The four worst public service announcements of all time
I was watching a tv show about a rugged cop who doesn't always play by the rules. It was baaaad. Thankfully the commercials came on to rescue me from misery. The first commercial featured a morbidly obese man being fondled by six women in a marble hot tub. I thought "Damn! Why aren't I scoring like this dude?" Then the words "Budweiser" flashed on the screen. I deduced that I was buying the wrong brand of beer. Afterwards, I felt spiritually uplifted. Except the next commercial ruined everything. It was a public service announcement. Starting with ominous music and rain, it featured a young child in a graveyard. The child had tears in his eyes and a face full of angst. Suddenly, a narrator started to speak: This young man's brother lost control of his car and got into a collision, killing two people as well as himself. He had been smoking marijuana earlier that day. And you thought marijuana was harmless. I had just become the victim of the world's dumbest public service announcement. What an insult to my intelligence! The narrator might as well have said: This young man's brother smoked marijuana once. Shortly afterward, his brain exploded and his testicles were mauled by a small dog. Why do you think they call it dope? In America alone, drunk drivers kill 13 thousand people a year, meanwhile two, TWO fucking people were killed by a stoned driver. Two people! They ignore the massive social problem that is drunk driving, and instead they make a commercial telling you not to drive while stoned, and they air this commercial next to alcohol ads about uptight librarians who turn into wiener hungry strippers because some vodka touched their lips. My point is, public service announcements are terrible. They're a lot like regular ads, except instead of trying to get you to buy a product, they're trying to get you to act less like yourself. You know: "don't drink so much", "donate money to charity", "stop having so many illegitimate babies", blah, blah, blah, all that silly jive. Public service announcements always seem to be on the verge of implicating you of guilt ("Look at them, they have CANCER! You don't have cancer! Why is that? GIVE MONEY NOW!") and worst of all, they are extremely insulting to your intelligence ("Wow! You mean if I drive drunk I'll be more likely to get into a car crash than if I drive sober? NO KIDDING! I did not know that!"). But at least they can be pretty funny. So this article is a tribute to the real-life public service announcements that, throughout the years, have made me derisively laugh, giggle and then change the channel with a smirk. Smoking: it's an adult choice!
This tag line is from an actual anti-smoking commercial. The commercial itself is by far the most insidious public service announcement ever made. What's more: It works beautifully! Not in discouraging people from smoking like it is supposed to do, but in getting underage kids to START smoking. It's the anti-smoking commercial that's really a pro-smoking commercial in disguise. That's right! This public service announcement is supposed to be anti-smoking, but it somehow misses the mark entirely because it makes smoking look cool, effectively turning it into a covert endorsement for smoking. It's like the anti-marketing marketing. Here's how it goes: A group of underage, geeky-looking non-smokers walk into a party. Their presence is noticed by a couple of older guys. But these guys are no geeks. They're leather clad bad asses. And to further reinforce their badassitude, they are surrounded by some fine seductively gyrating women. The underage geeks by comparison have no women with them, fine, gyrating or otherwise. One of the older guys turns to the geeks and says something like "yo doggz come chill". The kids run up to him. Then Mr. Bad Ass sticks out his hand and offers them a cigarette. He scowls and you can tell from the way his eyebrows are cocked, they are asking "R U MAN ENUFF TO SMOKE?" The geeky kids only manage to shake their heads in terror before running away like the wimps they clearly are. The words "Smoking. It's an adult choice!" appear on the screen. Fin. So what is this public service announcement saying? "Cool, older people like to smoke. Maybe when you are older you will be cool like them and you will smoke as well. But smoking is an adult choice so until you are an adult, try to avoid peer pressure and stick with candy cigarettes instead. Okay kids?" The only reason for why people start smoking is to gain the approval of their peers. Unlike other things that are bad for you like candy and chocolate (which taste good and are sensually pleasing) or alcohol (which gets you drunk and makes you more attractive to potential sex partners), to a non-smoker, smoking a cigarette has no inherent benefits: it gives you dry mouth, it makes your throat sore, it makes you stink, it gives you heart disease, lung cancer, emphysema, and to top it all off, it doesn't even taste good! Thus, the only benefit from smoking is making your peers like you. And this public service announcement portrays smokers as being cool, as being the types of people who you would want liking you. So, if you want to be cool when you're an adult... smoke. Until then, have fun being a dopey ass child. Blood: It's in you to Give.
"Blood: it's in you to give." This is the actual tag line that the Canadian Blood Services use to try and convince Canadian citizens to part with their precious red stuff. I have nothing against donating blood, but I'm pretty sure saying "blood is in you to give" is medically incorrect. Blood isn't really in your body for you to give away. Maybe the Canadian Blood Services just made a spelling error:  But seriously, how the hell is blood in you to give? If blood really was meant to be given away, then how come every time somebody donates their blood they always end up getting dizzy and hallucinating right before they PASS THE FUCK OUT??? Happy Christmas
(War is Over) as The Christian Children's Fund theme song.
Every single year, some six to eight weeks before Christmas, the Christian Children's Fund airs this ad over and over again. It's basically a montage of starving African babies doing what they do best (i.e. starving) set to John Lennon's song "Happy Christmas (War is Over)" - you know, it's the one that goes "So this is Christmas, and what have you done? Another year over and a new one just begun". This commercial is specifically designed to affect you emotionally in a way that makes you immediately open your wallet and give money. Which is fine. Except for one thing. John Lennon was an atheist. He was easily the most famous atheist of the twentieth century. As you know, Atheism is the rejection of all religion, including Christianity, and considering that this is the Christian Children's Fund we're talking about (non-Christian children be damned of course), using an outspokenly atheist musician's song in your commercial seems to be a bit of glaring promotional cock-up. Just a bit. Manny Perry Makes Movies.
(The Motion Picture Association of America)
 This was an anti-piracy ad that featured stunt coordinator Manny Perry crying about how illegally downloading movies means that stunt men and other people who work on movie sets will get paid lower salaries. This ad was only aired before the trailers played when you went to see a movie, so the only audience who saw it were the people already in the movie theater. If these people went to the movie theater, then they most likely paid for admission and didn't steal the film from the internet. If you paid for admission to see a movie then you are not being a movie pirate. Do you get it yet? This ad was shown to the wrong audience! What was the MPAA thinking? That the people at the theater would see this stunt-coordinator crying and get so PUMPED that when the film was over they would start indiscriminately killing people with internet connections on their way home? Not only was this ad shown to the wrong audience, it also blatantly lies to you. Manny Perry says that illegally downloading movies will lower revenue made from films. This is probably true, however, he also says that illegally downloading movies will lower his blue-collar working class income but it somehow will not hurt the income of the big money Hollywood producers. WRONG! In reality, if a film's profits are lower than expected it will hurt the income of the producers most of all because producers collect a percentage of the film's total box office gross. Manny Perry, on the other hand, receives a steady salary, a salary that is agreed upon before the film is even made, long before it is released and long before it manages to make any money at all. So if some Jerry Bruckheimer action film only takes in 65 million dollars at the box office and not the 70 million that was expected because of illegal downloading, then it won't affect Manny Perry at all since he was paid way before any money for the film came in. It doesn't matter for him if the film becomes a flop or a hit because he was already paid before anybody knew if the film was going to be a flop or a hit. If a film does flop at the box office, it will deeply hurt Jerry Bruckheimer as he will only be able to afford five sports cars a month and not the seven that he has become accustomed to. Which is tragic. But bottom line: the MPAA once put out an ad that blatantly lied to the public about how piracy affects the movie industry and thankfully nobody believed it. I hope. Guess what? I wrote another awesome
rant about annoying public service ads (check it out below):
Winners Don't Use Drugs. |