Reid About It

With the current financial crisis, I'm going to take today to go get a warm coat, a trash barrel to light a fire in, and a new spoon to take down to the soup kitchen. My retirement account is paying out in wampum, so I'm going to take advantage of the day off to go sell some blood, urine, and kidneys.

In my place today, I've asked an old friend to step in for a guest column. Whit Watson is a cohort of mine in ye olde television sweatshop. He's the lead anchor for Sun Sports Network in Florida, and blogs at Sun Sports website. He's a pretty big deal. He has his own wikipedia page, for crying out loud. Not even Julie Tam has that.

Whit's like me, a sports guy who also has an eye for pop culture (like John Hughes movies, Sonia Dada, and pre-cocaine arrest Barenaked Ladies).

Thanks to Whit for stepping in to pinch-hit for me, check out his columns over at Sun Sports and tell him I sent you.

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This, I believe, is the first sign of the apocalypse: JCPenney is doing "The Breakfast Club."

For those who haven't seen it, the venerable department store chain recently released a TV ad campaign for its line of teen clothing that features spot-ond reenactments of the 1985 John Hughes classic. Here, an exterior shot of Shermer High School; there, a kid with a passing resemblance to Emilio Estevez pulls on the drawstrings of his hoodie. The dancing scenes in the library are absent the pot smoke, of course, and the montage shots of the kids sliding around in the hallways while evading Principal Vernon are not terribly true to the original, but for the most part, the ads are scary good. Even the camera angles and lighting appear completely accurate. The film's iconic title track, "Don't You (Forget About Me)," is acknowledged by way of a very catchy cover - it's not Simple Minds this time, but New Found Glory. Not surprisingly, an EP with five different cover versions of that tune was available for purchase online as soon as the ads were released.

Sigh.

The obvious has been stated many, many times already, particularly on blogs that follow the advertising industry: the movie is 23 freaking years old. Which means, of course, that the subtlety and accuracy of the ads is completely lost on the kids who might actually wear this stuff. Sure, maybe they've seen it on DVD, but they didn't grow up with it. It was no seminal film of their youth. For that matter, I have no idea what films might fall into that category for a teenager today, and won't embarrass myself by hazarding a guess.

(Sidebar: I have an 8-year-old son and a 5-year-old daughter. The last movie I saw in a theater was "WALL-E." If there's a film in theatrical release from the last nine years that doesn't feature an animated version of a talking car, animal, robot, mythical creature, or toy, I haven't seen it. I'm digressing.)

The obvious conclusion - the painful, grating, pisses-me-off-more-than-it-should conclusion - is that these ads are not aimed at the kids. They're aimed at their parents, who not only can identify with these scenes, but will theoretically bask in the warm glow of nostalgia as they pull their credit cards. And seeing as how I've just identified "The Breakfast Club" as a seminal film of my generation, well...

Those ads are aimed at me.

In my case, they missed. As noted, my kids are too young for the clothes being peddled. For that matter, I was only 14 when the movie was originally released. However, if one were, say, an 18-year-old high school senior in 1985, that would place one at or around a 41st birthday right about now, plenty old enough to have a child of at least 12. Further, if 1985 was your graduation year, there's a pretty good chance that your memory of that movie is further romanticized - Hell, it's 50-50 that "Don't You (Forget About Me)" was the theme of your senior prom. If that doesn't get you skipping off to Penney's with your sullen teenagers in tow, I don't know what will.

Naturally, someone at Penney's ad agency (in this case, the giant Saatchi & Saatchi) thought of all this. In fact, I predict that the concept, when pitched, was considered a "home run," or some other cliche typically spouted by advertising people. But it's not, for two reasons:

One, because it pisses me off that this film, which was such an integral part of my most impressionable adolescent years that I can nearly recite it verbatim to this day, has been co-opted into an ad for JC freaking Penney's. And no matter how terrific those ads may look, no matter how expensive they may have been to create, "pissing off the viewer" cannot possibly be on Saatchi & Saatchi's to-do list. And I cannot be alone. If this were to become a trend - if the JCPenney ad were to be followed by similar treatments of "Pretty in Pink" or "St. Elmo's Fire" or, God help me, "Fletch" - there will be torches and pitchforks, people. Torches and pitchforks. We are in denial about our age. Don't screw with us.

The second reason why this ad fails the mark is because JCPenney ignored the Disney Principle (which should probably now be renamed the Pixar Principle) of any form of entertainment that hopes to attract both kids and parents: you must entertain Mom and Dad without Junior realizing it.

If Junior thinks that Mom thinks a commercial/movie/song is cool, Junior will reject it out of hand. I guarantee that right now, legions of teenagers are resisting parental attempts to go shop at Penney's precisely because Mom thought those ads were "cute." It's a kid thing. If, however, Mom and Dad are snorting at subtle jokes that only they can understand, while Junior is laughing at the obvious, kid-friendly humor - THAT is how one hits a "home run."

Exhibits: "Aladdin," "Little Mermaid," "Toy Story," "Finding Nemo," "The Incredibles," "Cars," "Madagascar," and a dozen other animated films I’m too lazy to go look up. What they all have in common is a sufficient supply of in-jokes and subtle nods at adult sensibilities to keep Mom and Dad entertained, while leaving the scenery-chewing antics intact for the kids. "Aladdin," in particular, is probably the alpha dog of this category thanks to Robin Williams, who could barely keep it clean for the entire film - the exact sort of razor's-edge humor that will compel the parents to stay seated.

Put it this way: during the "Prince Ali" number, Williams' Genie makes a 2-second reference to the old Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade broadcasts -- "Aren't they lovely, June?" - complete with visible breath, as if it were cold outside. I have seen that movie 20 times with my kids, and I chuckle at that line every...single...time.

Further, I would submit that the "High School Musical" phenomenon falls into that category. Fact is, the kids can dance, and they can sing. The music is reasonably catchy, decent enough to play in the car with the kids and not drive oneself batty. "Barney" it's not. Again: keep Mom and Dad entertained without Junior knowing it.

The JCPenney ads, while brilliantly executed and cleverly conceived, miss on this front, because the kids aren't going to get it. And if you only go for the parents, you're only starting the battle, not winning it.

And seriously - if I see "Weird Science" as an ad for anything, I'm gonna start cracking some skulls.

-- Whit Watson

Email to my blog, obviously after someone saw me on TV. This is from someone on AOL called "GranpaJerry".

"Get a haircut!

Are you getting retrofitted for a trip back to the 60's?

Commune living appeal to you?"

Just for future reference, my hair is curly. At this point I wear it curly because girls, most importantly my wife Kimberly, like it that way. After suffering through having curly hair in the 80's and 90's when it was never in style, the winds of chance have turned my curly hair into something that people like and I enjoy taking advantage of it.

Furthermore, I would never change my appearance to be more attractive to anyone called "Granpa." That's kind of gay. And not the good sort of gay that's sensitive and introspective, but rather the bad sort that hangs out in state parks and truck stop parking lots.

Besides, are people still using AOL? What's next, am I going to get crap from somebody on Compuserve? Someone who's ticked at me and loading up my page on Netscape?

No new blogs this week, I'll be in and out of town dealing with a death in my family. I'll be back with more next week. If you're looking for the funny, check out some of the other blogs in the left-hand column and tell 'em I sent you.

I'm still having some studio issues, so no PopCast this week. If you're looking for some hot fresh info-tainment, head on over to Examiner.com and check out my semi-humorous column over there, "Picking Ain't Easy." Even if you're not a sports fan, check it out.

Fresh on the heels of her Maxim cover, Transformers star Megan Fox told the magazine she was once in love with female stripper. To start with, this seems like really effective marketing. After reading this article, I decided that Megan Fox is the best young actress I've seen, even though I can't remember anything she's done except that movie I don't recall a single thing about. The article goes on to say Fox tried to get the stripper to quit, but couldn't do it. Let that be a lesson, guys, if Megan Fox can't coax a stripper out of the lifestyle, you offering her your El Camino ain't going to do it either.

"Guitar Hero" is reportedly coming out with a Jimi Hendrix edition. Unless this game comes with a headband soaked in acid, I'm against it.

Microsoft is cancelling the Jerry Seinfeld commercials, effective immediately. Good idea, those commercials were so bad I couldn't even tell what they were supposed to be advertising. They were the creepiest ads since the great Quiznos-talking rat commercials of the early 2000s.

Finally, my favorite thing to do these days is to see if people are paying attention. Whenever a friend sends me an email with one of those motivational sig lines, before I respond I always change the line slightly to see if they're paying attention. I got one yesterday with the Will-Smithian-philosophy "Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away." I responded by changing it to "Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the number of breaths we make our enemies take underwater." Two replies later, it's still under the radar.

Once upon a time, I had a dog named Sammie. Since Sammie was an inside dog, I never had her spayed or neutered, so she would still go into heat. When she started, I didn't want her to bleed all over the carpet, so I bought a ten-pack of little boys' underwear.

I turned them around, put her tail through the front flap, and safety pinned them to make them tight. Then, as long as I remembered to take them off of her when I walked her, everything was fine.

At the end of the week as I was walking to the dumpster of my apartment complex carrying a garbage bag full of bloody lttle boys' underwear, I realized...

I didn't think this through very well.

Oh, good. Terrell Owens has written another book.

TO scheduled a press conference at his locker Thursday to make sure everyone saw his new book, "T.O.'s Total Fitness."

This is one of my pet peeves. Actually, that's not quite putting enough emphasis on it. Athletes and coaches writing books is one of my least favorite things in the world, landing somewhere between finding out there's a poisonous snake loose in my house and hooking my little toe on a chair leg in the middle of the night.

For more on why I just can't handle athletes who think they're writers, check out my new column at the Examiner. Comments always welcome.

No PopCast for this week, with a whole house full of company and a hurricane on the way, we're battening down the hatches. Why I bought a house with hatches in need of battening in bad weather, I'll never know.

Anyway, I saw this on a busy street corner in my town last weekend, and I'd like to submit this for the worst part-time job ever.

I don't know how to tell you this, sir, but you're doing the work of two staples. See that pole behind you? Instead of collecting minimum wage to just stand there in the blazing Texas sun letting a sign lean on you, you could just turn around and tape the sign to the pole and take the rest of the weekend off.

Just saying.

Anyway, stay dry and safe, everyone. Right now they're predicting the hurricane will blow through Galveston Saturday morning, sweep north into Arkansas, then come back Monday to Dallas to catch the Cowboys-Eagles game, stay overnight, then get up early the next morning and spend the day at Six Flags before heading home.

I saw this story on CNN yesterday.

Slaughterhouse charged with using child labor

Now that's a grabber of a headline. I picture Boy Scouts with axes and sledgehammers, stomping around the killing floor dealing death in between breaks for granola bars and bags of Capri Sun.

Anyway, the other news of the week is that my sports writing, which as I always point out isn't really that much about sports, has been picked up by the Examiner. You can find my columns at Examiner.com. I've also put in to write some pop culture stuff for them, so as Joe Bob says, check it out.

Comments and criticisms always welcome.

I saw a news story this weekend on a new form of self-defense, where this trainer showed people how to beat up people with sticks.

I thought, "Cool." Beating up people with sticks seems like something that would be both beneficial to know, and exciting to do on the weekends. If I have to be concerned with self-defense, I really think that having a stick would be a tremendous asset. Unless the other guy has a bigger stick, I guess. There's some kind of metaphor for war in there, but I'm not going to go to the trouble to lay it out.

Anyway, they interviewed a guy who was a "Self-Defense Expert."
What a strange profession to have.

This guy is an expert in defending himself from attack. There's really no way to test that out safely, is there? Just knowing the martial arts isn't enough, because in karate competitions, you're supposed to be beating on each other. This is a guy who goes to work every single day in hopes that someone will attack him, just so he can defend himself and advance in his profession.

"Honey, I'm home!"

"Hello, darling! How was was your day at work?"

"It was awful. I walked around the docks all day with twenty dollar bills hanging out of my pockets, but I couldn't get anybody to take a swing at me."

"So sorry, dear. Would it help if I had the kids get their little league gear and try and pummel you with their bats again?"

"Baby...you're the greatest!"

There's a store in Dallas called "Condoms To Go". Of course they are. You're not going to use them there, are you?

I love going to the zoo, because not only is it fun, it's also usually inexpensive which means you'll run into lots of trashy white folks there looking for a low-income outing. Nothing sets the scene for a relaxing day of fun like an 18 year-old Federline-looking baggy-pants punk with his hat on sideways blowing cigarette smoke on a monkey.

I saw a place advertising "Do It Yourself Pest Control". Isn't that just a shoe?

It seems like there's a lot of nostalgia acts touring. When I go see a band from the 70s or 80s, I not only want them to play their hits, I want them to play all the songs I think they played, too. If I go see KC and the Sunshine Band, I full expect them to perform "Play That Funky Music, White Boy," even though they didn't originally record it. When I go to the boat show, I want Jesus Jones to play that EMF song, and vice versa. And every hair metal band from the 80's should play every hair metal song from the 80's. In fact, they should all have to be in the same band. Call 'em "Warranted Union of the Great White Poison Lion Snake," and let 'em play the hits.

I think popcorn is only popular in movie theatres because it's dark in the theatre, and they can't watch you picking shells out of your teeth and hacking.

They now make KY Lubricant in mist form. If you can't get someone to help apply this product manually, maybe you shouldn't be using it.

There are always movies where somebody has an accident, and can see into the future. What about the other senses? Where is the guy who can wake up, and hear a massive car crash down on Broadway street coming up at noon? The blind man who can smell tonight's steak dinner at six o'clock in the morning? The savant who can taste death in the air?

XM Radio has something called "The Playboy Channel." I've never heard it, but it doesn't make sense to me. To begin with, how sexy can radio be? And if it is, is this supposed to be the audio form of Playboy Magazine? Do they really want me driving around masturbating, and then falling asleep on the turnpike?

People always seem to get excited when one of those free standing fairs comes to town. The carnies set up on a parking lot, and bolt the rides into the concrete and take off. You know, I just don't trust portable roller coasters being run by an elementary school dropout with six teeth, two noses, and rickets.

We now have microwave tacos, and awesome omelette sandwiches. I have a little test I like to run on a food before I try it. If I look at a food and the first thing I think is that Elvis would have liked it, I pass.

They should have a combination fax machine/shredder. Most of the crap you get faxed to you, you don't need anyway.

A commercial for "The Ultimate Can Opener" came on. It claimed the product would be the best can opener I ever used. Is that something most people keep stats on? I mean, I've got a top five, but it hasn't been updated in a while. Currently, my favorite can opener ever was from a bed and breakfast in Pocatello, Idaho. Beat that!

This week's PopCast is back, and with most of the good television shows bumped for the conventions, it's time to talk politics.

Unfortunately.

Today's PopCast looks at two weeks of political tubthumping, when every speech was greeted with both thunderous applause and sharp-tongued derision, and somewhere along the way, the plan became to put Tina Fey's mom a chicken bone away from the Presidency.

More discussion and sarcasm available on the PopCast, as always.

Click here to download Reid's PopCast in .MP3 format (8.4M, 8:49).

I blogged about this a few months ago, and it still keeps happening. Why is it that every time a Hanson brother gets married or has a kid, they feel the need to tell us about it? Have Kris Kross produced any offspring? Anybody know how any of The Jets are doing? Why aren't I barraged with constant updates on the marital status of Proclaimers?

AC/DC's new album will only be available in Wal-Mart. In a related story, the latest album from the Gaither Vocal Band will only be sold in the parking lot of Metallica concerts.

Morrissey is telling his fans not to buy his new live album. Gutsy move. Pretty much anybody left over from the 80's who still has someone willing to buy new albums is lucky. If Terence Trent D'Arby was going to ask his fans not to buy his latest album, he wouldn't have to make a website post or call a press conference. He could just pick up the phone.

They're doing a remake of the old Banana Splits kids' show. Perfect. Another remake of something that was only popular with people who were either children, high, or both.

And in other news about things that didn't need to be remade, it's time for another "Fame." If you don't remember "Fame," here's the plot: Poor kids sing and dance, go to school, keep singing and dancing, attain some measure of success, then get theirs hopes and dreams crushed in horrible, horrible ways that involve a suicide and the worst nude scene since "Deliverance." Sounds like a laugh riot that'll really pull in that "High School Musical" audience, eh?

Hurricane Gustav? Sounds like some kind of sissy European terrorist that wears pointy shoes and kicks a lot during fights. John McClane kills guys like that with one shot. Gustav doesn't scare me.

Hurricane Hanna? Please. That's a grade-school girl throwing a fit.

Hurrican Ike? Now that scares the crap out of me. I envision a giant spinning Ike Turner, advancing menacingly on the coastline and bitchslapping the seaboard into chaos and terror, then making them sign over all their publishing rights to him.

On the other hand, Hurricane Ike could have the best soundtrack ever. However, if there's a Tina, Louisiana, it's in really big trouble.

Bengals wide receiver Chad Johnson has finally gone over the bend. He has now legally changed his name to his nickname. Johnson will now get paychecks made out to "Chad Ocho Cinco."

It's a good thing he didn't pick his other common nickname, or the PA would be announcing "And at number eighty-five for Cincinnati, Chad Dumbass..."