May 28, 2006

I Guess Advertising Does Affect The Young Mind

I grew up watching The Flintstones and Bugs Bunny. They were surer things to me than death and taxes. To be fair, when I was 6, I had no real concept of death and absolutely no concept of taxes. In Toronto, in the sixties we had a choice of 5 TV channels. 2 were Canadian, and 3 were out of Buffalo. Canadian TV was pretty boring outside of hockey games and The Flintstones, so it was mostly American TV for me.
Every morning I'd watch Rocketship 7(lots of Bugs), at lunch time, especially when I was in the early grades, I'd come home and have a salami sandwich and watch The Flintstones on CTV. When I came home from school, I'd watch The Commander Tom Show which had toons like Gumby, Bugs, and The Flintstones.

Now, I really don't remember the following commercial very well but apparently it had a huge affect on me. Watch:


Unless you know me, it isn't what you think. I don't smoke, and outside of a 3 week period in my life in grade 9 when I would go with a bunch of the punks at lunch to smoke Colts on a hill behind my Jr. High School, I never acquired that disgusting habit. No commercial that glorified smoking would do me in.
But apparently the idea that housework is woman's work, as seen on the above commercial, has shaped the lazy bum my wife sees each day. What else could it be?
Damn subliminal messages. I could have been a much better husband if I hadn't been brainwashed at such an early age that men aren't supposed to lift a finger around the house.
Didn't The Flintstones also do Christmas specials? How was that explained in Fundy homes I wonder? That kind of stuff has to make a young person think, at least subliminally. How many Atheists were created by The Flintstones? Remember, thinking causes Atheism.

Below are pictures of Rocketship 7's Dave Thomas and Commander Tom (Tom Jolls also doubled as the weather man for channel 7....and continued as weatherman well past Commander Tom's cancellation).



I wish I was 6 again.

8 comments:

  1. I dig that Mounty-esque uniform.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow, and I thought that I had seen all the Flintstone shows, I don't recall seeing that commercial! Your blog is very interesting, even though you are an athiest, you have talent. Nice doggie, BTW.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anon 1, I don't know if the intention was to look Mountie like, not that he doesn't. But Commander Tom was a Yankee on a Yankee station.

    Anon 2, thanks. It is AthEIst by the way. Just in case you wind up on a quiz show.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I grew up in Cambridge (Galt) Ontario. When I was five, Hurricane Hazel dropped in and tore the television antenna off our roof. (You'd think that such an 'act of God' would have sent me running for the pews. Luckily, even at five, I knew that weather was just weather.)

    Everyone smoked in the 1950's. Talk shows, game shows, you name it. They were all sponsored by cigarette companies. Remember 'Front Page Challenge'? Fred Davis would take a smoke break to advertise Du Maurier cigarettes. I know the advertising worked on me. Joe Camel. The Marlboro man. It was like the Stones singing, "He can't be a man 'cause he doesn't smoke the same cigarettes as me."

    I remember Commander Tom. He used to show 'The Adventures of Superman'. Jeez, Bacon, you've managed to get me all nostalgic.

    These were a few of my favourites: 'The Adventures of Robin Hood' with Richard Greene; 'Riverboat' with Darren McGavin; 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents'; 'You Bet Your Life' with Groucho Marx; and the stuff I used to race home from school to watch, everyday at 4:00 (on Channel 2 out of Buffalo) 'The Three Stooges' -- usually two fifteen-minute shorts. (And I prayed, kind of, that the randomness of the universe would grant me TWO doses of Curly. I grew to love Shemp in later years.)

    Thanks for letting me ramble.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Doctor B, right! I forgot about Superman.
    Don't forget, I was born in 1961. I used to watch Hitchcock with my grandmother. I think there was a time it was on at lunch as well. Now that I think about it, we might have had the CBC, CFTO and the Hamilton station maybe was around too. Global wasn't until the early 70's, and City maybe the late 60's (remember the Baby Blue Movies?), same with PBS and TVO.

    Lets not forget The Munsters, The Adams Family, Bewitched and my favorite night time show: The Twilight Zone.
    Surprisingly I don't remember ever seeing a Leave It To Beaver until they started showing reruns in the Seventies.

    ReplyDelete
  6. "I could have been a much better husband if I hadn't been brainwashed at such an early age that men aren't supposed to lift a finger around the house."

    Oh, man! That's a good one, definitely, and with your permission (or without) I shall use it. Tell you later what the response was, if I survive.

    ReplyDelete
  7. May 29, 2006

    And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make
    your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those
    who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you
    all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
    --Genesis 12:2-3



    On this special day when we remember all the brave men and women who
    have given their lives to ensure the freedom that you and I enjoy,
    I'd like to talk briefly about how we as Christians are to respond
    to the blessings God has bestowed upon our country.

    This response can be summarized in the acrostic of the word patriot:

    P stands for pray. We're to pray for our nation, our leaders, and
    for those whose minds and hearts are blinded and seduced by the god
    of this age.

    A stands for accept . You and I are to accept the responsibilities
    of citizenship, which includes paying taxes and voting.

    T stands for the word treat . Each of us is to treat our freedom
    with care because it was bought with a price.

    R stands for resist. Resist the temptation to trade spiritual
    values for material values. Remember that God is interested in your
    character more than your money!

    I stands for identify . We're to identify places where we can make
    a positive difference in our community.

    O stands for overcome . You and I should overcome acts of evil with
    acts of grace, kindness, and goodness.

    And T stands for thank . We need to thank God regularly for our
    salvation and for the privilege of living life in this God-blessed
    nation.

    It is my prayer that the Lord would help you become a patriot for
    the Lord Jesus Christ today!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Jesus never existed and there is no God. No matter how much you want to spam it.

    You've been had.

    ReplyDelete