Posted on 11/29/2004 7:30:26 AM PST by NYer
Yum! Brands, the parent company of Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, KFC, A&W and Long John Silver’s, has stopped advertising on the ABC Network show Desperate Housewives. The move comes after the company’s headquarters were flooded with e-mails and phone calls from concerned customers.
Jonathan Blum, senior vice president of public affairs for Yum! Brands, announced the decision in a letter dated November 17, 2004, to Bill Johnson, president of the American Decency Association (ADA). As posted on ADA’s Web site, the letter reads:
I wanted to inform you that Yum! Brands will not be advertising in Desperate Housewives going forward. We determined that the content of the program is inconsistent without Media Ethics Guidelines. As a result, we have notified ABC and have pulled advertising from the balance of year programming for Pizza Hut and KFC. Our Taco Bell brand had no plans to advertise on Desperate Housewives any time during the remainder of the year.
Johnson and colleagues with the American Family Association have been monitoring the show and informing their constituents of the companies supporting it through advertising. While he is pleased with this development, he still has concerns.
“This decision was a long time coming,” Johnson said, noting that the company went weeks without responding to any of the customer comments made on the matter.
Robert Knight, director of Concerned Women for America’s Culture & Family Institute, said this is good news.
“This is a perfect example of why concerned citizens should never give up, even when it seems their voice is not being heard,” Knight said. “Yum! Brands never responded to the tons of e-mail complaints they received, yet all the while the company was weighing the affect this show was having on the culture and its corporate reputation. They weighed the matter carefully and agreed with their customers.”
“We rejoice that Yum! Brands realizes the import of this decision,” Johnson added. “Desperate Housewives is nasty and destructive to the American family. Burger King made a similar decision weeks ago upon finding out the nature of the program,” he added.
While asking people to contact Yum! Brands and thank them for this move, Johnson also sounds a word of caution. “We now can only hope that Yum! Brands will also steer clear of Life As We Know It [also aired on ABC] and similar types of cultural-rotting programming,” he said.
He added that the ADA’s boycott of Yum! Brands would continue as long as the company continued advertising on Life As We Know It.
Other advertisers remain strong supporters of the new fall dramas. Target and K-Mart are the two most notable examples.
“Here are two companies … that are willing to recklessly place profits before principle. Dirtying the airwaves and sullying untold numbers of children doesn’t concern them much, but greed does,” said Johnson.
Take Action:
To contact Target and K-Mart:
Target Corporation
Mr. Robert Ulrich
1000 Nicollet Mall
Minneapolis, MN 55403
Phone: 612-304-6073 or 1-800-440-0680
Fax: 612-696-3731
To send an e-mail, click here.
Kmart Corporation
Aylwin Lewis
3100 W. Big Beaver Rd.
Troy, MI 48084
Phone: 248-463-1000
Fax: 248-463-5636
To send an e-mail, click here.
Please take a moment to send a note of thanks to Yum! Brands for dropping support of Desperate Housewives and encourage them to do the same with Life As We Know It. Correspondence should be directed to Jonathan Blum, senior vice president of public affairs, Yum! Brands Inc.
Ah, the holidays. The one time a year when I go to the in-laws who watch television incessantly. Then I get to see this stuff.
And wonder what on earth you have to be smoking for it to qualify as entertainment.
So, just be sure it is funny if you want me to allow you to promote depravity as the norm in America.
And we wonder why other countries have such a low opinion of America. Look at the picture they get of America in the movies.
I couldn't stand Murphy Brown, kid or no kid. I vaguely remember Dan Quayle making a remark about single women having kids, and getting cremated for it.
If people think the tv shows they watch are real life, or use these shows to guide them on day to day living issues, they need help.
>This FR witch hunt is humorous. The show is great.<
Actually the show was eye catching with the first couple of episodes but deep satire it is not.I find it sad that people trumpet a show that portrays as "real life" a 14 year old counseling her mother on her first sexual encounter with her new boyfriend.
The "satire" last night was aimed at mocking people with ethics.Implying the mother read the Bible to decide to cover up for her kid.Have you seen one case of unethical behavior held up to ridicule in this show?
Enjoy the show but don't try to justify it as being of any value.A good question to ask yourself is did you even notice any of the subtle attacks on values or have you been so "warmed up" that you don't notice the water is boiling.
When we get the Desperate Housewives all in burqas things will be fine and all our critics happy.
Gabrielle is married. Apparently after Mama got run over, she and the gardener broke it off. Nicolette Sheridan isn't married.
Well, that'll be difficult ... I don't have a TV.
Fortunately, there's plenty of dark humor and satire on my bookshelves. No pictures, generally, but I manage.
I think it's cool you can make this a Family Affair. Here's hoping the dark humor, satire and message stick with you and your daughter longer than the images which -- your depth of intellectual appreciation duly noted -- evidently are the primary draw for most (as evidenced by the love of Scenery and "Stories" on this thread).
As long as everything is ridiculed equally, I don't see a problem.
As for the kid giving mom a counseling session, my daughter and I thought it was nuts. Which is probably why they threw that in.
Target refuses to allow the Salvation Army to put their kettles outside it's stores, but advertises on this trash?
Lol, really it's not that bad of a show.
"From the promos, it appears to be a show about married women breaking their marriage vows by having sex with their neighbor's husband(s).
I don't see the entertainment value in that, unless it's in the same sense that "Faces of Death" is entertaining."
The popularity of the show is testament to the depravity some people will stoop to when they think no one is looking. We are certainly not talking about people with any moral values.
The particular daughter that I am referring to is 22 yrs old, and 9 months pregnant.
As a straight female, the scenery doesn't do much for me. It's the way they take stereotypical suburban wives, mothers, and tarts, then give them a good tweak ;-)
People should watch a tv show before they give a review of said program.
Adding a little spice to the truth never hurt anyone, but your point is taken.
As for the rest of your reply... Consider this:
Better for a fool to keep his/her mouth shut, than to open it, and remove all doubt.
Then move out!
Entertainment
1) `The act of entertaining.
2) The art or field of entertaining.
3) Something that amuses, pleases, or diverts, especially a performance or show.
4) The pleasure afforded by being entertained; amusement: The comedian performed for our entertainment
Boston Legal is outstanding. I look forward to seeing what James Spader and William Shatner are up to every week. You know how some new shows start out kind of slow, getting better each week until the writers find their way and develop the characters? Not so with this one -- it was well done beginning with the first episode and has not let up. So when the reruns kick in, you've got the first few episodes to look forward to that will not disappoint.
BTW / off topic: Your garlic smashed potatoes have become a big hit throughout my extended family. Except I got some strange & confused looks when I tried to explain that I got the recipe from someone at FreeRepublic with the screen name of "Hillary's Lovely Legs," LOL.
Lots of shows have bad people who do bad things. And you conveniently forgot to mention that the kid's mother was extremely upset about her son's lack of remorse. That's kind of an important item to omit. Maybe that was sort of the whole point, illustrating how some kids today are overly materialistic - sometimes you need to show how despicable actions look, to get that point across.
My 17 yr old and 10 yr old, not to mention my son in law, would rather watch blood and guts. They find this show to be very boring.
Didn't take long for the "moral issues are most important to me" Girdle of Self-Righteousness to snap around here. I'm surprised more didn't dislocate a shoulder slapping themselves on the back for their "moral" victory earlier this month. Bully for us!!
What a relief it's back to Hypocrisy as Usual here in FR's self-called "conservative" corner of the universe.
(Though I find a certain dark humor and irony in the fact they once again expose themselves as Enlightened leftists with their characterizing as "witch hunts" the criticisms of those too stoopid to understand the show for what it is.)
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