It's a rare commercial that can evoke feelings, let alone raw, searing hatred. Be they briefly lethal or barely legal, what follows is a short history of the few that have done just that.
MONKEY BUSINESS (1962) Xerox demonstrates the simplicity of its photocopiers a little too memorably when it debuts a spot featuring a chimpanzee. Long-suffering secretaries go ape as male office workers leave bananas on their machines and inquire about replacing them with primates. The company cashes in its chimps and ends the campaign after one run.
RUBBER BAWL (1975) Having weathered disco, cocaine, and bell-bottoms, a woozy public draws the line when the first condom ad runs on ABC's San Jose affiliate. The station yanks the piece, for Trojan prophylactics, due to the outcry. Two days later, the ad emerges in an evening-news segment; viewers reassess the premature ejection and push for the spot to be rolled back into circulation.
LOVE ME SHOE (1987) You say you want a pair of high-tops? Michael Jackson co-opts the last bastion of boomer idealism, selling Nike the rights to the Beatles' ''Revolution'' for use in athletic-footwear ads. Imagining all the royalties, Apple Records charges the shoe company with wrongfully trading on the Fab Four's ''goodwill'' and files suit for $15 million. Nike lets it be and suspends the campaign.
BREW HA-HA (1989) Coors alienates the powerful accordion demographic with a spot offering strategy for barflies: Faced with an overly crowded pub, the protagonist punches up some polka on the jukebox and waits for the stampede toward the exit. Polish-Americans are not amused. The company cans the commercial, described by one ethnic community leader as a ''piece of trash.''
SODA JERKED (1989) Pepsi don't preach! The soft-drink monolith makes over Madonna with a heartwarming new spot...without screening her borderline new ''Like a Prayer'' video. The ad, in which the Material Girl relives her childhood, runs but twice before Pepsi bows to fundamentalist pressure and cuts the $5 million cord. Anti-fundamentalists express themselves with a protest of their own.
ROAD KILL (1990) Nissan pulls a fast one -- namely, its new speed-crazed Super Bowl spot, in which the 300ZX outraces a jet before leaving the ground entirely. Quoth the narrator, ''These guys are after me, and they can't catch me.'' Apparently they can: Fearing copycat repercussions, police and safety experts persuade the company to hit the brakes after one airing of Ridley Scott's $750,000 test-drive.
CHILDREN OF THE PORN (1995) Calvin Klein taps into NAMBLA chic with its ''kiddie porn'' campaign, featuring amateur lens work and off-camera voices urging teens to disrobe. Nothing comes between them and their Calvins -- until the Justice Department's child-exploitation and obscenity unit starts sniffing around. The case is dropped when all models prove to be of legal age. Meanwhile, Klein snuffs the campaign.
INN-DISCRETION (1997) Holiday Inn tosses American manhood a curve when its transsexual ad debuts...during the Super Bowl. Aimed at promoting a $1 billion renovation program, the spot draws irate calls with its gender-bender lead and the voice-over, ''It's amazing the changes you can make for a few thousand dollars.'' Potential clientele sufficiently offended, the company also scraps a follow-up piece -- involving the Pope -- before it ever airs.
