If Mad Men has taught us anything, it's that the best ad campaigns are created by drunken, borderline sociopathic con men with an inability to maintain healthy interpersonal relationships. So it should come as no surprise that sometimes, while thinking of new ways to sell shit on TV, their minds go to some dark fucking places . What is surprising is why a major company, with a vested interest in not scaring the hell out of potential customers, would have green-lit any of these commercials:

6 Mattel's Whispering Doll Will Drive Your Children Insane

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The Idea:

The year is 1965, Mattel's Chatty Cathy is one of the best selling dolls in the market, and the company is busy trying to think of ways to sell the same shit under a new name. "I've got it!" someone exclaimed. "A doll that whispers secrets! How could that possibly end up being anything but adorable?"

The Horror:

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See, this is what happens when you let a Chatty Cathy doll with a defective voice chip direct a commercial. The ad starts with an innocent child waking up next to an innocent baby doll -- everything seems perfectly normal, until the camera zooms in on the doll's face as its lips open and it whispers in an unholy voice, "Is anyone else awake?"

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"Good. Now show me where mommy keeps the knives."

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"Her lips really move!" the announcer says, as if trying to distract us from what we just witnessed. Another zoom into the doll's stoic expression brings another whispered phrase -- we know it says, "I want to tell you something," but our ears still can't stop hearing "I want to kill you some day." Indeed, we'll continue hearing those words long after we've turned off the computer and gone to bed.