right after the other? — Hubert Selby Jr.

There is an insistent tendency among serious social scientists to think of any institution which features rhymed and singing commercials, intense and lachrymose voices urging highly improbable enjoyment, caricatures of the human esophagus in normal and impaired operation, and which hints implausibly at opportunities for antiseptic seduction as inherently trivial. This is a great mistake. The industrial system is profoundly dependent on commercial television and could not exist in its present form without it. — John Kenneth Galbraith

Many Americans feel themselves inferior in the presence of anyone with an English accent, which is why an English accent has become fashionable in television commercials; it is thought to sound authoritative. — Edwin Newman

People know elections, like television commercials, are not real. — William Greider

TV families and your own are hard to tell apart, except your isn't interrupted every six minutes by commercials and theirs don't get bogged down into nothingness, a state where nothing happens, no skit, no zany visitors, no outburst on the laugh track, nothing at all but boredom and a lost feeling, especially when you get up in the morning and the moon is still shining and men are making noisy bets on the first tee. — John Updike

I mean, a lot of people don't realize it, but fashion is one of the most racial industries left out there now. Radio and music aren't. Television and movies aren't. Even commercials now are showing interracial couples. You see a lot of diversity in TV shows, but you don't see that in fashion. You think there would be some, because the consumer is of all colors and all shades. But you don't see that in fashion. — Tyson Beckford

We are shocked and saddened by Bob Casale's passing. He not only was integral in DEVO's sound, he worked over twenty years at Mutato, collaborating with me on sixty or seventy films and television shows, not to mention countless commercials and many video games. Bob was instrumental in creating the sound of projects as varied as Rugrats and Wes Anderson's films. He was a great friend. I will miss him greatly. — Mark Mothersbaugh

How can even the idea of rebellion against corporate culture stay meaningful when Chrysler Inc. advertises trucks by invoking "The Dodge Rebellion"? How is one to be bona fide iconoclast when Burger King sells onion rings with "Sometimes You Gotta Break the Rules"? How can an Image-Fiction writer hope to make people more critical of televisual culture by parodying television as a self-serving commercial enterprise when Pepsi and Subaru and FedEx parodies of self-serving commercials are already doing big business? It's almost a history lesson: I'm starting to see just why turn-of-the-century Americans' biggest fear was of anarchist and anarchy. For if anarchy actually wins, if rulelessness become the rule, then protest and change become not just impossible but incoherent. It'd be like casting a ballot for Stalin: you are voting for an end to all voting. — David Foster Wallace

Good work is good work wherever it's done, in a play, a motion picture or television, and that includes commercials. — Parker Stevenson

The more successful a political party, the more winning its ways, the less of its time is spent casting about for policy or determining it principles. But, political parties with principles or even without them, have a common need for money; someone has to pay for the television commercials. — Dalton Camp

I grew up watching movies and television, and one day when I was really young I told my mom I wanted to become an actor, and she was really supportive and got me involved in local theater and commercials. From there I moved up to auditioning for movies and television. — Cameron Monaghan

It took me nine years to get through the fourth grade. When I got into television commercials, I had to take a crash course in reading. I was 32 years old, and I couldn't read the cue cards. — Rocky Graziano

They reminded Ifemelu of television commercials, of people whose lives were lived always in flattering light, whose messes were still aesthetically pleasing. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I've spent over 25 years in the television industry, the direct response industry. I met a lot of people and certainly learned the power of commercials and their brand building potential. — Kevin Harrington

Grunge was so self-consciously lowbrow and nonaspirational that it seemed, at first, impervious to the hype and glamour normally applied swiftly to any emerging trend. But sure enough, grunge anthems found their way onto the soundtracks of television commercials, and Dodge Neons were hawked by kids in flannel shirts saying, 'Whatever.' — Douglas Rushkoff

Daytime television, you can tell who's watching by the three kinds of commercials. Either it's clinics for drying out drunks. Or it's law firms who want to settle injury suits. Or it's schools offering mail-order vocational degrees to make you a bookkeeper. A private detective. Or a locksmith. If you're watching daytime television, this is your new demographic. You're a drunk. Or a cripple. Or an idiot. — Chuck Palahniuk

At first, we lived in very, very small places ... with my mom cleaning houses and scrounging up just enough to keep us in town with a working car. She introduced me to my first agent, and I started with stand-in work, then eventually commercials and television guest-shots. — Keith Coogan

Although watching TV is far from being a positive experience - generally people report feeling passive, weak, rather irritable, and sad when doing it - at least the flickering screen brings a certain amount of order to consciousness. The predictable plots, familiar characters, and even the redundant commercials provide a reassuring pattern of stimulation. The screen invites attention to itself as a manageable, restricted aspect of the environment. While interacting with television, the mind is protected from personal worries. The information passing across the screen keeps unpleasant concerns out of the mind. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

There is one catagory of advertising which is totally uncontrolled and flagrantly dishonest: the television commercials for candidates in Presidential elections. — David Ogilvy

I grew up with free television. Now, it wasn't free, there was these commercials, and so the economic model was driven through commercials and through advertising. — Nicholas Negroponte

I used to do plays and some television commercials when I was younger. I guess my mom's being an actress got me interested in that, but music definitely took its place. — Lenny Kravitz

I have to be careful of what TV shows I choose, particularly ones that have commercials in them, because it's going to be a different kind of television show. — John Hawkes

Music, together with certain sorts of majestic landscape, had a well-known tendency to induce such faux-sublime moments: artificial intimations of transcendent truths, grandiose hunches about the nature of the universe. It was all nonsense. Her tears had been no different from the ones people cried at sentimental television commercials. They represented nothing but a momentary and regrettable submission to kitsch. — Zoe Heller

I am particularly fond of John Lindsay's suggestion that political commercials be banned from television as we now ban cigarette and liquor commercials. — Neil Postman

But the 8-hour workday is too profitable for big business, not because of the amount of work people get done in eight hours (the average office worker gets less than three hours of actual work done in 8 hours) but because it makes for such a purchase-happy public. Keeping free time scarce means people pay a lot more for convenience, gratification, and any other relief they can buy. It keeps them watching television, and its commercials. It keeps them unambitious outside of work. — Anonymous

I used to act in television commercials when I was a kid and a young adult. — Dani Shapiro

He was a middle aged dirt-bag, and was more than likely one of the intended audience for all of the erectile dysfunction commercials which littered the television. — Scott Hildreth

I want gunshots and canned laughter and dog food commercials. Nothing seems too tragic when the television is blaring. — Liane Moriarty

I've always been a fan of advertising, I've always been a fan of television, I've loved commercials, I've loved all the jingles, I loved all the stuff. — Jon Hamm

All science asks is to employ the same levels of skepticism we use in buying a used car or in judging the quality of analgesics or beer from their television commercials. — Carl Sagan