- All examples found in advertising campaigns are here!
- Played for Laughs in a commercial for Ace Hardware, advertising the fact that they offer free samples of paint so that you can see what it looks like on your wall before buying a whole bucket, sung this to the tune of their usual jingle:Ace is the place for a taste before you buy the whole meal! That's a metaphor. Don't eat paint.
- An older Allstate ad said "Here's a myth: Nothing bad will ever happen."
- In the commercials for The Book of Eli, the voiceover boasts "Gary Oldman makes a great villain!"
- One of Bud Light's "Real Men of Genius" ads is dedicated to athletes-turned-commentators and mentions their giving such critical information as "The team that scores the most points will win the game". Followed by the rock singer intoning "I did not know that!", and not sounding like he's in Sarcasm Mode.
- Another one ("Mr. Pro Sports Heckler Guy") says "Thanks to you, our team is armed with game-winning tips, like 'Catch the ball!' and 'Throw it!'"
- The hotel booking site Hotels.com has been using an advertising campaign using an actual Captain Obvious
, espousing about things in a hotel.- "All those words are spelled correctly!"
- In one commercial, he is subverted when he tells an old lady that her grandson now has an easier time finding hotels. She tells him that he's not her Grandson, he's her lover. The Captain can only blankly stare at the camera for the rest of the commercial.
- In another commercial, we have this exchange:Man locked out of his room: (sarcastically) Thanks, Captain Obvious!
Captain Obvious: No need to thank me, since I haven't helped you in the slightest! - In this commercial for a cross-promotion with Capital One, Jennifer Garner espouses on the benefits of said promotion to the Captain. He responds in his usual manner.
- An ad for a dietary supplement mentions that "fish oil can have a fishy aftertaste."
- Samsung Galaxy S III, designed for humans. Who would have thought?
- From a commercial for age-defying makeup: "Age spots make you look old."
- From a 50s toy commercial: "Because nothing else is Silly Putty."
- From a 60s toy commercial: "Remember, only G.I. Joe is G.I. Joe."
- From a 80s toy commercial: "Only the Transformers are real Transformers."
- Any medicine commercial that says "Do not use if you are allergic to [medication being advertised]."
- Will Power (yes, that is his real name) opens a commercial with this gem: "In IndyCar racing, it's all about speed!"
- Anti-Allergy medicine Flonase touts that it blocks six major allergy triggers whereas most other over-the-counter remedies only block one, with the slogan "Six is greater than One." You know, in case you're four years old and haven't learned basic math yet...
- In the time before Hotels.com chose its most famous spokesman, prepaid cellphone service provider Net 10 had a Captain Obvious of their own.
- In this KFC commercial, Colonel Sanders claims he had searched the world for the perfect recipe for Nashville Hot Chicken before finding it in the last place he expected - Nashville.
- Modern Mattel commercials have a note on the bottom of the screen stating that "toys/dolls can't stand up or move by themselves", when on screen you can clearly see children's hands moving the toys around.
- The NoName Brand of generic grocery items in Canada dabbles with this on their Twitter feed, from the header image reading "Twitter page" to tweets about products such as simulated bacon bits that read "Bits exist in reality".
- The diet aid app Noom brags about helping users uncover the "psychology" behind weight gain, and shows people having their minds utterly blown by learning that acquired and unconscious behaviors like always cleaning your plate, snacking in front of the TV, and pushing food on people as a form of hospitality can all lead to extra calories. Anyone who seriously struggles with their weight can tell you that this psychology is some some very basic, 100-level stuff that most of them had fully worked out by their teenage years, and the hard part isn't in identifying the behaviors or figuring out where they came from, but in actually curbing them.
- A 2019 commercial for the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner, made by iRobot says "If it's not from iRobot, it's not a Roomba."
- "Victory by Computer": When Superman and Supergirl capture Luthor's goons, one of them exclaims that they are being captured by Superman and Supergirl!
- In the 80s, the slogan for teabag company Tetley's was "Tetley's make teabags make tea". There's at least three ways of reading that (Tetley's make teabags and teabags make tea; teabags are made to make tea by Tetley's; Tetley's are a make of teabag, which makes tea) and they're all pretty obvious.
- A 90s commercial for Frosted Cheerios featured various celebrity cameos, one of the cameos was Gumby and Pokey. Upon seeing the cereal, Gumby exclaimed, "Hey! They're frosted!" To which Pokey replied, "Hey! We're clay!"
