Because I enjoyed making fun of commercials so much in my Cloverfield/Burger King blog entry, and because commercials are such easy targets, I think I’ll make fun of them again in this installation of “The Blog.”
One of the newest anti-marijuana commercials features a girl walking around her school. She is told that there is an embarrassing text message picture of her from the weekend circulating around school from when she was high. “Slow down chica! Take it easy” she tells her friend on the phone. “This must have been from Saturday night, I was so high.” As she looks around, everyone is looking at their phones, then staring at her. And then the best part comes when she looks over to the guy she’s obviously in love with, and he looks at his phone, then up at her, then looks away in disgust.
I must say, this was a commendable attempt to relate to our generation. There’s no better way to reach the tween and teen generations than by bringing text messaging into the fray. If we could be embarrassed by our own text messages, then what’s next? Soon computers will turn against us, and terminators will roam the earth. Luckily the Sarah Conner Chronicles are on TV now to warn us of such an impending nuclear holocaust. And once they bring Facebook into the picture…game over.
Certainly, it is unacceptable for any of us to have that boy we like shaking his head in disapproval at us. But it’s not just that hot guy that’s shaking his head. No, it’s our dog too. I’m sure many of you are aware of another fairly recent ant-pot commercial. A girl is in her kitchen and sees her dog jump up on the table. The dog does that tilt of the head that dog’s usually do when they are highly disappointed and/or have to go to the bathroom, and then starts to talk: “Hey Lindsey…I wish you didn’t smoke weed,” he says in a concerning voice. “You’re not the same when you smoke…and I miss my friend….I’ll be outside,” and then he jumps off the table and scampers outside. Lindsey, that poor soul who had her mouth wide open in shock the whole time, droops her head.
When I searched for this commercial on the Internet, I came across similar responses: “I want what she’s smoking!” So, I suppose one of the dangers of smoking pot is to imagine your dog speaking to you. I mean, you don’t want to end up in a mental institution, because then you couldn’t possibly get your hands on any more pot. The security’s way too tight. The other response I noticed was: “That dog’s just mad cause she didn’t offer him any pot.”
Oh, and then there was that incredible anti-smoking campaign where the baby drowned in the pool because the person who was supposed to watch her was getting high. This one, in my opinion, is probably a little more effective than the previous two. The last two tried to convince you not to smoke because pot would make you uncool…even to your dog. Uncoolness is not enough of an incentive, because, who made the creators of Above the Influence commercials and the Partnership for a Drug Free America the determiners of coolness. On the other hand, causing your little brother or sister to drown might be a little worse. Sad even.
But even these commercials evoke more ridiculousness and less “OH MY GOD I HAVE TO STOP SMOKING NOWness.” I was a big fan of the cartoon commercials with the dog raising the Above the Influence flag. You see, these commercials are cartoons…and cartoons, at their very essence, stray from reality. The dog is not a real dog talking in an effort to make a legit, serious commercial. It is a badly drawn dog at that, and a it raises a flag, which is almost 98 percent impossible for real dogs to do. And there are aliens too. And the aliens don’t like drugs for some reason. But that’s besides the point. The point is, these commercials are great because they know they’re just stupid commercials, and they don’t claim to be the keepers of coolness. Now that we can actually see these commercials for what they really are, and cut through all the absurdity, we can actually take the anti-smoking pot message at face value.
Unfortunately, these commercials are the exception, not the norm. Well, that may be unfortunate, it may not be, depending on what you want. If you want to diminish the smoking of pot in America, then you might be content. If you want to break up your television shows with hilarious commercials, then you may be a bit disappointed.
When considering why there are so few ant-pot commercials that aren’t absurd, there’s only one logical conclusion: they’re meant to be absurd. They always have been, it’s not like this is a recent phenomenon. The earliest pot commercial I can think of is the one with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This tough and seemingly cool kid who looks like Shawn from Boy Meets World (he’s like 12 maybe) offers this short, dorkier kid pot.”Hey Joey, I’ve got some stuff that you’ve just gotta try.” In all his wonderment Joey then asks: “What is it???”
“Pot, you know….mar-i-w-aaa-na.”
But when Joey hesitates, the cool kid goes: “What are you, chicken?” And then he does the standard 90s chicken taunt. And then, when hope seems to be lost for Joey, for America, for forces of good in Heaven, our heroes the Ninja turtles appear. “Joeys in a jam!” says Leonardo. “What should he do??” First Michaelangelo, that cooky dude, goes, “Get a pizza!” (while holding a hot pizza pie).
They cut back to Joey. Joy stares down the cool kid with a fresh arsenal of confidence and goes: “I’m not a chicken, you’re a turkey!” Joey pushes the kid away, and walks down the hall in all his glory.
Turtles: “He’s right, drug dealers are dorks, don’t even talk to them…COWABUNGGGAAA!”
The result: over a decades worth of inane drug commercials. Now, they wouldn’t keep making these commercials if they didn’t work, right? Maybe Partnership for a Drug Free America found the golden bullet…maybe really stupid pot commercials work. Maybe they know something that we don’t know. Maybe, just maybe, we’re the turkeys after all.
I especially like the part when you lump yourself into the teen and tween generation.
DON’T GET A PIZZA! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT I LOOK LIKE NOW!
If the commercials fail to dissuade young folk from succumbing to the temptation of the reefer, they can get help from the findingdulcinea substance abuse guide:
http://www.findingdulcinea.com/guides/Health/Substance-Abuse.html
Guaranteed to make you stop hallucinating talking dogs. Not guaranteed….ok
Visions of giant talking turtles, questionable verbal responses, and combativeness? That kid must have been on PCP or something.
I have to disagree with your assessment of the badly-drawn dog ads. They sucked. The only state of mind in which they would have made sense is … stoned out of one’s gourd. So Mr. Blogger, where does that leave you.
New, funny post coming to humanderthal.com tonight suckas!
IN MY DAY
The only local public service announcements for kids were charming animated warnings about the dangers of jaywalking. This campaign was a follow-up to the adult-version, “Cross at the Green, not in between.”
The PSA featured a song that was so potent I still remember it today. It went like this:
“Don’t cross in the middle,
In the middle,
In the middle,
In the middle,
In the middle,
In the middle of the block.
TEACH your eyes to look out.
TEACH your ears to hear.
WALK up to the corner
Where the coast is clear.
And wait,
And wait,
Until you’ve seen
The light turn Green!”
But, as we all know, New Yorkers are maniac jaywalkers. Ineffective PSAs must be responsible.