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Commercials spoil Saturday morning TV
By Brenda Davis, Yapper adviser
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Nov 30, 2007 - 2:07:24 PM - Recently another icon from my childhood disappeared. Dick Wilson, who made “Please don’t squeeze the Charmin” a national slogan as the harried shopkeeper Mr. Whipple trying to prevent happy housewives from molesting the very soft toilet paper, died of natural causes at the age of 91.
I know I’m dating myself, but lately I’ve been reflective about my childhood. I think it has something to do with a certain two-year-old named Grant. I see all the products that bombard his everyday life, either through TV or in stores. I’ve tried to remember when I became aware of brand name products and I think it was about the time Charmin showed up on store shelves.
I guess I should explain that we didn’t have a TV until I was eight or nine years old. My product savvy was limited to newspapers and radio. You can’t do much with a radio jungle.
Up until the time Mr. Whipple and Charmin arrived on the scene, I didn’t pay much attention to brand name products. My mom bought whatever was on sale. I think she finally caved because my sister and I would march down the toilet paper aisle at the local Safeway cheerfully proclaiming for all to hear “Please don’t squeeze the Charmin.” We thought it was extremely funny. I think mom gave into us to keep us from embarrassing her. The ad was harmless because it didn’t promote sex, violence or drugs.
I was watching TV with my grandson the other day. In a space of about an hour, we saw at least three ads about men’s sexual dysfunctions, a couple of beer commercials, an ice-cream commercial depicting a rival brand in bed with the “wife” of a name-brand ice cream and a skinny model promoting a wonder bra. This was on a Saturday morning when kids’ TV is prevalent. Of course there were also the ads for toys and children’s products, but my grandson seemed more attracted to the loud music related to the beer ads than the toy ads.
What happened to those “user friendly ads?” Ready Kilowatt, Captain Krunch, the Trix Bunny and other kid friendly icons have disappeared in favor of the super skinny models, the loud overbearing sportsmen and sexually explicit product endorsements.
I want to go back to the good old days when commercials were silly, TV shows were family based and parents didn’t have to worry about what their children were seeing on TV.
© Copyright 2007 by Cleburne
High School
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