by
William A. Gralnick
I’ve been sick. What my doctor called, “very sick.” Almost “go-to-the-hospital” sick. It isn’t Covid; I’ve escaped that scourge by being careful and being vaccinated. I came home from a vacation in chilly, damp Scotland with both a bronchial and sinus infection. I have this cough that begins at my toes and exits the top of my head. To tell you what it drags along with it is TMI. I’ll spare you. The question is this: what does one do with oneself when sickness prevents concentration, eyes are too light-sensitive to read an electronic book, and generally you’re wet dishrag weak? The answer is reach for the remote. And there lies the rub.
Unless one is a person who “tapes” things for a rainy day, you’re left what can be found on television. Mind you, that’s a lot. When I was a kid in Brooklyn, I had four channels from which to choose. Failing a ball game, that meant I watched a lot of soap operas until Howdy Doody came on. When my grandma came over, we also listened to them on the radio. I remember some of the story lines and a lot of the short, up-beat jingles, many for soap products. Oxydol and Dreft come to mind. That, friends, is why they were called soap operas. Then the commercials were a quick interlude from the program. Today the programs seems to be a quick interlude from the commercials. In those days, commercials made sense. The message was direct. Use this soap, it will clean your clothes. Use this starch, it will stiffen your collars. This product is soft and gentle, that product is super-strong and will clean a dirty elephant–if you can get it into a machining machine. Today, not so.
Today we are insulted. Tell me how using an electric uni-cycle that throws you into the ocean because you can’t control it and hit a railing is a reason to buy insurance? Have you noticed that the line, “Only get what you need” has morphed into a telephone tag line from having been the logo line of an insurance company? Are you standing in line to sign up for insurance because you love Emu’s? At the point I was ready to take out a hunting license, ole Doug rolls out his commercial kid. This child has a mustache and a young Emu in his motorized kiddy car. Dad challenges him to carry on the legacy. The kid kicks it into gear, says goodbye to “Uncle Emu,” and then drives across the flower bed and lawn onto the sidewalk at which time his father calls to him to stay off the highway. Good grief! If you’re stuck in front of the TV for long enough you realize that some commericals, like that one, are cut into short/medium/longer shots so you get to watch the same message but only in part.
Then there’s Flo’ and her side-kick. Gag me with a spoon!
I’m testing myself. How many times can I watch Kevin Hart and his pals scream about cash back before I throw something at the TV? And if I were African-American, I would be angered and insulted at the throw-back Amos and Andy accents used.
Let’s move from dumb to dumber. “Don’t take this product if you are allergic to it!” Duh… and the kicker, “…or any of its ingredients.” That would work if every sick person had a Pharmacy degree. Then there are the Big Pharma commercials that end with what I call “and by the way this product may really hurt you and could even kill you” warnings. Ok, on the one hand, it is good that we are holding an industry’s feet to the fire of truth-telling. On the other hand, one can end up eschewing the taking of any prescription drug. That leads you to OTC meds. Take this one and your failing memory will be right back, or so says a basketball-playing pitchman who is so awkward you just know watching him that he’s never played even backyard competitive basketball.
And there are so many more. For example, the Zombie hawking a company I never heard of and don’t think I want to whose arm falls off when he’s shaking hands with someone. Oy!
For the intent listener, you will hear that a product is FDA almost every word or phrase you can think of but “tested and approved. That’s ok up to a point but bandying about the FDA as a hook without telling the whole truth?
Let’s move to the “don’t do this yourself” commercials. They are car and truck commercials with sleek machines, driven by fashion model-looking drivers, covering “God’s little acre” beautiful ground. If you are lacking 20-20 vision or not taking one of those eye drops that promise crystal clear vision, you don’t see the footers that tell you that the road or highway in the commercial has been blocked off at both ends. You don’t see the advisory that the driver is a professional stunt driver. And you wish for the warning that should be in 26-point font that says, “DO NOT DO THIS IN YOUR CAR, STUPID!” So kids will do it in their cars, mirroring Vin Diesel in the Fast and Furious franchise, and they kill themselves. The streets around here are peppered with family made memorials to their dead teens. One particularly poignant one is of a bicycle, the bicycle a youngster was riding when she was hit by a speeding car.
Let’s end with Sadie. Sadie, a phone pitch-person, is flat out adorable. With Clairol hair and looking like she was or will be a star in a Disney daytime program, Sadie is winsome. Her company must see her that way too, because I have seen her multiple times over the course of one show. Sometimes, she gets edited. She can be a 10-second Sadie, a 15-second Sadie, or a 30-second Sadie. She is just like Doug only a lot easier on the eyes. What is never edited is the flip of that gorgeous hair. Beautiful and winsome don’t seem to be good reasons to buy a phone. Yet my “it really gets under my skin” phone commercial is the one in a restaurant where the menus have different kinds of phones to order. The tag line? “I come here often for the service.” I’d like to tweak the nose of the writer who penned that one.
So here we are, living living a country where books are being banned on the say of one person, a person who often doesn’t understand what’s in them, but we are left exposed to the mind rot on television. I end with the same despair of the boy who confronted his baseball hero, Shoeless Joe Jackson, when he learned that Jackson was part of the Black Sox scandal: “Oh no, Joe. Say it ain’t so!” But it was, and is. None of this makes me feel any better. I’m going to take a nap.
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