Attack of the Political Ad

aka: Political Attack Ads

Those attack ads get nastier every year.

"The ads they run are not generic party ads or issue ads — they are 'Bill Clinton-is-the-best-thing-since-twist-off-caps' ads and 'Bob Dole-is-the-cause-of-halitosis-and-genital-warts' ads... (I personally doubt the genital wart claim, but...)"

— Jim Hightower, If God Had Meant Us to Vote They Would Have Given Us Candidates

When campaigning for public office, it's not always about telling voters why you're the right person for the job. Sometimes, if not a lot of the time, it's about telling voters why your opponent is the wrong person for the job.

Very much a fact of life in any democratic process. Since the advent of television, political campaigns have taken to the airwaves every election cycle just to point out the flaws and negative characteristics of their opponents in the most unsavory ways. They contrast the most unattractive pictures they can find of their opponent with the most appealing photos of their own candidate, they Quote Mine, they scare you into thinking that if their opponent is elected they'll, literally, send your world straight to Hell and personally hand it over to Satan himself.

As such, whenever a work of fiction with political themes focuses on public campaigning, attack ads tend to show up in the most exaggerated forms, occasionally even parodying Real Life attack ads. Oftentimes, a political opponent is smeared to an extraordinary degree not just to be portrayed as the wrong person for political office but also as being downright evil. For example, the opposition candidate can be suggested to have been involved in causing any number of world disasters, accused of eating babies, or outright claimed to want to be the next Hitler. This will likely be contrasted with the endorsed candidate being portrayed in an unbelievably saintly light. Naturally, this is usually Played for Laughs.

Subtrope of Propaganda Piece and Competing Product Potshot (in a broad sense of the word "product"). Demonization is a more general case, less restrained by the necessity to keep at least formal decency. Compare Scare Campaign.

Real Life examples should go under Scare Campaign.

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Examples:

Comic Books

• Futurama: During the "Time-Bender Trilogy", Leela winds up in Ancient Greece, where she's told that early attempts at democracy failed due to partisan politics, shown with massive carved billboards saying "A Vote For Flavius Is A Vote To Be Murdered In Your Sleep!" So the people of Greece built robot gods to tell them what to do instead. Which worked... for five minutes.

Films — Animation

• In My Little Pony: Equestria Girls, Sunset Shimmer tries to destroy Twilight's reputation and keep her out of the running for Princess of the Fall Formal with an embarrassing viral video done in the style of a political attack ad, including gratuitous use of the Photoshop Filter of Evil.

Films — Live-Action

• Late in the Senate campaign that forms the plot of The Candidate, a clearly panicking incumbent Crocker Jarmon releases a negative ad lampooning Bill's inexperience, portraying him as a schoolboy standing on a literal soapbox.
• Head of State has some pretty silly attack ads against protagonist Mays Gilliam, claiming that if he gets elected the White House will explode, or accusing him of supporting cancer because he didn't appear at a cancer rally. Mays responds by making ads consisting of his opponent getting massive praise... by KKK members and Osama bin Laden.
• The commercial breaks in WNUF Halloween Special has ads from two state governor election candidates. First one has a candidate attacking his rival by accusing him of corruption and plans for excessive gun control. The rival then retorts by having his ad accuse the other candidate about infidelity.
• In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005), it's mentioned that Zaphod Beeblebrox became president only after surviving his opponent Humma Kavula's vicious "Don't Vote for Stupid" campaign. Kavula would later claim Beeblebrox only won because people thought they were voting for the "Universe's Worst-Dressed Sentient Being."
• In No, the people behind the "No" campaign come up with an anti-Pinochet commercial, showing horrifying clips from the 1973 coup and citing the thousands that Pinochet has tortured, imprisoned, and killed. Rene, the hired ad man, doesn't think it will sell and comes up with a much happier, upbeat commercial for "No."

Literature

• America (The Book) has a page dedicated to satirizing negative political advertising as well as highlighting some of its most famous Real Life examples. Among the book's surreal claims, a year after Lyndon Johnson's "Daisy" ad from the 1964 US Presidential election suggested that his opponent Barry Goldwater would start a nuclear war, Barry Goldwater started a nuclear war; Willie Horton was Michael Dukakis's running mate in 1988; and an underground smear campaign in ancient Rome depicted Caligula as "a pretty nice guy."
• Dave Barry Hits Below the Beltway has an entire chapter parodying campaign ads in which two candidates for Congress run ads against each other using the same TV announcer and the same dog and illustrated with "actual newspaper headlines" and grainy black-and-white photos of the opponent embracing Darth Vader and Adolf Hitler and abusing animals. The ads are so successful in scaring people away from voting for each other that, come election day, voter turnout is zero.
  "I'm Bob Humpty, and I think it's time to stop name-calling and start talking about where we stand on the issues. I believe it's wrong to have sex with any kind of farm animal. I realize that my opponent disagrees with me. But I think we can debate this issue in a positive manner, without negativity and lies and threats by my opponent to kidnap my baby daughter."
• Running For Governor by Mark Twain is all about this.
• The Appeal by John Grisham has this happen to the Supreme Court Justice with the highest likelihood of upholding the verdict in question.
• In Rosemary Wells's picture book Otto Runs for President, the ads for as school election start about halfway decent, with Charles's side promising meat in the cafeteria and Tiffany's promising more mirrors in the girls' bathroom, among other things. They quickly descend into Tiffany insinuating that Charles is a cheater, and Charles insinuating Tiffany of spending class dues on hairspray, and soon become worse than insinuations. "TIFFANY: Wrong on hairspray! Wrong for Barkladelphia School!" Meanwhile, Otto ignores both campaigns, quietly speaks to everyone in the school about what they actually want out of a school president and what the school needs, then passes out cookies with his campaign platform. He wins the election.
• Parodied in Diary of a Wimpy Kid. When Greg runs for treasurer on his school's student council, he creates a poster smearing his opponent for having head lice in the second grade. This gets him kicked out of the election.
• Forest Kingdom: As seen in the Hawk & Fisher spinoff series' book 2 (Winner Take All), elections in Haven can get ugly. For the one day that campaigners are allowed to go out electioneering, the candidates can put out anything they want, including remarks and posters to make the other candidates look bad.
• The Cat in the Stacks Mysteries: Discussed in book 6. Charlie notes on the tendency of most election ads being thinly disguised attacks on the other candidate, and how in the current election for state senate, with Andrew Beckford Long competing for his now-retiring father's seat against Jasper Singletary, the candidates are running a cleaner campaign than most. That doesn't stop Long's mother from having a diary forged that would make Jasper look bad by claiming one of his ancestors was a freed slave and thus could never have been legally married to the Civil War-era Jasper Singletary (who shares his name with his descendent); it never actually gets used in the campaign before it's found out as fake.

Live-Action TV

• Saturday Night Live:
  • After the US 1988 Presidential Election, George H. W. Bush was still running new anti-Dukakis ads, even though he had already won, just because he had some campaign money left over. Content of the post-election ads would criticize Dukakis for being shorter than Bush.
  • Another sketch, spoofing John McCain ads in 2008 made countless flawed arguments against his opponent Barack Obama.
  "Barack Obama says he wants universal health care. Is that so? Health care for the entire universe? Including Osama bin Laden?"
• In Arrested Development, when George Michael lets Gob do an ad for his school president campaign, Gob pretty much attacks George's rival, Steve Holt, on the grounds that he doesn't even know who his father is. His father is actually Gob.
• During the US 2000 Presidential Election, The Chris Rock Show had the spoof "Mike Tyson for President" ads, which featured footage from Mike Tyson interviews admitting to things like being a convicted rapist and "a semi-good husband".
• Played with in a fake campaign ad on The State: An announcer details dangerous, controversial, or just plain weird policies a candidate allegedly supports over ominous music... Then it turns out it's actually an ad for said candidate, concluding that while he's crazy, he at least doesn't need a colostomy bag like his opponent does.
• This is how Jon Stewart ran the Academy Awards Ceremonies when he was the host. In 2006, one was about Keira Knightley and took a shot at Charlize Theron "hagging it up" in movies such as Monster.
  "Keira Knightley for Best Actress. Keira Knightley, Acting While Beautiful!"
• Played for Drama in Glee. An unnamed political opponent of Sue Sylvester decides to make an ad campaign declaring that Sue is a lesbian. Then he uses the fact that her cheerleader Santana Lopez is a lesbian as "proof"... and just outed Santana to everyone who watched the ads.
• In the Parks and Recreation episode "Campaign Ad", the protagonists toy with airing an attack ad against Lesle's Upper-Class Twit opponent in the election for city council. Leslie desperately wants to stay positive and creates a useless ad in which she only talks about "positive" things. Meanwhile, Ben creates an attack ad which is both effective and accurate, but Leslie is dead set against using it. Eventually, they compromise.
• This Hour Has 22 Minutes has featured several parody attack ads.
  • A series of Conservative party ads mocked Stephane Dion, the leader of the Liberals at the time, by calling him a nerd and claiming his name is not masculine enough.
  • Another segment has a voice over actor recording lines for an NDP attack ad on the Liberals, and constantly screwing up. The line was supposed to be something like "The Liberals may have their bag of money, so let's give them the boot", over a graphic of a bag of money being kicked by a boot. Some of the screwups include:
    Hey Liberals: You may have your bag of money, but have you seen our new boot?
    Hey Liberals. You may have your bag of money, but we have a boot. The NDP: Just think what we could get done with two boots.
    Hey Liberals. You may have your bag of money, so we're giving you a boot. Just one boot, though. It's a very nice boot.
    Hey Liberals. You may have your bag of money. How aboot that?
    [played over the graphic] The Liberals have a bag, with words coming out of it. We think they should have tied up their bag. THIS BOOT THINKS SO TOO!
• Royal Canadian Air Farce had several counter-attack ads with Stephan Dion attacking the Conservatives, such as calling him a "boondoggler".
  What the 'ell is a boondoggle? I 'ave never doggled anyone's boons before.
• In Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, after criticizing the attack ads in the 2014 Senate race in Kentucky between Mitch McConnell and Allison Lundergan Grimes, John declares that "there is no way things are going to better until we collectively hit rock bottom" - so he decides to make the worst attack ads imaginable, using the full creative license that a premium cable network like HBO provides him. In the ad for McConnell, Grimes is shown slaughtering coal miners with a chainsaw. In the ad for Grimes, McConnell is represented by an old, white, wrinkled penis.
• In the 1990's Australian series Mercury, someone leaks a tape showing a government campaign prepared for the upcoming election that deliberately misconstrues an opposition party policy. The reporters for the Mercury say the campaign would have worked, if released at the right moment so the opposition wouldn't have time to show how they'd been taken out of context.
• The West Wing, being a Government Procedural, deals with this during Bartlet's re-election and the campaign for his successor. The more idealistic characters are highly reluctant to go negative. Sam gets snookered into giving an anti-Bartlet spot free airtime on all the news networks. Early in the 2006^note the presidential elections are two years off in the show's universe primaries, Democratic candidate Santos rejects a last-ditch effort to make a splash by calling his opponents "chicken" and does an improvised live ad himself. Later, he and Republican Vinick resist their respective advisers' urges to go negative for as long as they can for both pragmatic and personal reasons.
• In episode "The Election" of The Vicar of Dibley, the villagers work up a "dirty tricks" campaign when they decide Geraldine should run against David Horton for village councilor. Among their ideas is a spurious accusation that David ran over a villager and this charming verse:
  You always vote for Horton because you thought you ought to
  But he's not only had your vote, he's also had your daughter.
• Not the Nine O'Clock News:
  • Parodied with a political ad sketch attributed to the Conservative Party. It 'proves' extravagant spending by the Labour Party through an interactive narrator who instructs a man to do silly things in his bathtub in a particularly convoluted analogy for the economy. It ends with the man having his arms cut off to "cut down on spending".
  • Another one, this time for Labour, resembled a movie trailer for the trainwreck of a final term for Harry Wilson, with the slogan "Labour is... never bothering to say you're sorry".
  • A third featured Rowan Atkinson reading a fairy tale from a book, explaining that once "the wicked witch" died, all the land was happy, and when he closes the book the voiceover announces, "This has been a party political broadcast on behalf of the Social Democratic Party."
• Jimmy Kimmel Live! ran a a parody attack ad on Republican Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania during the 2016 US Elections mocking his indecisiveness to distance himself from Presidential Candidate Donald Trump.
  Toomey Impressionist: I think he [Trump]'s a national embarrassment and a disgrace. A disgraceful embarrassment who I am proud to support for President of the United States. Donald Trump is exactly what this country needs: a man with no idea what he's talking about, a man with no respect for democracy or common decency. A man who is totally unfit for office. And I am proud to support him for office. No I'm not. Yes I am. Am not! Am so! Are not! Am too! Shut up! You shut up!
• Following the 2012 elections, The Daily Show covered the aftermath with a segment about the citizens of Ohio (a major swing state and a must win for Republicans in any race) picking up the pieces after a storm of attack ads. The entire segment played like the then-recent Hurricane Sandy coverage.
• The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, in the final episode of the arc featuring Phil running for judge, his competitor Robinson launches a smear campaign against him, claiming he intends to empty the prisons and do nothing to stop crime. Despite the others' prodding, Phil refused to sink to Robinson's level, intending to run a clean campaign and having faith that Los Angeles voters won't swallow the propaganda. He ends up losing to Robinson in a Landslide Election.
  Phil: I hate L.A.
• Mr. Show has a sketch wherein we see really vicious and negative political adverts for two wealthy men... who don't actually appear to be running for office, they just seem to have decided to film adverts attacking each other for some reason. And then they team up to utterly destroy a local priest who runs his own advert begging the two men to quit it with the pointless negative adverts already.
• In Zoey 101, when Zoey and Chase compete against each other for school president, a smear campaign commercial gets released claiming that Chase shaves his legs, eats out of garbage cans, and picks on little girls, and that everyone should vote for Zoey as president. Zoey goes to Chase to tell him that she didn't make the commercial, only for Chase to admit that he made the commercial because he thinks Zoey would be the best choice for president. But as Zoey points out, everyone think she made the commercial and it only served in making her look bad and Chase more sympathetic.
• Cobra Kai:
  • In season 2, Daniel LaRusso puts out an advertisement for Miyagi-Do that is clearly meant to diss on Cobra Kai, saying "Don't be a snake in the grass. Be a champion." Johnny Lawrence retaliates with an ad implying that Daniel's dojo is inferior because his lessons are free unlike Cobra Kai's (which you pay for).
  • In season 1, LaRusso Auto's biggest competitor, Tom Cole, puts out an attack ad where he implies that Daniel is an unpatriotic water waster.
    Tom Cole: Patriot Tom Cole here! When I'm not busy fighting the hated British for your freedom, I'm fighting to bring you great deals, great American deals! And because I love this land we call home, I'm giving every new customer their very own drought-resistant cactus!^note Daniel offers his customers a free Bonsai tree with each sale In these dry times, it really is the only responsible plant to own, a STRONG AMERICAN plant. From the Strong American himself, me, Tom Cole! Cole's on Van Nuys! You...musket down here.
• In a season eight episode of RuPaul's Drag Race called “Shady Politics”, the main challenge was for the queens to work in pairs and make ads explaining why they should be the first “Drag president” and their partner should not be. Of course, this was taken to hilarious extremes- Bob the Drag Queen, one of the eventual winners of the challenge, depicted her partner Derrick Barry (the other winner) as being a baby eater, complete with a horror movie-esque scene of Derrick gnawing on a bloody baby doll leg.
• Red Dwarf: In "Mechocracy", both parties begin doing this during the campaign for "Machine President". Rimmer's political ad claims that Kryten is mentally insane and brings up the fact that he served the Nova 5 when they were skeletons. The Cat also uses the opportunity to bring up the fact that Lister broke JMC laws and brought an unquarantined animal onboard the ship. Kryten and Lister respond with one of their own, with Lister claiming that Rimmer is a maniac and bringing up the fact that he killed himself twice, alongside the fact that he was responsible for the radiation leak that wiped out the crew.
• In "The Dollhouse" from Yellowjackets, Taissa's opponent for New Jersey state senate, Phil Bathurst, releases one of these accusing her of supporting education by "cannibalizing your tax dollars,"^note A not-so-veiled insinuation that Taissa and her fellow survivors cannibalized other survivors of a plane crash when they were stranded in the woods for 19 months, which is true, actually. using the Photoshop Filter of Evil on her and showing Taissa tearing into some meat that viewers are supposed to believe is human flesh. In return, Taissa gets a hold of some info that Bathurst buried his daughter's arrest for drug possession and warns him she'll use it against him if he tries something like that again.
• Young Sheldon: In "A Political Campaign and a Candy Land Cheater", Nell Cavanaugh runs an attack ad against Sheldon, spinning his "I love homework" statement with a negative slant.
• The Wire: During the mayoral election campaign in season 4, all candidates engage in negative campaigning, but the incumbent Royce goes the extra mile when his people start distributing fliers with his opponent Carcetti walking a slumlord down the courthouse steps. Carcetti did defend the guy during his time as a defense attorney, but the photograph is a fake. Carcetti's aide jokingly suggests distributing their own flier with Royce in a motel room with a dead hooker and a live boy.

Pro Wrestling

• In 2004, Mick Foley thought the big giant screens seen at political conventions resembled the Titantron, and since politics was, in his eyes, an imitation of WWE, he figured maybe WWE could imitate politics. This resulted in a pitch to Vince McMahon for an angle where Randy Orton would do political attack ads against Mick Foley. "Mick Foley claims to be a hardcore legend, but is he really?" McMahon laughed and approved the idea for storyline in early 2005.

Stand-up Comedy

• Larry the Cable Guy discusses the trope briefly in his book Git-R-Done, where it's made clear that he doesn't care for political mudslinging and can't believe people fall for it. In his own words: "I don't know if it's funny or sad that we've reached such a political low point!"

Video Games

• Brutally parodied to the extreme in Fallout: New Vegas. After the door to Vault 11 was closed, its residents were informed that there had to be a human sacrifice once a year or else the computer system would kill everyone in the vault. Since the Overseer was the one who delivered the bad news, the residents forced him to be the first sacrifice. From there it just kind of became tradition that the Overseer would be the sacrifice every year, leading to candidates running smear campaigns to try and get their opponents elected instead of them.
  Haley is a known adulterer and communist sympathizer! Elect Haley for Overseer!
• Done multiple times in the Grand Theft Auto series.
  • One of the missions in Liberty City Stories has Toni Cipriani driving around Staunton Island on behalf of mayoral candidate Donald Love in a campaign van accusing his opponent O'Donovan of various misdeeds.
  • In IV, John Hunter (Democratic) and Michael Graves (Republican), candidates for governor of the state surrounding Liberty City, take out surreal attack ads accusing each other of some of the most bizarre things imaginable, from the plausible (Hunter opposed private ordnance, while Graves opposed moves to repeal amendments preventing full-scale espionage on suspected terrorists) to the outlandish (Hunter wanted CCTVs installed in bedrooms to fine masturbators, as well as transfer funds from schools to drug addicts, while Graves wanted to raise taxes for free condoms in schools) and even the outright Ad Hominem (Hunter is a bald man with erectile dysfunction, while Graves shirked from The Vietnam War and is a pedophile with a morally reprehensible wife). Both also end up becoming similar to each other by accusations of advocating underage sex, supporting a retreat from The War on Terror, and fiscal conservatism.
  • V continues this tradition with Jock Cranley and Sue Murry, gubernatorial candidates for San Andreas and extreme stereotypes of the right and left wing, respectively. Cranley's ad calls Murry a shrew (and giving her demon horns and Glowing Eyes of Doom), while Murry's ad in turn calls Cranley a drug-addled, apparently brain-damaged dunce. Strangely, this is a case where both sides' mud-slinging is actually completely true, as evidenced on their appearances on the in-game radio. Cranley's appearance on BCTR paints him as a total dumbass whose campaign is composed entirely of testosterone-addled posturing focusing on his past as a Hollywood Action Hero and stuntman, with him openly insulting just about everybody (with shades of Mitt Romney's "47%" remarks) and showing no understanding of the issues. Murry is no better, as her WCTR guesting reveals her to be a hyper-PC, big-government, nanny-state elitist who "knows what's best" for everyone (being a former schoolteacher and all).
• In Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines we have these priceless ads:
  Announcer: [sinister music] Last year, Democratic Candidate Michael Rebbins has purchased a Sports Utility Vehicle. Three months later there have been two separate incidences of hit-and-runs by unidentified SUVs in his area. Is Democratic Candidate Michael Rebbins to blame? Can you afford that chance? Can your children? [upbeat music] Vote Republican Senator Robert Thorne, a candidate who has never committed vehicular homicide!
  [...]
  Announcer: [sinister music] Democratic Candidate Michael Rebbins has never publicly stated his opinion on child pornography. Is it because he's hiding something? Would you want a child pornographer voting on this nation's laws? Would you trust your children's future to someone like that? [upbeat music] Vote Republican Senator Robert Thorne, who is committed to locking up child pornographers!
  [...]
  Announcer: [sinister music] Democratic Candidate Michael Rebbins recently sued Senator Robert Thorne for accusing Rebbins of being a murderous child pornographer. But Rebbins had previously said he was against clogging up courts with frivolous lawsuits. Wouldn't this make him a hypocrite? Would you want a hypocrite as your next Congressman? Would you want your children to become hypocrites? [upbeat music] Vote for Republican Senator Robert Thorne! A candidate not accused of being a murderous child pornographer!
• Attack ads are a gameplay mechanic in the simulation game POWER. If you have enough influence, you can use them against other politicians to decrease their state influence. However, they may backfire and decrease your own influence instead.

Web Animation

• The Flash Tub had a 2004 election ad for the Cobra Commander campaign, attacking George W. Bush and John Kerry for wasteful spending on "the $87 billion G.I. Joe boondoggle."

Webcomics

• The Non-Adventures of Wonderella had this, in which Wonderella uses the Photoshop Filter of Evil to paint the opponents as evil, and outright says that anyone who opposes her must be a supervillain. "Can we afford..?" argument included.
• Death To The Extremist: Two attempts this tactic ("My esteemed candidate is unqualified, and also a convicted felon maybe) when he thinks One is running against him for mayor.
• Mandatory Roller Coaster had this uncharacteristically honest political ad, in which a Big Red Devil tells the viewers:
  "Please continue to vote against your interests. Thank you."

Web Original

• Played with in this featured article from Something Awful. It is written up as an attack piece on a candidate Freddy Krueger for Mayor of Springwood. While the attacks on Krueger are incredibly outlandish and surreal, none of them have anything to do with the obvious: Freddy being a dream-stalking child murderer — claims which the author of the piece dismisses as "rumors" and a ploy to spark "mudslinging" which the author refuses to take part in.
• Cracked: One of Cracked's takes portrays ads from a hypothetical world in which every single job position is decided via election.
• The Alternate History story Fear, Loathing and Gumbo on the Campaign Trail '72, being rooted in changes to the 1972 Presidential election and their impact on the world, naturally features a ton of these. One ad in particular during Donald Rumsfeld's 1980 campaign attacks Democratic Presidential candidate Hugh Carey, the Governor of New York, for alleged ties to The Mafia, using a crude, Michael Corleone-esque Italian "Don" caricature; it is specifically noted that the ad was not played in places with high Italian-American populations.

Web Videos

• This video seeks to prove this trope is Older Than They Think by taking actual quotes from the candidates of the Presidential election of 1800 and turns them into modern attack ads that manage to sound even more over the top that the real thing.
• Parodied by CollegeHumor in "If the Other Party Wins", which parodies both American political parties' ads. If Obama wins, according to Republicans, we will all live in a Free-Love Future with pansexual potsmoking children, where flags are burned, minorities are given scholarships to Yale straight out of grade school, terrorists and illegal immigrants will run rampant, and worse. If McCain wins, according to Democrats, Walmart will get its own country, the U.S. becomes a theocracy where children are taught that Jesus wrote the Constitution, homosexuals are jailed, children are drafted straight out of elementary school and encouraged to play with assault rifles, global warming has run rampant, and people are punished for any small insult to the U.S.
• Mother Jones made a series of attacks ads based on Game of Thrones:
  • Robb Stark Attack Ad. Paid for by Crossbows GPS.
  • Danaerys Targaryen, Wrong for Dragons, Wrong for the Realm. Paid for by the Committee to Protect Dragons.
  • A commercial by the Barather movement demands to see Joffrey's birth certificate. Paid for by the Young Baratheons for Freedom.

Western Animation

• Played for Laughs in Apple & Onion. When Apple runs for mayor in "Election Day", Mayor Naise makes an ad that claims he and Onion are actually Jalapeno Pepper and Scotch Bonnet, "two of the biggest liars of all time." Apple and Onion counter by tracking down the real Jalapeno Pepper and Scotch Bonnet and shooting a video of all four together. Mayor Naise then doctors a screenshot of the video and adds puppet strings to Jalapeno Pepper and Scotch Bonnet. Apple and Onion are forced to sink to the Mayor's level and make a CGI video of him robbing a bank. It works too well, getting the Mayor arrested.
• On The Simpsons, when Sideshow Bob ran for Springfield Mayor, his campaign took out an ad against Mayor Quimby parodying George H.W. Bush's "Revolving Door Prison" and "Willie Horton" attack ads from the 1988 election. In the ad, prisoners are seen leaving the Springfield State Prison through a revolving door and over the walls on escalators and ski lifts while a narrator lets us know,
  "Mayor Quimby supports revolving door prisons. Mayor Quimby even released Sideshow Bob, a man twice convicted of attempted murder. Can you trust a man like Mayor Quimby? Vote Sideshow Bob for Mayor."
• Rocko's Modern Life: When Mr. Bighead decides to challenge Rocko in the race for town dog catcher, he gets the Chameleon brothers to help him with his campaign. They explain while they will make him look good, they will smear his opponent with unfair rumors. They run an ad where the narrator states: "The fall of the Roman Empire. The sinking of the Titanic. The 1958 Edsel. Now, we don't want to say that Rocko caused all these things. But it does make you think... doesn't it?" An "artist rendering" of Rocko depicts him with sharp teeth, a menacing demeanor, and a speech bubble reading, "I'm mean." Also, Ed's campaign slogan was, "Ed good. Rocko bad."
• In Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, Bloo and Herriman prepare an attack ad campaign against Frankie (who is running for house administrator), complete with catchy jingle.
• On Family Guy, when Peter is running for the Quahog school board against Lois, he aired an attack ad against his own wife, using a boudoir photo Lois gave him as evidence of her immoral character. Cleveland, in a voice-over, apologizes to Lois at the end of the ad.
• On Clone High, when Abe and JFK are running for student body president, JFK makes an attack ad against Abe. First the ad claims Abe is a liar because his answer to what his age is was different to what it was a year before, and then footage of Abe eating spaghetti is very poorly edited to make it look like he's eating a baby.
• Futurama: Not a candidate-focused ad, but "Proposition Infinity" parodies the famed "Gathering Storm" ad campaign.
  Amy: We can't compete against that much stock footage of clouds!

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