What's new in "The Bobosphere"-the magical land where Ad Age's untethered old columnist-for-life Bob Garfield says things that make sense to Bob Garfield, exclusively? Well today, he's insinuating that the recently pulled Snickers commercial showing Mr. T shooting a speed walker with Snickers bars was probably the inspiration for the man who shot up a church in Tennessee yesterday because he hated liberals. Oh, Bob. We don't even know what to say. [Ad Age]

You can't trust the Red Chinese for a single second. (Kidding! Trust them all you want). Nor can you trust multinational corporations! When they combine, they tend to be exceptionally devious. For example: Major companies are running ads featuring Chinese athletes having tender moments with their own parents, in preparation for the Olympics. But while the athletes are real, their parents-the catalysts for the ad's emotional strength-are played by actors. You have to see it to believe it! In one ad, a Chinese hurdler poses on a billboard (pictured) with two actors who are kind of like his parents, but probably more attractive. A Coke ad shows athletes and their parents bonding by doing sports together, something that their real parents would never do, I guess. "From an acting standpoint, we prefer to use trained actors who can match our creative requirements for the TV commercial," says a Coke spokesman, while urinating on the concepts of truth and familial honor. Watch the Coke ad below, and trust no one: Click to view [via WSJ]

"Re. Nike Ad!!! You are all scum and should be exterminated. You are what is wrong with the world and we would all be much happier with you all being stoned to death, slowly." The problem there is, you're still going to offend the anti-stoning crowd.

This pro-Obama ad is about how "hope" is a lot like a sexually transmitted disease. It is designed to reach to the Youngs, all of whom have herpes, especially in Brooklyn. It is by MoveOn.org. In order to make sure it appeals to those cold-sored 20-somethings, it feeds their bullshit pop culture nostalgia by featuring a guy who was on Boy Meets World and a lady from that vampire show. It will be the very first political ad ever to appear on Comedy Central where it is sure to convince to all those post-racial young Larry the Cable Guy and Carlos Mencia fans to vote for Senator Obama.

Perhaps you've heard the news that Nike has pulled its "That Ain't Right" balls-in-face ads after an outpouring of outrage sparked largely by this very website (though we weren't the first to address it). Are you proud of yourselves, commentariat? You are feared in all corners of corporate America. But the larger point here is that advertising is getting to be a very touchy business; companies are making fools of themselves nearly every week because of the crackheaded work of one of their ad agencies. After the jump, we look at five ads that had to be yanked recently, where they went wrong, and who came out ahead. Read and learn:

Deep down in our hearts, where we keep our darkest fears hidden, we knew this day would come: the day when you find out after the fact that a hit song is actually an advertisement. Let the tears of rage flow. Chris Brown is not the vessel of true love that you thought! When the R&B star sang "We can go anywhere, go anywhere/ But first, it's your chance, take my hand, come with me," he wasn't talking to you, girl; he was talking to your Wrigley's Doublemint gum. But the company is only revealing its sponsorship after Brown's song, "Forever," had become a top-10 hit. We don't want to appear as if we invest the music of Chris Brown with any meaning whatsoever; but now would be an appropriate time to begin boycotting Wrigley, if you would like to have the option of listening to songs that aren't sponsored by mega-corporations in the coming decade.

"What we've got here is a recession in advertising. It started in local media – radio and newspapers – and is now spreading to TV." [FT] (photo by Peter Kaminski on Flickr)

All ads suck! Unless they involve hidden camera pranks that hilariously mock average people through the use of monetary technicalities. OfficeMax is advertising some cheapo back-to-school sale with an ad campaign consisting of a guy going around New York and paying for all types of things with pennies-and his escapades are all caught on tape! Despite our annoying "too-cool-for-school Brooklyn hipster" pose around here, we have to admit this is the funniest ad campaign we've seen since Gary Busey started giving out free advice. Still, don't shop at OfficeMax or else you're a total pawn of the machine. Click through to see two of the spots: dude attempts to buy deli food with pennies, and dude attempts to buy used car with pennies. Chuckle at the rage of the working class!:

Have you been searching for just the right way to commemorate the 9/11 disaster? Are kitschy figurines and patriotic truck decals and screaming eagle t-shirts just not doing it for you? The solution has arrived: genuine non-circulated Liberian currency in the shape of a $20 bill—but made out of .999 pure silver, and picturing the once-mighty Twin Towers, and bearing a "9" and and "11" on one side which cleverly add up to $20, which is also the price of this unique and patriotic (USA) item. Here is an ad for this treasure that will simply make you say "wtf." Click to watch right now.

The PC joke police are steamrolling testosterone-based advertising! First Nike had to pull its "Air Stab" sneakers out of stores in the UK because people thought they were encouraging unrestrained knife crime. Not a week later, Nike found itself under assault by gays and their internet sympathizers over an ad showing a basketball guy hanging his nuts in another guys' face, with the slogan "That Ain't Right." And now the rising pro-homo chorus has forced Snickers to pull its ad in which Mr. T shoots a speed walker (and gay caricature) with a gatling gun while screaming, "Get some nuts!" Oh, some people get insulted by every little thing. Couldn't they just have digitally inserted a thought balloon on the guy saying "NO HOMO"? Watch the too hot for PC ad yourself, after the jump:

Should menthol cigarettes be banned? From a public health standpoint, shit yea. It would be best for all of us if the only cigarettes available were unattractively packaged, harsh-tasting, and unwieldy. As a Kool smoker, though, I have mixed feelings. You know who else does? Members of the Congressional Black Caucus who receive bundles of cash from the tobacco industry! The fact that "75 percent of black smokers choose mentholated brands" means that the current battle over whether or not to ban them goes to issues even deeper than their sweet, sweet mentholated taste. Things at stake: billions of dollars in revenue, hundreds of millions in marketing campaigns, racial tension, and how happy cigarette companies are to kill you in exchange for money! The current bill in Congress would ban "flavored" cigarettes, but exempt menthols. The Black Caucus is an important player because they stand for the black community—the most enthusiastic consumers of menthols—and they've been wooed big time by tobacco companies.

Last month MTV announced that it would finally start accepting political ads in order to better engage the youth of our nation in the political process and also because Barack Obama has a huge multimillion-dollar ad account that's not gonna spend itself. But look, the crafty right wing is getting out ahead of the curve here! Because the first political ad ever is now running on MTV, and it is against Barack Obama! Unfortunately it is incredibly trite and may have been assembled by a middle school child with rudimentary video-editing software and a YouTube account. Watch it after the jump and join the McCain revolution! Don't be a stereotypical youth in bed with Two-Way Barack:

It appears that the two ads we posted yesterday of cute cartoons showing babies being cooked are not in fact real ads for Bayer's new burn cream. The global account director from Bayer's ad agency, JWT, emailed us to say: "We don't know yet who posted them and why but one thing we know for sure is that they were never presented or approved by anyone in Bayer or JWT worldwide... at the very moment its nothing more but artwork with branding. Bayer group received several phone calls today both in US and Europe in regards to those publications and we need to make sure that this will not spread even more." He called the spots a "very bad and nasty joke." We're adding a disclaimer to the original post.

Central Park: it's sacred space worth billions. But it will be public forever! It will never be sullied by the hand of commerce, or turned into a commercial venue! Except for the huge silver Chanel "Mobile Art pavilion," modeled after a Chanel handbag, that will descend on the park this fall. But it's really an art exhibit, you see, and Chanel is giving a huge donation to be able to put it there, so the commercial angle is totally superfluous. Except that all the freaking art is "inspired by Chanel's classic 2.55 quilted-style chain handbag." You clever bastards. Larger picture of the alien-looking new kind of ad in your life, below:

Two of the ad guys at Saatchi who worked on that unauthorized JC Penney pro-teen sex ad are now leaving the agency for unspecified reasons. One of them says he wants to go work on the Obama campaign now. Let's hope so! [Creativity]

[UPDATE: The ad agency in question has contacted us to say that these spots are spoofs from an unknown source, not actual ads approved by Bayer. Please note that as you read this post]. Well. Health care giant Bayer is advertising its new burn cream [actually, is not] by reaching out to cannibal mothers, apparently. The tagline on these ads out of Egypt reads, "Heals their burn and your guilt, fast." Ha, yes, ummm, we'll just back slowly out of the room now and call the authorities. Even serial fount of outrage Copyranter is left speechless at these. Click through for the other, equally horrific cartoony ad. If you are some sort of monster:

The "direct mail marketing" industry, also known as the people who bring you junk mail, is "going green." In related news, the hot dog industry will be going vegetarian. It seems patently ridiculous that a coalition of junk mailers is going to end pollution, but don't worry-they're not going to strain themselves too hard. "You don't want to scare companies away from joining because they fear some stringent regulation," explains one member. The general public is mired in environmental apathy these days, too. But maybe that's a good thing, considering what the alternative to "direct mail" is:

The big controversy in the UK currently involves-as you would guess-profanity charges against an animated dog. The famous (reportedly) Churchill dog is an ad icon that the English enjoy watching as he utters his unforgettable catch phrase "Oh, yes." Ha! Strangely, a ton of Brits swear that in his latest commercial, the dog actually says "Oh, yes, fuck." The company's public response has been to blow it all off like, "Are you 'avin a laugh?" But now it's a full-blown scandal! The clip in question is after the jump; can you hear it? To be honest, we can't understand British TV ads even when they involve humans speaking clearly.

Nike's new ad campaign for its Hyperdunk shoes features a series of pictures of basketball players getting dunked on in what's considered the worst way possible: the dunker dangling off the rim, his balls dangling in the face of the man being dunk-ee. They all have dynamic slogans like "That Ain't Right!" The company has been plastering them around NYC's most famous streetball meccas, like Harlem (home to The Rucker) and West 4th St. Their rollout coincides with a big foofaraw this week (which some critics say is stupid oversensitivity) over whether the ad industry is making blatantly homophobic ads. All of which raises the question: Are these Nike ads a new low in homophobic advertising? Or do the gays just not understand basketball?

To pimp its sugary, 200-calorie iced coffees, fast food giant McDonald's offered to pay some local TV newscasts for product placement. And of course the newscasts went for it, since local TV journalism is where ethical standards go to die. Meredith Corporation is putting the drinks in front of anchors at the Fox affiliate in Las Vegas (pictured) and at two CBS affiliates elsewhere. Tribune Company has the coffee at its Fox affiliate in Seattle. Even national Fox News is playing ball, placing McDonald's product at the News Corporation-owned station in Chicago. Station operators offered the Times any number of excuses, but the best has to be from the news director at the Las Vegas affiliate: He argues the placement is ethically OK because it is restricted to the "lighter, news-and-lifestyle" portion of his morning news show. Sounds like the portion of the program that might normally be given over to, say, segments on weight loss, fitness or preventing kids from becoming obese. But these days, if the station wants to do any reports that might upset McDonald's, it is supposed to yank the lucrative cups: