When the commercials for anything you had to call to order would play, the announcer would always say (very fast), "here's how to order,". I thought that it was Howto Order, a very famous guy who would give you the name, address, and phone number to whatever it was you were supposed to order.

Ry's mom

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

One day I couldn't remember the ending for the Oscar Meyer song. Humming it to myself, singing it outloud, nothing worked to complete the happy jingle. That's when I came up with my own. . . "cause Oscar Meyer has a way of recombining DNA!" Still makes me smile.

Scottie Bob

When the IGA commercial would come on it say's "At IGA, people come first." I always imagined some kind of monsters going shopping at IGA and having to wait all the time.

J-Dawg

Growing up in Southern California there was an auto dealer named Cal Worthington and his dog spot. Now spot could be a bengal tiger, a monkey, whatever, so it's already confusing right? Well there was a song on the commercials advising you that, "If you want a car or truck GO SEE CAL" but since it was so fast and I was already confused, I thought the song was, "If you want a car or truck, PUSSY COW."
And it sort of made sense with a lion sitting on top of a car. I've talked to alot of friends who thought the exact same thing when they heard this commercial.

Joe 78 Sullivan

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

when i was a kid(around 5), the films shown on tv would normally announce the sponsors of the show before playing it and i thought if i watched the entire show, the sponsors would send me a bag of their goodies which normally would be abalone or some expensive yummy food. so no matter how tired i got, i stayed awake throughout the whole show and for the rest of the week, anticipated for the arrival of my 'gifts'. alas..none ever arrived..

Lin Lyonene

I used to believe that when a product had the label of "all new materials" that the material used to make it was all new--as in just made up, just discovered. but then i couldn't figure out why my T-shirt (as example) would be 'all new', it just seemed like cotton to me!

Kara

I used to believe that commercials were live, and every time that a particular commercial was shown on television that the actors had to rush downtown and perform the commercial live. I always thought that the actors must have been REALLY skilled in order to do the exact same thing every time!

Marcail

When i was younger British Gas adverts all finished with a person clicking their fingers, and a flame came out of their thumb. i thought this was some great talent, and so would constantly practice this, thinking that some people genuinley could say 'british gas' click their fingers and ... the magic of fire.

if only i could...

olivia

When I was yound there was an ad for a tube of smarties. A guy would open the tube and he would be sucked inside to a world of smarties. I made my mum buy me a packet thinking that if I opened it I would be sucked inside. I was very dissapointed.

Alex Scobell

There was an advert many years ago on British TV about soap. It involved a bleary eyed person getting up in the morning and stumbling to the shower as if he was blind. He had a shower using the soap and as a result could see again. I kept wondering why don't all blind people use this soap so they can see.

croally

When I was little, like 3 or 4 years old. They had a commerical that when you hit the can of biscuits on the side of the counter the Pillsbury Dough Boy would pop out and talk to you. My mother had to make sure I was not in the kitchen when she opened a can of biscuits. I would run in looking for him and she would say, you just missed him, he was too fast for you. I am 35 now and my kids think this was hilarious.

Pam Schaeffer

I used to see all those Halls cough drop commercials when I was a kid, and in the commercials they would simulate soothing vapors around the persons face when they ate the cough drops. Well when my Grandpa ate one I stared at him waiting to see the vapors float around his face.

IslandGirlie

when I was around 8 or 9 years old and I saw advertisements on TV for cereals, toys, etc. I was quite annoyed with them because they paused the show that I would be watching at the time. One time, my mom had bought me Lucky Charms and I hadn't seen the commercial after a while so I thought that if you had bought the items shown on commercials, they wouldn't show the commercials anymore.

Cindi

I used to think that commercials that say "get your free gifts now" or "available now" or anything that says "now" meant that we have to rush there within a few seconds before the commercial ends.

Banana

I grew up in a Third World country that occasionally received American advertising. I used to believe that the cartoon characters on boxes of cereal were real, but that they only interrupted the breakfasts of American children.

Anon

HI when i as young when i looked at the billboards in India, it use to be plain and a contact number at the center and i did not know, what the number meant there and thought it was the contact number of god and use to always note all the numbers and use to ring them up and ask them wether he was a God

beena

When I was little, there was an advert on the telly for Chambourcy chocolate mousse, that had the slogan "Sh! Don't tell the children!" to suggest that it was so yummy that they'd eat it all before you got a chance to have any.
My sister thought that adverts were subject to the watershed like TV programmes, and believed that the Chambourcy advert had slipped through mistakenly when it was aired before 8pm!

Beth

When I was little, I saw these commercials on TV about how "sniffing" is bad for you and kills brain cells. I thought it meant that when you have to blow your nose if you don't blow it, but sniff it in instead, then that kills your brain cells. So for years I wouldn't sniff in whenever I had a runny nose. The commercials went off the air for a few years and it wasn't until the end of high school when they re-aired them did I realize that it was referring to sniffing drugs/chemicals and not sniffing snot.

Tobi