Metro Pulse/Snarls/Ad Age Adage

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Got milk? Then shut up and drink it.

by Scott McNutt

This "New Millennium" is the Advertising Age. Our Pavlov-dog-like anticipation of new Superbowl commercials proves it. THAT's "waaaaassssuuupp!"

You may say, "So what? Civilization is new and improved, society is fresher, stronger, and anti-static! So where's the beef?" Here's my beef: Advertising...It's everywhere you want to be. Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Meyer wiener, that is what I'd truly like to be, 'cause if I were an Oscar Meyer wiener, then I wouldn't have ears to hear crap like this.

I don't care if it's butter or Parkay! I don't care if I can have it my way! I don't want it! I want the inundation of advertising to cease. I'd give Arsenio Hall a buck or two to shut up. I'd walk a mile to avoid a Camel ad, but Calgon would still find me and take me away. I'd head for the mountains and hide in the bush, but that's Ford country now. Advertising excess: You won't leave home without it.

How do I spell relief? N-o—A-d-s. Yo quiero Taco Bell to go to hell! Thank God they finally put that rat-dog out of my misery! But that isn't enough. I deserve a break today. I need a day without advertising that isn't like a day without sunshine. I need something that will put a tiger in my tank, 'cause I've fallen and I can't get up. I need a quicker picker-upper that isn't Folger's in my cup.

I'm part of the Pepsi Generation, whether I want to be or not. No, I wouldn't like to be a Pepper, too. I don't want to have a Coke or a smile. Screw perfect harmony, I'd like to teach the ad world to sting. If I let my fingers do the walking to reach out and touch someone, it'd be Snap! Crackle! and Pop! time for Madison Avenue types. I wish those marketing geniuses had ring around the collar. A ring of my fingerprints, that is. I'd squeeze their Charmin, but good! After I was done, they'd be stuck on band-aids, 'cause band-aids would be stuck on them. Like mummies.

But advertising takes a licking and keeps on ticking. It just keeps going and going and going and—AAAAAGGH! Pontiac is driving me crazy! This is my brain. This is my brain on ads. Any questions? Yes: Can't we stop the madness? 'Cause sometimes I feel like a nut, sometimes I don't. And a mind is a terrible thing to waste.

Why not go for the gusto? Let's really make quality job #1. You know, truly be all that we can be, instead of some hyped-up idea of what Madison Avenue wants us to think we have to be. Let's just say "no" to advertisers. Or get a piece of the rock, and give them a nice Hawaiian punch with it. Remember, Smokey Bear says, "Only you can prevent advertisers."

Just do it! Once we got started whupping advertisers, I bet we couldn't beat just one. Thrashing them would double our pleasure, double our fun. It'd be good to the last drop-kick we laid into their larded butts. They'd be flying the friendly skies after that. Pop, pop, fist, fist! Oh, what a relief it is!

After that, Bo knows we won't have to say it with flowers. When we care enough to send the very best, we'll say it in plain English; doesn't matter if it's live or Memorex, so long as it's straightforward. Honest communication is mm, mm, good! It's the real thing!

Because children are the future, we need to start them on this anti-advertising, pro-plain-speaking regimen now. I mean, look at me: I can't believe I ate the whole advertising thing for all those years. I even believed it was finger-lickin' good. For a better tomorrow, choosy mothers will choose not to let their children know that Weebles wobble but they don't fall down. The choice of a new generation will be not to care that a little dab'll melt in your mouth, not in your hands, as long as we sell no wine before it's Miller time. If you do this, your child will become a shining example for his peers. Someday, they'll look at him and say, "He likes it! Hey, Mikey!"