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The Galloping Geezer

The Galloping Geezer
~ Jack Downey Comments on Canadian Issues

Jack Downey ~ The Galloping Geezer
Photo by Julie Ann Biggs

To say that they tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth is a LIE...

The PC is probably the most truthful machine ever invented. A few examples may help you understand just how honest it is. I'm the world's worst speller, but once I hit my Spell Check and Grammar button, never has my machine giggled and said "Oh well that's close enough for government work!" It has no mercy. It pops up with the correct spelling of a series of likely words for me to choose from. If my word is in the top three listed, I am elated. My depression deepens the further down the list I go. If my dutiful checker indicates there is no such word, I try to respell it three times and then I turn to my trusty paper Dictionary. I have three: a small one for just spelling; a second at College level; and a third circa 1852 leather bound darling that doubles as a bar stool.

I once thought, I had caught the PC lying. A word was spelt wrong and the Checker didn't catch it. I was so happy, I was going to print and frame it and hang it on my office wall. I was wrong. The PC was right. Because sometime in the past I had used the same word and spelt it wrong, but had clicked 'Add' rather than 'Change' my spelling was being used for comparisson. When I deleted this LIE from the PC Dictionary, a happy face with a smile like a Skunk having an affair with a Perfume bottle appeared on the screen with a footnote in bold caps of "WE PCs NEVER LIE!"

If the PC is honest and incorruptible the TV is the quintessential liar and worst cheater ever invented by mankind. I have a 10-year-old grandson. When we watch TV together we both have a notebook and pencil close by. Since most of the programs are boring, we eagerly await the advertisements or commercials. Yes, we love commercials and diligently study them for a game we have made up called "Truth, Half truth or Untruth."

The rules are simple, the first one to catch the Advertisement's lie or untruth, writes it down for reference against a rerun of the same commercial. The reward for catching the lie on the adverts first run is the right to pick three jellybeans of your favourite colour from a large bowl of jellybeans. Two jellybeans if it takes two showings, one for a third showing of the ad before discovering of the lie. Residuals rate you two jellybeans, but the other person picks the colour. At first,I pretty much controlled the Jelly bean bowl. It didn't take long, however, before the kid took command and had pretty well cleaned out the bowl of his favourite Red jellybeans. My residuals are usually black ones, which I hate.

Here are a few examples of what we have found. Remember, we are not judging the product. We are looking for the lie, untruth or half-truth in the presentation of the product. Let us say that we are watching 'the THREE Stooges' and they take a commercial break. On comes the FOURTH Stooge, stirring a pot of Chili. He is honest and forthright and earnestly wants you to prepare yourself financially to die. I agree that every one needs some form of Death Insurance, but then comes the clanger or warping of the Truth. The smarmy rascal says "It's even tax free and we've 'all paid enough taxes." My Grandson nailed him and won three red jellybeans. Insurance is bought with after tax dollars and is a form of lottery. Since you are, in effect, buying a lottery ticket with after tax dollars, you are only going to avoid paying tax twice. Do not smile yet. Depending on the total Estate value, there may be a visit from the Tax masters in Ottawa to your beneficiaries. Please note that you cannot buy Death Insurance in Quebec or New Brunswick. What do they know that we in the West do not?

Here's a tricky one. Pizza Ad: Nice boy brings pretty girl to his loft apartment. He offers to provide a pizza, but has no money (assumed) so he goes to the kitchen to, supposedly, order a pizza, but in reality drags one of the sponsors out of the Fridge. While he is preparing to cook his LIE, the attractive klutz of a girl drops a family heirloom, but declares it's nothing when querried. The pizza is delivered to a non-existent back door and is declared to be "great and fast too!" The photography is phenomenal in its use of shadows to present the LIEs. The boy has duped the girl into thinking that a thrown in the oven frozen pizza is a real pizzeria pizza. The girl has broken an heirloom and not admitted it.

The plot thickens. NEW add, same product, same actors, same CLOTHES, but different location. The couple is faced with a thirty-minute wait in a local restaurant. It's a Pizzeria and must be good if sold out, I'd say. Same attractive girl in same dress says to same boy in same shirt, "My place?", and off they go. She, this time, is too ashamed to admit that she has a frozen pizza in the Fridge and goes off stage. The next scene sees them extolling the quick delivery and wonderful taste of the pizza. The girl must think the boy is an idiot for not recognizing, from past experience at his loft, that he's eating a frozen pizza. Or maybe he's playing dumb because he got out of paying for a sold out, good restaurant pizza and never even offered to pay for the pseudo delivery one! The boy figures 'man this girl is dumb; this is the same thing I served her at my place', but if I choke it down maybe things will progress. Sure enough, they do and she says "No need to go anywhere is there?" Now that's my kind of a date! A very attractive girl, who only owns one dress, buys the pizza and is not concerned that my only shirt has ring around the collar!

This is a real family fun game and it teaches children not to believe the slick advertising hype, with half truths or even almost no truth, that bombards them every day to buy unnecessary or even inferior products and teaches them that lying is OK! We know that the earlier children are taught to be Street smart and have nothing to do with strangers, the safer they are. But the TV sends strangers in to your home constantly to rob you of your money. It is time to make the children TV Smart, not only about the shows they watch, but about the dangers of believing TV strangers who will use any thing to get their money.

Our environment also is feeling the brunt of misleading advertising. For example, SUV's and 4X4's etc. are built on truck chassises and 'trucks' are not under the Motor Car Anti-pollution regulations. The advertisers neglect to tell you that. About 80% North Americans live in urban areas, yet we are constantly nagged to buy a four wheel drive vehicle, SUV or a truck to roar through storms over rock strew mountain trails in. If the storms and roads are so bad that you need four wheel drive, you should not be on the road except in a life threatening emergency. Four wheel drive will let you go out in a blizzard, but you cannot stop any faster than two wheel drive cars. All these toys that you see on TV fail to tell you the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth. As Mark Twain said" Never tell the truth when a lie will do." And of course PT Barnum, the Guru of the advertisement industry said, "There's a sucker born every minute."

I guess I'm a sucker, as I do not like pizza; but for that pretty girl with only one dress I'd choke a slice down, she's a sweetheart of a sales lady!

I must go now to buy some more red jelly beans, my grandson is coming over later to watch a Video with no ads, but he'll expect a treat for being the best kid in my world, and that's the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Signed; the Galloping Geezer

Jack C. Downey CD
Send comments to: Jack



Letters in Response to this article:

Thank you for contacting McCain. Our response to your question is stated below.

Question:Sir/Madam I have written an Editoral on TV advertisements. I love the TV Ads on the McCain's Pizza. Both characters are believable. The young lady is very good and lovely. I am using this general scenario and others to expound on "pay attention" to what TV commercials are really saying. Please note that I declare that I am not judging the product, but looking only at the message the different Ads give to me. My analysis is, of course, tongue-in-cheek. There is no mention of any sponsor, but one might infer that the scenario alludes to a particular TV sponsor. I really admire the use of shadows on the first Ad using the "McCain's young lady. If you have contact with her, please pass on my regards for her and the film Director - excellent work. I believe the Ad to be excellent and quite amusing, if you follow it through in your imagination, as neither the lady nor the man are sharp enough to figure out that the door bell never rang in either Ad! I wish you all sorts of successes as a good ad is better to watch than a bad show!


Answer:Thank you for your recent E-mail to McCain Foods in which you express your positive comments about the television commercial for McCain Pizza. Your views are very important to us, and we thank you again for taking the time to contact us. Sincerely, McCain Foods (Canada)

re: advertising

I think Jack is a typical Western Canadian dinosaur trying to express an opinion about something he knows absolutely nothing about. If he cared to actually research the advertising industry, the laws that regulate it and the impact it has on the overall economy he might actually make some kind of rational point here. Instead he seems content to wrap himself up in the same emotional tirade as the trendy anti-corporate hypocrites who are making piles of money slamming advertising under the guise of actually doing something productive for mankind. I'd argue that the real untruth in the world is in tv programming itself. If you can't find anything good about commercials Jack, don't waste your time watching them. Take your grandson away from the tv altogether, go outside and play baseball with him. You'll find the honest truth there.

Response
'Sure got this persons attention. He/she is right. I am a a Dinosaur. If he/she really thinks that "the impact on the economy " is more important than the methods that the Ad industry uses to sell over packaged, overrated and over priced junk that is detrimental to our environment and health is a justifiable Eastern way of thinking, this might even be the person that did the Ads for Lawn Darts. Or Breast implants, Ford/Goodyear or even Imperial/ RJRenolds cigarettes.

Perhaps this person could be approached to do a layman piece for CC.c on the Ad laws so we typical Western Dinosaurs could understand how the Eastern Pongo Orangutans geniuses, that forget Brontosaurus had two brains, "sell" their products to my G'son and I. We still will enjoy matching wits with the one brained Tyrannosaurus Rex Spin artists when we're not playing soccer or fishing for bottom feeders.

It is also noteworthy that this person failed to see and comprehend our statement, "remember we are not judging the product", that indicated that we were merely studying how to decipher the Ad's message in simple terms to avoid extinction.

Jack

Jack - BRAVO!!!! XOXO Brown




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