adverts

When I was at school a boy in my class started singing 'Goodness, Gracious, Great balls of Fire'one day. Because of particular advert for cereal at the time, I immediately told him to stop being so stupid and that the real words to the song were 'Goodness, Gracious, Great Bowls of Fibre!!' Obviously everyone laughed!!

Anon

In northern California, there's a car dealership owner named Cal Worthington. The jingle for his commercials (set to the tune of "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands"), was something along the lines of,
"If you want a car or truck, go see Cal!
If you want to save a buck, go see Cal!
If you want a brand new truck, if you want to change your luck, if you want to save a buck, go see Call!"

I, like the majority of kids my age, though he was saying "Pussy Cow".

I thought it was some sort of expression that meant "tough luck", as in, "you want a car? Well, tough, because you can't have one".

Sin D

When I was little I believed commericals on TV were "live" and re-enacted over and over again each time they were repeated.

One Saturday night our babysitter was trying to get us to sleep at 11 PM- I protested that the kids on the "slip and slide" commericial were still awake and working so I could stay up too; she asked if it the commercial wasn't "recorded" then why was it sunny outside at 11PM at night? My bubble burst then and there.

Joanne

I used to get overly worried by the Scottish Widows adverts. Did they really only offer their services to widows from Scotland? What if you were a widowER from Scotland, or an English Widow? If they were only for Scottish Widows, why did they bother advertising in England at all? And really, how were they still in business with such a restrictive customer base?

Rhube

When I read in magazines about 'adopt a whale/dolphin/third world child' I actually thought it would be sent to your home. I think I was about 12 when I finally read a whole article about it (see i had just read the title 'adopt a ...') and realised what I actually happened. I was so disappointed!

Catherine

When I was little and watched tv and they would have commercials that were advertising a contest or something and at the end they would always say "Void where prohibited." Except I always thought they said "Voidware prohibited" and I thought Voidware was like Tupperware and it was prohibited.

JennyLou

I used to believe that "some assembly required", as heard in countless television ads, meant that some of the boxes in the stores held completely assembled products and some required assembly. I could never figure out how I could never pick a box that contained an assembled toy. Never lucky enough I thought.

Greg Shores

When I would hear the Grand Am commercials, I thought the announcer was saying Gran Damn! I was very worried about what our society was coming to that we could swear on our commercials!

Anna

One day I asked my dad what Billboards were. He replied "they are showing things that you can buy". I thought that you could buy the woman who was sprawled all over a car!

Adam

When I was a kid there was a commercial for BP that ending with the words "on the move". For some reason I thought it said "on the moon" and thought it was a weird thing to say as why would you they put a gas station on the moon? ;)

Samilton Duerheiser

When I was about 7, I thought that there were so many car commercials on TV because people bought cars once a week or so, and I always wondered why my parents kept the same old car for so long. 

marshmallowgodzilla 

My grandfather worked as a watchman for Smith Brothers Cough Drop company and would bring us small sample boxes of the product. I believed that the first names of the Smith Brothers were Trade and Mark because that was written under the picture of each.

Gaye Laman

When I was little, I thought the phrase in t.v. commercials "brought to you by" was one big word, "broughtoyoduby" meaning they would bring it to you if you buy it.

Ashley Nylin

When I was little I often saw an odd commercial where a struck match was put out with a small circular pad (Tucks medicated pads). From this I believed that these were special pads for putting out matches, which seemed quite odd but then the adult world was foreign to me then.

Shay

When I was a kid and they would say "void where prohibited" at the end of a commercial for some kind of contest, I would always wonder what kind of thing "voidwear" was and why it was prohibited. I guess somehow I realized that since no one talked about "voidwear", that it was something I should either know about already or something that I was not supposed to know about. Then one day...I think I was in my teens, driving even, that it hit me "oh void WHERE!!".

Sean

Once at a family gathering we were all watching TV when the Paint advert came on with the Sheepdog, I shouted out 'Look, look, its the Durex dog' For a while I wasn't sure why everyone was so amused, wasn't for a few years until I learnt how to read and realised it was Dulux! What a farce!

Kelly

One time when I was small I was watching t.v. with a mother and an add for a beauty product came on. I wasn't interested in getting the beauty product being a little kid, but I made some comment about how it "looked good." My mother, in an attempt to make me think more realistically when viewing commericals, explained that you couldn't always believe advertisments, especially since the companies just wanted to sell their products. But instead of becoming more open-minded, I took her quite literally and I was under the impression that anything advertised on t.v. had to be total crap. I figured that sensible people, like my parents for instance made sure not to buy products advertised on t.v. I was quite shocked to find some Mr. Clean under the sink one day . . . how could my parents expect it to be any good? It was always on television!

pessimistic - I think so

I used to believe that Gustavo Dudamel's (principal conductor of LA philharmonic) name was La Phil because all the advertisements for LA philharmonic said "La Phil", with a picture a Gustavo Dudemal conducting. Fortunately, I only believed this for about 4 years until my brother told me that the conductors name was Gustavo Dudamel, not La Phil.

Anon

When I was about 4, I saw this ad on TV for a promotion in which you could win a Gameboy (I think it had something to do with Breakaway bars) which showed a kid playing on one and ending up with holes in him (not sure of the specifics, but they were round holes you could see through, not bloody gunshot wounds or anything).

For a year or two after that, I thought that would really happen to me if I played on a Gameboy, and I was scared that someone would buy me one for Christmas or my birthday.

Hugh Jarse

In the crayola marker commercial that goes "fat or thin, fat or thin", I thought that they were saying my name Jonathan, Jonathan, and i was wondering why the were saying my name, i kinda felt special heh

Jonathan