Thrill To Four Dull Commercials For Dazzlingly Boring ’70s And ’80s Cars!

Wow! Who is ready to start their day with a big, frothy injection of Vitamin Ennui? Who feels like blasting their way into the morning on a rocket fueled by the potent hypergolic combination of tedium and tiresomeness? You do, that’s who, and I’m here to help you, by providing you with four commercials, all from the mid-to-late-’70s and early ’80s, that are for cars that you would need an electrified give-a-shit-o-matic just to even donate the tiniest of poops about.

Yes, these are boring commercials for, charitably, boring cars. Now, I’ve been in this business long enough to know that pretty much any car has a core group of fanatics that love them, and I think that’s positively delightful. I’m all but certain all of the cars represented here today have their adherents, and to those people I half-heartedly apologize in advance: I mean no harm. You can like what you like, always.

That said, I don’t think there’s a real way around the fact that these are all pretty enthusiastically boring cars. Not bad cars, as such, and often quite successful ones, but just, you know, boring. Cars that just kind of disappear into the background of life, cars so nondescript that, were one to run you over, the only thing you could remember about it was that it had tires, most likely four of them.

You know, real sleeping pills. Like this first boring car, the 1978 Ford Fairmont:

Now, yes, I get that the Fairmont was the first car to use the legendary Fox platform, soon to be beloved by Mustang-people, but that doesn’t save the Fairmont from being a boxy and forgettable genericmobile. How would you describe a Fairmont other than “it looks like a car.” Like, the car in most NO PARKING signs.

And this commercial, damn, they weren’t stingy with the boring in this commercial at all. Sure, it starts exciting with those Fairmonts loudly crashing through that US map, and then lumbers into a bunch of parked Fairmonts talking about how much space you get per cubic dollar or some shit like that. And that kids grow up, not down. It’s all fine, but the virtues showcased in this commercial are so mild that they make a bowl of farina feel like a spicy trip to the Bahamas while on fire.

Ugh, these things were so dull. Even more dull than this dull car, the Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme:

Holy crap, that’s a boring commercial. A woman just talking to you while pacing around a parked ’76 Cutlass Supreme Broham as her silent partner, Jack, unloads luggage, tears of boredom welling up in his eyes as he wonders what the hell he’s doing with his life.

She’s pretty happy, perhaps due to some sort of head injury, as she calmly states some positive traits about the car, even describing the overstuffed and velour-slathered interior as “absolutely beautiful.” This whole commercial reads like a half-paid-attention-to conversation in the line to take care of some tedious paperwork at the DMV.

Here, delight at this legendarily boring car, the 1977 Dodge Diplomat, but this time there has been some attempt to mask the car’s inherent ignoribility by leveraging everyone’s favorite cocaine-addicted detective, Sherlock Holmes:

The crime-solving duo is working on a case attempting to find missing Ford and Chevy buyers who, I think we can assume, were willingly euthanized after getting lulled into a comatose state by the intensely forgettable qualities of the Diplomat.

Sure, Holmes seems impressed, but remember, that dude is probably high as a freaking kite.

Okay, one more! Let’s amp the stakes a bit with this remarkably and powerfully boring car, the Mercury Topaz, and couple that with some of the most bland and forgettable things one can broadcast on television: ordinary fucking people.

Would you look at that! Some guy is looking for a car that is “put together, real well!” And then a woman wants something “solid” and “quiet,” like a healthy bowel movement, followed by another woman dreaming of “workmanship.” The commercial even describes the development process of the Topaz as a “slow and frustrating process,” words that, if they fail to get you positively vibrating with excitement, I would suggest you have a doctor confirm you’re metabolizing.

Dear lord, what snooze festivals all these are. These all have beige auras, vivid, intense beiges with hints of putty and taupe. I’ve made myself so very sleepy now, thanks to these soporific wonders. Feel free to disagree with me in the comments and let me know how wrong I am, and how thrilling a Topaz or Diplomat actually was.

Until then, though, I need a nap.