Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Celebrating Ugliness
The Advertisements Penetrate Everywhere
It used to be standard that TV would interrupt for a commercial on the quarter hour, and take about 3 or 4 minutes of your time to tell you about soap or automobiles. We lost 12 to 16 minutes of each hour to these harangues, back in the 50s and 60s.
No more! Now, on the hour we lose about 8 minutes to close out the program with ads, and start up the next program with ads. Then every 7 and a half minutes there is another interruption for ads lasting 3 minutes or so, for a total of another 21 minutes of shampoo, money lenders, and real estate firms wanting you to buy that 21 acre estate on the river.
We end up with 29 minutes of salesmen, and at best 31 minutes of show time. I am not looking forward to the progression all this implies: the 50-50 barrier is soon to be broken, giving us more advertisement than entertainment per hour.
My hope is that the product people will make more entertaining ads now, since we don’t get much of the real thing we tuned in for anymore. When I think about it, however, that hope is crushed instantly by the massive number of products that must be put on the air to build volume sales.
Products are shown that either shouldn’t be on TV at all, or that should be reserved for after hours when adults are around – mostly. Here are a few things that show up at dinner time to make meal preparation, eating and cleaning up more pleasant:
Do you have gas? Take our Degasser: it works (on pigs)
Are you constipated? Two of our pills, and tomorrow morning you will…have to take two more…and wait. Repeat until satisfied.
Be dainty with our feminine douche. (not exactly sure where one uses this!)
Gaining weight? We have this pill for $200 a bottle that we guarantee will melt your excess weight off in 30 days. Sign up and we will send you another bottle each month for the rest of your life.
Don’t be embarrassed by incontinence. Wear our panties that can hold two quarts of urine with no smell. Sloshing? We’re working on it for our marathon version.
For incontinent men, here is our rubber cap and tube apparatus with a form-fitting bottle for your leg that holds a quart, and it won’t interfere with your sports activities at all. Lets you play through one urge, or two urges if you use our switch-over two bottle system, say, in the huddle. Of course, if you do play something like football or rugby, try not to get tackled.
Tonight, go to bed knowing that you will have a huge erection at just the time you need it. Our little pill works in minutes, and you can take a second one soon after you have …ah…exhausted the first one. For the women in your life, our powder works magic in bed, and you will be delighted to take more and more of our little erection pills.
After strenuous activity, you must use our blood sugar meter to track how it is doing. To calm you down, the meter helps you to play the guitar as well as BB King.
Do you have: dry eyes, eczema, ear wax, poor deodorant, baldness, itches, scratches, burns, or crooked toes? Get in touch with us! We are open 24/7, except when you are desperate and show up at the door.
After this bombardment. I race out of the house, get in my car, and drive fast to my quiet place overlooking the city. I put the top down and rest my head on the …head rest. Only to be assaulted soon after by a rapper from the booming car radio down the way from me praising some kind of lubricant for condoms, I think.
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