Archives for March 2006

The guy Canadians love to hate has been axed!

Yep, that’s right folks! No more noisy neighbor bursting into your home via your T.V. screen telling you that your home improvement tools and gadgets just aren’t good enough and that his are better. Nope, Canadian Tire finally came to the wise decision and axed the long standing commercials. I’m assuming that his T.V. wife is also gone with the deal, unless of course she divorced that do gooder and has taken up home improvement on her own- or perhaps she’ll have her own branch of commercials with her rumored secret lover.

Now I know my American and other international readers probably have no idea what I’m talking about, but I’m sure you have some commercial stars that you just love to hate as well. 🙂 Actually … since we get so much American T.V. here in Canada … perhaps you guys get a little bit of ours too? Along the lines of free trade? Aw come on … I know you do- I’ve talked to lots of Americans that actually admit to watching the Red-Green show (Canadian tire guy is a bit like him in some ways- but with tools instead of duct tape, and the things he makes stay together), and Much Music and the CBC. Perhaps you secretly loved to hate Canadian Tire guy too?

Anyway, for those that don’t know, Canadian Tire is a hardware, garden center type store along the lines of a small Home Depot. You know, on one of your trips to Canada you might have had to purchase a battery for your car, or replace a flat tire, or get some camping gear for your trip and ended up stopping in at Canadian Tire. You know, the store that gave you that weird funny money back with your change.

No that’s not real Canadian money- although ours is colorful and you might think it looks a bit funny. 🙂

Getting Canadian tire money is like getting a coupon towards your next purchase, although you might have to save it for a while to get it to add up to a substantial enough amount that you can actually purchase a product on it’s own with only Canadian tire money. I think at last count I had about $98 in Canadian tire money saved up. Yep, the stack is about a foot high. 🙂

So back to the Canadian tire guy and his almost as annoying wife. Canadian tire ran a series of commercials for approximately 8 years starring this man and his wife, and eventually a son, and dog. Yes it just got more and more grating.

He was the kind of neighbor that would see you outside washing your car by hand and he’d come over with his brand new super deluxe power washer and use it to make all the paint fly off your car! His drill, or power saw was always better than yours- quicker, quieter, handier – simply better.

If you were barbecuing he had a great barbecue for you to use and special tools for you to clean it with; if you were vacuuming a small spill his super sucker could do it best; if you were going camping he had inflatable beds for you, and special inflatable pumps that ran off your cars battery. He plugged the solar powered engine warmer too! Everything and anything that’s sold by Canadian tire- he had it- the newest version and he tried to talk you into getting one too. His wife was often by his side plugging the products too, and occasionally she was on her own offering up her latest housewares.

I’m sure that if these characters were actual people that lived on your street you’d be hiding from them all the time. Keeping your curtains shut; working on your home renovations after hours when the noisy neighbors would hopefully be asleep in bed. Heck- maybe you’d be trying to sell your house just to get away from the overly friendly neighbors?

I Googled Canadian Tire Guy and came up with pages and pages discussing him. There are forums, bl0g posts, a Macleans Magazine article (Macleans for Canada is like the New York Times Magazine). Actually it was probably the Macleans article that did him in, it’s story line was similar to the way I’m writing this post. Macleans own discussion forum was filled with letters of agreement on the article- it had to have caught the powers that be at Canadian Tires eye.

So now who’s next to go? We’ve already lost that creepy Alexander Keith’s beer ad guy who was quickly becoming another commercial character that I personally loved to hate. (He was recently arrested for p0rnography)

Hmmm I wonder if Frank and Gordon the new and still lovable Beaver reps for Bell will be the next to be lovingly hated?

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We probably should have posted this on our other site- Odd Planet – since that’s our strange news story and humor site, but well- this is my place and so there! 🙂