TV REVIEW : Hour of Commercials Breaks the Monotony on CBS

Who of us has not proclaimed in fits of frustration that the TV commercials are a helluva lot better than these stupid, idiotic shows!

A special tonight, tediously but not-inappropriately called “The World’s Funniest, Cleverest, Most Imaginative Commercials” (10 p.m. on Channels 2 and 8), puts that theory to the test. It’s a nice break, if only for an hour. A nice break from the weary CBS schedule, anyway.

Producer/director/co-writer Andrew Solt makes no effort at making any point of it all, except that there were/are a lot of car commercials, kids are used a lot and, hey, aren’t special effects silly? This is simply a hodge-podge from here and there, as hosted by comic David Leisure, who--would I lie to you?--gets to run only one of his car spots.

These may not be the best of the best, because everybody has favorites. “Hey, Mikey!” isn’t in here, or “Some Spicy Meatball.” There are a group from commercial auteur Joe Sedelmaier, plus the Mean Joe Greene and the Kid spot, the California Raisins’ “Grapevine” routine, etc. There’s great pixilating and anthropomorphizing going on. We love the one where the chairs and tables love being caressed by this brand of sandpaper.

There are delicious foreign entries, among them a spot from Zimbabwe that shows wild tribal dancers getting severely sore feet, so they all pad to the shoe store for their zany colored Bata brands, then resume the ceremony.

Our special favorite was the Brazilian commercial of a riot scene in which cops attack protesters with water cannons, pull, yank and drag them around and lug them off--and mostly the camera focuses on their behinds, which are all covered in Staroup jeans.

A thought occurs: Maybe CBS can get back into this ratings race by running all commercials.