Posted on 09/11/2005 6:46:54 PM PDT by Jack Black
I have been watching NFL football today, one of my few TV viewing vices. The games were great, especially the Lions finally winning an opener in a convincing fashion. However throughout the games, on those channels as well as several others I watched are these totally vulgar ads.
For those of you who have not seen them the theme is that 'cable TV sucks'. The visuals involve various things being sucked onto the TV screen, shoes, one old mans clothes except for his underwear, etc.
Most parents I know have worked diligently to help our kids understand what words and phrases are not popular. Certainly in our house 'sucks' has always been a bad word. After all most of us know that 'sucks' is short for a description of a common sex act.
So this is where we are at. One of the largest TV providers thinks it's cleaver to use gutter slang for sex acts as the tag line for their saturation bombing ad campaign.
Well, I'm not sure about you, but I think I'll stick with my cable, thanks very much. Dish Network, no thanks.
My daughter first told me and I did not believe her. I thought there was no way they could make an ad that weird. It was like a joke commercial from Saturday Night Live.
I had heard of one. In Boston. Article 8 made them take it down, and were the homos mad!!!
It is a conservative group, but not a group of tightass'es.
I'm not offended by them at all. They are not the brightest ads on the tube - but they are accurate.
This thread sucks.
He would go over to the porno mags and begin flipping through them...all the while saying at the top of his lungs, "Oh..this is gross! Man..this is terrible! How can they do this!!!" Yet he would look through every single magazine on that rack (including Playgirl).
Sound familiar?
With Lord & Taylor selling t-shirts that say "FCUK" this is but another challenge in the culture war.
Slouching towards Gomorrah.
"Standards and practices" left the networks long ago. And yes, they can reject an ad they find inappropriate.
You got east and west coast feeds back. I guess I need to call them - I was so disappointed when when they took that away
If you had seen my last cable bill you would be sayig that about the cable company, not dish network's silly ads.
I bet.
The voluntary rating on tv-programs does not apply to the ads.
And some on the left still believe that Janet Jackson's mutilate nipple was shown at the Super Bowl halftime show on "accident".
These are in Tampa- they just went up 2 weeks ago. They aren't being overt about the gayness of the men available, but what kind of woman is going to call a service like that?
Plus, the pictures look like the Village People.
For awhile the Simpsons had conversations take place where they could put two "innocent words" next to each other in a dialogue so that together they were something normally unbroadcastable.
I thought it was funny.
Not to me.
Now, I will engage in off color humor, puns and such, but the kids aren't on FR. And I've never had a post pulled for vulgarity.
Next, they can feature people saying "(sonova) b*tch" and it'll turn out they're talking about a female dog. Or, they can be saying "mother Focker" and it'll be something to do with the movie. Or the German airplane.
Common decency is going the way of common sense. Rarer by the day.
</rant>
I'm in the business (advertising). And while the spots are attention getters, I don't think they work as good advertising.
Commercials are more effective if they can use a legitimate double entendre (pardon my French). A sort of "nudge, nudge, wink, wink" kind of thing.
For example, let's say you're selling a computer-based education system. If you showed a computer disc opening, and the line was "Introducing a computer class that always has a slot open," it works. Because "slot" means something in the computer sense as well as the class sense.
My point? "My cable sucks" only works in that one, crude dimension. If the case they were trying to make was that cable sucks money, without any real return, there could be some potential. But it would still be crude.
So what I'm trying to say is that not only is it crude, but it's poor advertising too.
Yeah, but I think Dish is screwing something up with my programming (in a good way). I was originally grand-fathered in when they started shutting others down years ago. And even after they eventually got to me, I installed one of my older boxes and all my programming was back.
Sadly, that ended when the new cards came out a couple years later. But my wife did call a few months back because certain regions can now buy the E/W feeds. I still think they did something wrong, though, since I think it is only suppose to be ABC and NBC...and I'm getting a few others:) Give it a try....it can't hurt.
You're right. Their marketing people do approve which commercials run, on what channels and when.
BTW: "Ad" is the abbreviation for advertising. That's the business. Commercials are what run on TV.
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