Since tomorrow is Sunday, I have a recommendation for everyone. You know those glossy coupon-magazine pull-outs that come in the Sunday paper? I love those. If you get the Sunday paper, I recommend pulling those out, examining them in detail, and really thinking about the products advertised inside. If these ads are any indication of the state of our society, then, wow, I really don't know what to think.

Here is a list of things I found in the glossy coupon ads in the past:

- pudding that tastes like pie
- pills for losing 14 pounds in 5 days
- sausages endorsed by the host of Family Feud
- statuettes of John Wayne and Judy Garland under glass domes
- big plastic frogs that ribbit when someone walks by
- real turkey meat ground up and reprocessed to look like a turkey breast
- sweatpants embroidered with flowers
- hot dogs with pasurized process cheese food injected right inside
- men's slacks up to waist size 60
- "three-dimensional" corn snacks
- tartar control cat food
- cat clocks that meow on the hour
- chocolate flavored vitamin shakes
- one-size-fits-all bras
- oatmeal with "dinosaur eggs" in every bowl that hatch before your very eyes
- salad dressing made to taste like pizza
- breakfast cereal made to taste like donuts

Once I saw an ad for cereal, milk, and a plastic spoon all in one package, promising to eliminate preparation and cleanup, thus making breakfast easier. Apparantly, people aren't eating enough cereal due to the intensive prepapation and cleanup involved.

There are all kinds of ads for people "on the go." This is true: I actually once saw an ad for pretzels that said, "ready in seconds." Who knew that good food is so easy to make?

My favorite ad is for a radio that is about the size of a silver dollar and is attached to an elastic band, which you stretch around your head. Earbuds dangle from the elastic band, and the whole works is waterproof. The device promises to relieve the boredom of swimming.

The boredom of swimming.

Think about that for awhile, and try not to have a seizure.

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3 Comments:

maria said...

if the swimming radio turned out not to be waterproof and resulted in severe, painful electric shocks...well, you just TRY to be bored while you're drowning and frying.

2:16 PM  

Lorika said...

I LOVE this post. My favorite in those ads is the horrible dolls they sell. The really creepy lifelike ones made of rubber and are squishy to seem like a real baby. Ewwwww!

Also the stupid little figurines, that are "collectors items". The fact that people actually collect them scares me.

1:02 PM  

Barrett said...

Here's a (somewhat pathetic) story: When I was a kid, I liked to accompany my dad to the Shack liquor store on Fridays, so that I could A) experience the cold air that rushed out of the beer cooler (not many places were air-conditioned then) and B) so that I could marvel at the collectable Elvis statuettes. What impressed me most about the statuettes was that they were so, so expensive. It would have required a fortune to collect all of them. But you know someone out there did.

5:54 PM  

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Barrett Chase is the creator of Barrett Chase Dot Com, a text-based blog that ran from February, 2003 - February, 2005. The Product is a new vision and a new start. You may contact him by emailing bchase at gmail dot com.

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