Beauty and the Altered Beast

This article originally appeared on Laser Time May 1 2017

The Top 7 Grossest Cartoon Characters from TV Commercials

There's an old saying in advertising: Sex Sells. Well, at some point in recent years, it was decided that “Gross Sells” just as well, and these adds ran with it, giving us some extremely disturbing and gross cartoon characters to watch. Here are seven of the worst.

7 – The Charmin Bears (Charmin)

The omnipresent family of cartoon bears featured in Charmin's adds aren't that bad at all. They are kinda cute and fairly well animated. It's what they do that makes them gross. This family is constantly shitting and then examining each others' asses for evidence of toilet paper. I don't care who you are; these commercials are fucking weird.

Here we have Grandma Bear sitting next to her Granddaughter while she is on the toilet taking a shit. This is not normal.

6 – The Box (Cologuard)

But is' just a harmless talking box, you say. He's probably good buddies with that box from the Progressive adds, you say. Yes. At first glance, this box seems harmless, but it's whats inside that matters. Cologuard is a service that does cancer screening by examining your stool sample. A sample that you mail in a box. That's right. This guy is literally a box of shit.

5 – Sentient Bladder (Myrbetric)

If the site of a giant, walking bladder with cartoon eyes doesn't freak you out, then I don't know what will. These oddly effective adds for overactive bladders may not be as gross as our top entries, but the cartoon mascot is certainly one of the creepiest.

4 – Snot Monster (Zicam)

This monster, a mix of practical effects and a bit of GC, if fucking scary. Not only does it depict the physical manifestation of a cold, but the commercial plays out like a 30 second version of the movie It Follows, with the monster taking on the worst thing in the world to follow you with.

3 – Digger (Lamisil)

Hide your toes and look away before Digger, the toenail fungus monster, gives you cringe inducing nightmares with he favorite hobby – ripping open your toenails open like the pop-top on a soda can.

2 – Mucus Blob (Musinex)

This unfortunate series of commercials has only gotten worse with time. The initial series of shorts featured an ugly, obnoxious family modeled after The Honeymooners. They were awful. Then someone said: “But can we make this even more gross?” And they did. Gone was the horrible family and in was the even more disturbing, and vividly detailed ball of living snot voiced by comedian TJ Miller.

1 – Happy Intestine Creature (Xifaxan)

Much to the horror of TV viewers everywhere, this insanely awful abomination debuted during the Superbowl, leaving an unsuspecting audience absolutely shell shocked.

Remember, for a commercial like this to make it to the air, there are hundreds of people involved in the process. There are concept artists, CG animators, producers, a director, and countless company and advertising executives – all of whom saw this monument of revulsion. And yet, no one put a stop to it. Not a single person was able to raise enough objection to ensure this atrocity didn't see the light of day.

No, what you had was countless people who took one look at this walking nightmare and said: “Nailed it.”