It is the end of an era, later on today Ofcom, the advertising watchdog, will rule that fast food commercials for children will have a watershed. Which means that you won’t see those commercials until after 7pm. This effectively means the end of spokesmen for various brands that where such a firm fixture in childhood. I automatically think of the scene in family guy where it is the film the breakfast club recast with various cereal characters in it. Tony the Tiger taking Judd Nelson’s place and complaining that for Christmas his old man got him a pack of cigarettes. One of my fondest childhood memories was when I had broken my arm and Tony the Tiger (a man in the suit who was giving out those mini boxes) came over to me and asked when my cast was coming off. I said in two weeks time to which he replied That’s Greeeat! That’s a man who takes pride in his work unlike Aladdin in Florida whom Will pestered about his lack of an Arabian accent. Jobbing actors will never climb the ladder unless they take pride in their work, no matter how humiliating the job is. Take Jason Alexander in his McDonalds commercial, before playing the greatest sitcom character of all time, he had to dance and sing about a bacon cheeseburger. It’s not only Tony the Tiger who seems to find himself on the proverbial unemployment line. The monkey from coco pops, the doctor from wheetos, the spaceman from riceicles and Snap, Crackle and Pop will all be finding new means of work. Also What about the Sugar Monster, I haven’t seen him on television for a long time, I hope he hasn’t developed a drug addiction. He seems like a character that would take his addiction to another form such as ketamine. The biggest loser in this whole be healthy drive, seems to be children’s television. Processed foods are the only companies that seem to sponsor those shows, it would seem strange seeing personal injury ads on at that time but that will be the case soon. It can only put the blame on one group of people, the parents. When it comes to toys I can understand it, the statistic that children watched something around the mark of 1500 ads during a mornings television is amazing. By cutting down the commercials to a 5 second window it allowed more companies to show more products and ultimately barrage children with the same stuff again and again. However a Sugar Puffs advert never made me want to go out and buy the nasty stuff. (Translation time Sugar Puffs = Snaps, Frosties = Frosted Flakes, Sugar monster = a bigger yellow cookie monster) Even if I wanted to the children don’t make a steady income unlike their counterparts in China and India to afford to buy them. So it is the parents who ultimately make the decision to buy the crap and they suffer the problems of their children suffering from obesity. There has been a ban on junk food that is advertised to children which has meant that Shops such as Micky D’s have had to change their tact. Gone are the Hamburglar and the cocaine, shit eating grin of Ronald and instead we have jokey ones about men dancing badly. For the record can anyone remember who the other characters were or resembled? Frosties managed to sidestep the issue by creating a commercial that was so bad that we forgot what it was advertising and just marvelled at how out of touch they seemed to be with society. A Faux reggae beat (swiped from Gwen Stefani), a terrible chorus (swiped from James Blunt), a blonde airhead (swiped from Berlin Holiday Inn) and a white kid throwing up gang signs (just funny) combined to form a phenomenon. The kid is now subject to internet rumours that he committed suicide (I know where they originated from, good times, good times) and has been in various newspapers proving that he isn’t in fact dead just purely ashamed that he was in it.
The real problem that fast food companies have is that in reality they do not need to advertise. It has become part of modern culture so much that everyone knows that they are there but for some reason they believe that someone will wake up one day and say “I saw a commercial for so and so last night let’s go and eat there”. The only thing that they need to advertise is their new offers and I guess kids meals. Well they can’t advertise that anymore so that means no more movie tie-ins, so they get P-Diddy to advertise on his youtube page. I’m not upset like other people who use youtube a lot; it just gives me another reason to not eat fast food. The real problem that these companies face is there interior, as anyone who has witnessed my two recent Mickey D’s breakdowns will know I find less patience for the place than ever before. The decor of the place is so incredibly misplaced that the whole experience is ruined. The garish red design on the walls and the impetus on the customer to believe that it is in fact a spaceship and not an eating place made into a living nightmare. A Craig David video in the corner and the bright fluorescent light almost made me curl up into a ball on the ground. It was my version of Malcolm’s treatment in A Clockwork Orange. Eating there should be designed for efficiency, get in get out, in the same fashion as a factory. Eating at Mickey’s or its ilk will always be part of a child’s outing when in town with some mates. The menu has hardly changed and I don’t think that they will ever need to sell a product at a loss in order to maximise profits unlike in America. To be honest maybe I’m being too hard on Ofcom. Since this law will have come into affect around about the time Ronald will remove salads from his menu and all the damage caused by Super Size Me will be forgotten, maybe this is a good thing. Parental control seems to be the under stressed part of this story but anything to keep our children healthier is greatly appreciated.
(I replaced the word McDonalds as many times as possible because I fear legal threats, better to be safe than sorry. Plus im sure they would get the Hamburglar to apply some pressure on me.)
8 hours after I wrote this piece, I found out that I am wrong. Commercials will be banned during kids television and promotional gifts will not be allowed. In other words the death of the happy meal. It was false advertising anyway.