AUTHOR: Dave Sypniewski DATE: Tuesday, August 22, 2006 ----- BODY:
Non-profit organizations like "The American Lung Association" and "Truth.com" are really getting on my nerves! Hey, don't get me wrong. Their whole rason for existing is because they have an "agenda". That is, they want you to quit smoking or if you haven't started the habit already, don't! Hey, that's fine. First , we drew an imaginary line at the restaurant allowing non-smokers to dine on one side and smokers to smoke away on the other side. Obviously, smoke knows no boundries so then these non-profit groups pushedto ban smoking indoors PERIOD and forced everyone in a building to light up outside. Even that wasn't good enough because with everyone outside, the hole in the ozone layer will allow the Sun's radiation to kill us all! So now, many cities are outlawing smoking no matter where you go. Where do we go from here? Cartoons. After more than 70 years of animation, they're now putting classic cartoons in the crosshairs. Several groups have come forward to protest the use of smoking and drinking in cartoons going back to the 1930's. Martini's, wine, cigars, and pipes were sprinkled over some of the early classics like "Tom and Jerry". The Flintstones which originally aired in the evening back in the 1950's even had Fred and Barney in a TV commercial cartoon for cigarettes. And then as recently as a few years ago, "Joe Camel" got the pink slip because they claimed sales were climbing with underage kids sneaking around to buy cigarettes. Ted Turner owns just about everything when it comes to cartoons. He's got Cartoon Network and Boomerang and is responsible for these "old-timers" being shown on your kids television. After a lot of pressure, Turner has agreed to chop, slice, and dice away all of the nicotine and alcohol references in his whole library. What a silly idea! Take a look at "The Simpsons". Above are three characters I picked at random where if you take these things away, there's no more show. Alas, they aren't targeting what's on between 6 and 9 in the evening because "kids are supposed to be sleeping or doing homework at those hours" Yeah, right! I hope Turner stops and thinks about this before he does it. Although smoking and drinking in old cartoons really isn't important...you never mess with a classic. Perhaps this will go the same route as the idea of colorizing "The Three Stooges" and "Our Gang" in the 1980's. I think that rather pick on cartoons for "promoting" bad habits, they ought to all get together and go after such things as "MySpace" who allow middle aged men to pretend they're 15 years old in hopes of commiting a sex crime with an unsuspecting minor!!! Just in time for Christmas...here's Abby Cadabby! Poor Elmo. He's been on Xanax and Zyprexa ever since Sesame Street moved a new muppet into the neighborhood. Elmo was the last furry friend to unpack his suitcase over on Sesame, and that was about 13-14 years ago! For a while there, Elmo was as big as The Beatles, He appeared on shows with everyone from Martha Stewart and Emeril Lagasse, to Oprah and Jay Leno. The line of products associated with this puppet is still big enough to make a catalog as thick as a Chicago phone book! Imagine if you will, a red fuzzy mitten that you can wash your car with, throw it in the washing machine, and take to the studio to make a few more million dollars. I guess there's nothing left for poor Elmo to do, so it's time to introduce "Abby Cadabby" and put things back on track. Not only is Abby a little girl, (or rather, muppet) but she's a fairy who walks around with a magic wand that doubles as a cell phone. Her tiny, squeaky voice and slow way of speaking is said pull at the heart strings of little girls everywhere who hopefully will be pulling on purse strings of Mommies everywhere each time you walk down the toy aisle. What a great marketing scheme. Back in the early 1970's when Sesame Street was still learning to crawl, toys related to the show were scarce. The money that was made by the few things available went back to Public Broadcasting. Is that the case now? Nope. If it were, would PBS keep having a week of telethons every month? The family of the late Jim Henson that got things rolling with a green piece of felt and two ping pong balls is now a multi-million dollar Corporation partially owned by Disney, who has enough money to keep PBS going without telethons until the Sun burns out. Remember that when you're doing your Christmas shopping at Toys R Us in the upcoming months! In closing, Snakes at the Movies...literally! You knew it was only a matter of time. There's the virtual Starship Enterprise in Vegas where you get knocked around and bruised and battered as you go through "Space". Before that, there were a few "scratch and sniff" movies that included a card with numbered scents that you were to follow along with the movie when instructed. The oldest, 3-D is still popular to this day, and most common now at IMAX theatres. You can combine them all and it still won't give you the feeling of being in the middle of it all...until now. A theater of moviegoers in Arizona were surprised to discover that while watching Snakes on a Plane, a few things were slithering around the floor. People that noticed had assumed it was some kind of gag to go with the movie and then, there was hissing and rattling. Lights were turned on and yes, some jokesters had smuggled a burlap bag full of rattlesnakes into the show and dumped the bag out and ran. After it was said and done, the only thing left in the theater were the snakes and the burlap sack. Experts and police were called. They still don't know if this prank was done by adults or kids however, you know this is one prank that was guaranteed to happen. I didn't think it would be so soon though. Oh well...
-------- Squealing Pig WORLDWIDE!: "Saints or sinners?" and then..."Along came Abby"!

Squealing Pig WORLDWIDE!

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

"Saints or sinners?" and then..."Along came Abby"!

Non-profit organizations like "The American Lung Association" and "Truth.com" are really getting on my nerves! Hey, don't get me wrong. Their whole rason for existing is because they have an "agenda". That is, they want you to quit smoking or if you haven't started the habit already, don't! Hey, that's fine. First , we drew an imaginary line at the restaurant allowing non-smokers to dine on one side and smokers to smoke away on the other side. Obviously, smoke knows no boundries so then these non-profit groups pushedto ban smoking indoors PERIOD and forced everyone in a building to light up outside. Even that wasn't good enough because with everyone outside, the hole in the ozone layer will allow the Sun's radiation to kill us all! So now, many cities are outlawing smoking no matter where you go. Where do we go from here? Cartoons. After more than 70 years of animation, they're now putting classic cartoons in the crosshairs. Several groups have come forward to protest the use of smoking and drinking in cartoons going back to the 1930's. Martini's, wine, cigars, and pipes were sprinkled over some of the early classics like "Tom and Jerry". The Flintstones which originally aired in the evening back in the 1950's even had Fred and Barney in a TV commercial cartoon for cigarettes. And then as recently as a few years ago, "Joe Camel" got the pink slip because they claimed sales were climbing with underage kids sneaking around to buy cigarettes. Ted Turner owns just about everything when it comes to cartoons. He's got Cartoon Network and Boomerang and is responsible for these "old-timers" being shown on your kids television. After a lot of pressure, Turner has agreed to chop, slice, and dice away all of the nicotine and alcohol references in his whole library. What a silly idea! Take a look at "The Simpsons". Above are three characters I picked at random where if you take these things away, there's no more show. Alas, they aren't targeting what's on between 6 and 9 in the evening because "kids are supposed to be sleeping or doing homework at those hours" Yeah, right! I hope Turner stops and thinks about this before he does it. Although smoking and drinking in old cartoons really isn't important...you never mess with a classic. Perhaps this will go the same route as the idea of colorizing "The Three Stooges" and "Our Gang" in the 1980's. I think that rather pick on cartoons for "promoting" bad habits, they ought to all get together and go after such things as "MySpace" who allow middle aged men to pretend they're 15 years old in hopes of commiting a sex crime with an unsuspecting minor!!! Just in time for Christmas...here's Abby Cadabby! Poor Elmo. He's been on Xanax and Zyprexa ever since Sesame Street moved a new muppet into the neighborhood. Elmo was the last furry friend to unpack his suitcase over on Sesame, and that was about 13-14 years ago! For a while there, Elmo was as big as The Beatles, He appeared on shows with everyone from Martha Stewart and Emeril Lagasse, to Oprah and Jay Leno. The line of products associated with this puppet is still big enough to make a catalog as thick as a Chicago phone book! Imagine if you will, a red fuzzy mitten that you can wash your car with, throw it in the washing machine, and take to the studio to make a few more million dollars. I guess there's nothing left for poor Elmo to do, so it's time to introduce "Abby Cadabby" and put things back on track. Not only is Abby a little girl, (or rather, muppet) but she's a fairy who walks around with a magic wand that doubles as a cell phone. Her tiny, squeaky voice and slow way of speaking is said pull at the heart strings of little girls everywhere who hopefully will be pulling on purse strings of Mommies everywhere each time you walk down the toy aisle. What a great marketing scheme. Back in the early 1970's when Sesame Street was still learning to crawl, toys related to the show were scarce. The money that was made by the few things available went back to Public Broadcasting. Is that the case now? Nope. If it were, would PBS keep having a week of telethons every month? The family of the late Jim Henson that got things rolling with a green piece of felt and two ping pong balls is now a multi-million dollar Corporation partially owned by Disney, who has enough money to keep PBS going without telethons until the Sun burns out. Remember that when you're doing your Christmas shopping at Toys R Us in the upcoming months! In closing, Snakes at the Movies...literally! You knew it was only a matter of time. There's the virtual Starship Enterprise in Vegas where you get knocked around and bruised and battered as you go through "Space". Before that, there were a few "scratch and sniff" movies that included a card with numbered scents that you were to follow along with the movie when instructed. The oldest, 3-D is still popular to this day, and most common now at IMAX theatres. You can combine them all and it still won't give you the feeling of being in the middle of it all...until now. A theater of moviegoers in Arizona were surprised to discover that while watching Snakes on a Plane, a few things were slithering around the floor. People that noticed had assumed it was some kind of gag to go with the movie and then, there was hissing and rattling. Lights were turned on and yes, some jokesters had smuggled a burlap bag full of rattlesnakes into the show and dumped the bag out and ran. After it was said and done, the only thing left in the theater were the snakes and the burlap sack. Experts and police were called. They still don't know if this prank was done by adults or kids however, you know this is one prank that was guaranteed to happen. I didn't think it would be so soon though. Oh well...

posted by Dave Sypniewski at Tuesday, August 22, 2006