John Mc

This is a collection of my thoughts. Some of the thoughts that I once had, I no longer do. Some thoughts I have now I have never had. Yet none shal be discounted. This blog is soley for the enjoyment of the author and the readers. On occasion the views expressed are overly exagerated in order to prove a point. Also there may be a dirty word or thought in some of the posts. Grow up and take this for what it's worth - a blog that barely anyone will ever see.

2/15/2008

We Pause For This Message

There have been some television commercials that are currently on the air that have aggravated or upset me in some way and I thought that you should be aware of them because... because... well, I haven't written a blog in a while and I needed some filler before some content occurs.
First, let us look into the medical miracle that is Alka Seltzer.
Don't get me wrong. I think that Alka Seltzer is great despite the fact that I don't trust it. It has assisted me with a variety of colds in the past and I even put up with their awfully fake cherry version. However, something that fizzes and dissolves like magnesium when it touches water should probably not be ingested. I just don't trust it. Perhaps more studies need to be done, but I don't trust it at all. Yet, it is so damn effective. Then again, so is cocaine if you need to stay up for a week or two.
But, that's not why I write about Alka Seltzer. They have a commercial where a woman in a blue shirt has a cold. She has decided to rely upon the medicinal benefits of our fizzy friend. So, what she does is grab a small glass and pop two of the tablets into the water. The glass is then placed on the ground at her feet. This makes it easier for her to jump into the glass. Once she has jumped into what seemed at first like a small glass of now carbonated water, she instantly feels the relief that she is searching for. Good concept. I enjoy it's out-of-the-box creativity and it's subtle boldness with the manipulations of spacial relations. Cute.
What isn't cute is this woman's feet. In order to jump into the glass, she has bare feet. Why only bare feet are necessary, I'm not sure. Either fully commit, or not at all. But, that's not my point. Her feet are some of the most disgusting things I have ever seen. Picture an elephant's foot... with tallons. And no bone structure so it is just a pile of foot flesh. That is as close of a description as I can get you. What makes this worse, is that there is a close-up of her feet when she puts the glass down.
Should one create a commercial where a close up of someone's feet has been story-boarded, why not choose someone who's feet don't look so disgusting that children will have nightmares?
What has disgusted me almost as much as that woman's feet is the fact that songs that I enjoyed in my youth are now being used to advertise products that I have no use for.
When someone mentions "Lysol" I think of the furniture polish with a great lemon smell. I dig it. I ask for it by name. There will never be a need for a commercial to convince me of it's citrusy goodness when it comes to wooden decor.
What I constantly forget is that they also make disinfectant for cleaning. Ok. I can see spreading out. Wood furniture was great in the 1970's, but took a decline in the 80's. And who would have foreseen the advent of Ikea in the 90's? Lysol had to branch out. (Oh, I have included their first run at the American public. Click on the image for the full ad. Something else may have been lemony fresh before your coffee table.)
So, the disinfectant was released and probably does a great job. I'm fine with that. I have no problem with Lysol taking advantage of the beauty of American capitalism. What I do have an issue with is the way that they marketed their disinfectant(s) about a year ago. No one likes to deal with germs and we would like to avoid coming in contact with them, if possible. Does Lysol help us do this? I'm sure that it does. Do they need to remind us that we don't want to touch germs? Probably not. Do they need to ruin MC Hammer's only really big hit "Can't Touch This" just to get a point across that we all, for the most part, agree on?! That was such a GREAT song when I was growing up. Now my brain will forever associate it with 8th grade and germs. (Which, now that I think about it, there could be some similarities.) I'm just waiting to see if in 10 years they are still boasting getting rid of 99.9% of germs, but only this time having Jay-Z sing "I've got 99 problems, but germs ain't one. HIT ME!"
A third commercial has me really pissed off. A new birth control pill entered the market a few years ago called "YAZ." They had this really strange commercial of three women at a house party discussing birth control. One woman went into a monologue of the benefits of YAZ. She also worked in the side-effects. "Don't use if you have heart problems, a week immune system or loose stools." Ok, she may not have said exactly that, but I wasn't really paying attention because I'm not really in the market for birth control. But, I'm sure that the other women who wanted to enjoy their cosmos didn't really care that much. They probably were thinking "Here goes Karen again bringing up my week immune system at any moment possible. I should have never told her about that. What a bitch."
That commercial, I'm ok with. It is their most recent one that has me fuming. In my car's CD player right now is some of the best rock of the 80's. It has "She's My Cherry Pie," "Every Rose Has It's Thorn" and even "The Final Countdown." (I skip "The Final Countdown" because it's silly.) What it also has is Twisted Sister's "We're Not Going To Take It." What a great anti-establishment song with a tie to "Animal House." Why "Animal House?" Why not? I'm guessing "Caddy Shack" was already taken by Kenny Loggins. (He wrote "Footloose" AND the theme to "Caddy Shack." "I'm Alright" sounds a helluva lot like "Footloose," when you think about it, doesn't it?!)
When I'm in the mood for a good F.U. song, I play the one-hit-wonder "We're Not Going To Take It." What YAZ has done is forever ruined that song. They have taken it and given it to a no-name chick band to cover and use in their commercials. This way when they talk about bad PMS, it further illustrates their point that "They're not going to take it anymore." Are you F-ing kidding me?! Why would Twisted Sister ever give permission for such a blasphemous representation of one of the best F.U. songs of our generation?!
I realize that they may not have much going for them these days and mortgage payments may be higher than they realized. Probably ticket sales when they go on tour are not the highest, but guys, have some self-respect! When you wrote that song, you were not thinking of mood swings and irrational chocolate cravings! You were thinking of Jack Daniels and groupies with almost as much hair product as you!
This is why I am going to boycott YAZ. Never will I purchase their product and I encourage all others who respect the 80's rock culture to do the same. Otherwise this will be a stepping-stone for Bon Jovi to sell out to the Mormons with "Living On A Prayer" or Def Leppard to do an Equal commercial with "Pour Some Sugar On Me."

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