As I was laying under my bed, wallowing in self pity, I started to get a song running through my brain and couldn't get rid of it for, let's see, five days now. I'm sure this has happened to everyone at one time or another. Since it is driving me insane I thought I would share it with you.
I've always been an Oscar Mayer guy for dogs at home. We still buy the bun length dogs and I grill the entire package and then freeze them, We heat them up in the microwave when we want one and they taste delicious.
If we are near a place that offers Vienna dogs, when outside of the house, we always stop and devour one or three of those. With mustard, tomato, and sport peppers, or, plain with chili for me. Linda prefers hers plain, or, with chili and cheese.
I have never really been a fan of the other brands, but I know they are loved by many and I'm sure you all have your favorites too. Like bacon, there are no bad hot dogs, unless you put ketchup on them and then you are either from the East coast or a communist.
So I can see you asking yourself, Dan, what does this have to do with advertising and political correctness? Well, the song running through my head was this one.
This is a commercial that would never get made today. Here are the words in case you couldn't make them out.
Hot dogs, Armour hot dogs
What kind of kids eat Armour hot dogs?
So far so good but here is where it starts to go off the rails.
Fat kids, skinny kids, kids who climb on rocks
Tough kids, sissy kids, even kids with chicken pox
How did kids back then not have issues? Chunky little Billy being called out by a hot dog ad as being fat? Or poor little lisping Octavia being labeled a sissy! Come on, was that really necessary? Sure it all ends benign enough.
love hot dogs, Armour hot dogs
The dog kids love to bite!
Can you just imagine the outrage today if that actually made it past every agency and got on the air? For some reason it is perfectly fine for the FCC to allow ads for feminine hygiene products or things that will control your bowl movements, but don't even think about calling little Billy fat, even while this country is overflowing with husky, pre-diabetic kids.
I tried thinking of other products that would never make it to the airwaves now but I was just too wrapped up in my own issues to think clearly. Maybe I'll take some time and think about other things that we take for granted today that were unthinkable back in the day and write a book on them.
I guess the point here is that kids managed to go on with their lives, no worse for the wear even after being labeled fat or a sissy by a hot dog company. Were we too stupid to notice back then or are we too touchy today? I'm pretty sure I know the answer to that question.
As you can see, Linda was able to talk me out from under the bed, eventually, and I've moved on. Her blog actually got me the desired results as many of you reached out to me and shared your thoughts on the book currently available on Amazon still.
For some of you this will come as a huge disappointment, but Linda didn't actually write the column. In fact she didn't even know it was out in blogosphere until one of our Nieces shared it with her. Sorry.
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