56 replies to this topic

[StanJr]

I saw a truly stupid ad today for some BMX dirt bike game (Demolition Bike or some such thing).

The ad depicts a family driving through the mountains, when something large impacts their windshield HARD. It turns out to be a BMX biker guy who missed a jump off a cliff (or just happened to land on the car when jumping off the cliff, who cares). The biker gets up, smiles at the family whose car he just wrecked, then gets on his bike and goes back to doing whatever the hell idiots like him do.

Now, this is where I get to be a crumudgeonly old man. What crap is this? Am I to assume that falling off a cliff onto a MOVING car is completely harmless and I will walk away smiling? No, I am not. But a 12 year old might. Oh sure, there is a small white print disclaimer that appears on screen for all of 2 seconds, but PLEASE. Kids are totally into this stuff, and they want to do "extreme" crap like this, and often do. I mean, we live in a "Jackass," reality TV society now. People are CLEARLY not smart enough to know NOT to do this kind of crap.

Now sure, any kid with common sense will see this and know better, but how many kids REALLY use common sense when it comes to wanting to be cool?

In my mind this is irresponsible. I mean, they can't advertise a guy drinking a beer and then driving a car in a Bud Light ad, but they can advertise this? Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Now, please tell me how old I am acting and why I'm wrong.

[AtariYoungin]

well lets see, how old are you acting...seems older then my dad...I'd put you pretty far over the hill...mid 50's. Yea your actin in about your 50's

[liquid_sky]

maybe something called humor has passed you by.. its a downhill racing game and the guy jumps a barrier and goes downhill, thus hitting a car. if youve ever seen/driven on the pch, youll know that some of those roads have blind turns with big hills where boulders could fall off and rockslides occur. To me, this is a tiein to the falling rocks, but instead using a falling person, which segways into a downhill mountian bike ride.

PS if a 12 year old is so stupid he thinks this is real, they pretty much deserve whatever cruel act of fate is destined to them, be it imitating jackass, riding a bike into the windshields of cars, or burning thier flesh off while making stovetop napalm.

[Ze_ro]

StanJr said:

Now sure, any kid with common sense will see this and know better, but how many kids REALLY use common sense when it comes to wanting to be cool?

This is the problem in my opinion. If parents actually taught their kids some common sense, then we wouldn't need warnings before Jackass.

I never would have considered doing this kind of stuff when I was a kid, if kids these days are doing it, I blame bad parenting.

(Usually, I'm against blaming parents for their kids problems... emotional problems especially... but in this case, I think it's a valid accusation.)

--Zero

[JagMX]

its a fuking video game ad - video game
i guess they should just ban kids from watching cartoons to - cuz im sure they'll think that when they jump off a clif theyre just gunna fall a little bit through the ground and walk away without anything broken in 100% mint condition

[CPUWIZ]

[quote=JagHammer]its a fuking video game ad - video game
i guess they should just ban kids from watching cartoons to - cuz im sure they'll think that when they jump off a clif theyre just gunna fall a little bit through the ground and walk away without anything broken in 100% mint condition

Yeah, better start with Tom & Jerry right away.

[JagMX]

[quote=CPUWIZ][quote=JagHammer]its a fuking video game ad - video game
i guess they should just ban kids from watching cartoons to - cuz im sure they'll think that when they jump off a clif theyre just gunna fall a little bit through the ground and walk away without anything broken in 100% mint condition

Yeah, better start with Tom & Jerry right away. [/quote]

what about itchy and scratchy
actually i think W.E. Cyote and the roadrunner should be banned first - he make so many bombs, its gunna give kids ideas to make their own bomb and go try to blow up a "road runner" - they might get more ideas to build strange flying mechanisims and crash into the ground - maybe even look down the barrel of a shotgun when it didnt shoot off the first time when they pulled the trigger

[liquid_sky]

hey man dont take away my tom and jerry or i will have to beat your ass down with a broomstick just like toms owner did to him when he acted up!

[CPUWIZ]

liquid_sky said:

hey man dont take away my tom and jerry or i will have to beat your ass down with a broomstick just like toms owner did to him when he acted up!

Uh, bad example, I love Tom & Jerry. What have I done ?

[liquid_sky]

i have it on vhs so if "they" take it away i can dub you a copy:P



Theres toms owner, in one cartoon hes bein bad or something and shes chasing him or jerry one around the house with a broomstick.. but its late here and im not making a bit of sence.. tom and jerry is the best tho

[Nukey Shay]

I need to wonder...just where did everything get so complex that we need disclaimers on everything (and they are...usually in very small print)? I don't consider myself to be particularly "aware" of things in general...even less when I was a little kid ...but I can't recall a time that I've taken what I'd seen on television 100% seriously. I'm sure that most (if not all) of you feel the same. So what exactly are we "protecting" kids from? Do the disclaimers placed on ads make the allure of doing impossible stunts that much more attractive?

BTW while I agree that television cannot show a product advertisement promoting drinking and driving...but they can show seperate ads side-by-side. And car commercials certianly don't need any help depicting reckless driving (like flooring it through winding roads or heavy fog). People just end up putting the two together on their own.

Of course, my early years were shaped by barbaric heros like Popeye, the Marlboro man, the Three Stooges, and the like (that had no disclaimers whatsoever, I might add)...and it made me just demented enough to survive in the modern world, but not demented enough to end up psychotic.

[CPUWIZ]

* wonders about "America's Funniest Videos" where junior hits daddy in the nuts with a baseball bat *

[liquid_sky]

I agree, the a-team didnt make me run from the military and drive wreckless, saved by the bell didnt force me to stay in high school 7ish years or however long that sack of crap ran, cosby never made me become friends with cockroaches!


The dog, the cat, and mouse agree,
To live together peacefully.
With this Truce we won't tinker,
The one that does, is a Stinker.
Signed,

Tom, Jerry, & Spike

[Inky]

[quote=JagHammer]
actually i think W.E. Cyote and the roadrunner should be banned first - he make so many bombs, its gunna give kids ideas to make their own bomb and go try to blow up a "road runner" - they might get more ideas to build strange flying mechanisims and crash into the ground - maybe even look down the barrel of a shotgun when it didnt shoot off the first time when they pulled the trigger[/b][/color]

IN the early 80's when the Bugs Bunny / Road Runner show moved to ABC, ABC CENSORED the violence out of the cartoons.

And it was blatently bad editing as well.

I was scarred for life by the censoring .

[Jasoco]

A year or two ago, they had a car commercial which depicted a car jumping off stage, or "Stage diving" onto a Mosh Pit where it was "apparently" held up by the people below it as if a singer had jumped onto his fans and they were holding him up.

Across the bottom in tiny white letters were the words "Please drive cars on roads, not on people."

Gee.. it's a good thing they told me that.

[Happy_Dude]

Jasoco said:

A year or two ago, they had a car commercial which depicted a car jumping off stage, or "Stage diving" onto a Mosh Pit where it was "apparently" held up by the people below it as if a singer had jumped onto his fans and they were holding him up.

Across the bottom in tiny white letters were the words "Please drive cars on roads, not on people."

Gee.. it's a good thing they told me that.

Awww, You just don't get the traction from roads that you do with people

[MegaManFan]

For some reason, watching Road Runner cartoons never made me believe I could run five feet off the edge of a cliff and hang for five seconds before I'd plummet a mile straight down, make a body sized crater in the ground, and slink out of said hole beaten and bruised. Maybe I'm just extraordinarily intelligent and knew that FALLING FROM LARGE HEIGHTS IS BAD and will PROBABLY LIQUIFY YOUR INTERNAL ORGANS ON IMPACT. Or maybe I just knew it was TV, and TV isn't real. What's the problem? I don't know. I normally like to presume children are smarter (not to mention more crafty) than we give them credit for, but it seems as though we're so afeared for their safety that we give them all of the credit we would a three-year-old with Downs, Autism, and AD/HD all rolled into one.

Whoever said anyone stupid enough to jump their mountain bike off a cliff into a moving car deserves to die is right anyway. Sorry, but that's just Darwinism at it's finest.

[cryptik76]

It's a universal law of modern stupidity: no matter what you portray on TV, and how many warnings and disclaimers you surround it with, there's always going to be someone stupid enough (usually kids, but sometimes adults as well) who will try to imitate it.

And where there's injury, there's someone wanting to exploit it in order to make a quick buck.

If we force companies to never show anything on TV that's potentially dangerous or immoral if done in real life, we'll all be watching Davey & Goliath on every channel. We can't let the stupid people win.

[MegaManFan]

Amen!!

[tantone56]

the more stupid kids that try that stunt the better its called thinning out the heard.
-tantone56

[Raijin Z]

Jesus christ, if you're dumb enough to do what you see on TV, you deserve to die. Why did this thread have to be born? Where's my coathanger....

[Jasoco]

I just saw Carrot Top dial 1-800-COLLECT!

Should I do that too?

Uh, oh.. John Stamos is doing what he told himself to do and dialing 10-10-987.

Better stay away from those two.

[shaggy]

If they are that stupid to pull this shit than they deserve the consequences. And on another note parents these days don't know how to parent and this is where we get these "Jackass" kids from.

[cryptik76]

I'm interested in knowing how that kid who lit himself on fire imitating a Jackass stunt procured the necessary items (gasoline, for example).

Kid: Hey Dad, where's the siphon?

Father (watching Xena: Warrior Princess with his tongue hanging out): Uh... duuuhhrrr.... it's in the garage.... on the shelf above my workbench.

Kid: Okay.

(a few minutes pass)

Kid: Hey Dad, what's the best way to light myself on fire?

Father (watching an Axe Body Spray commercial where some guy is getting accosted by scantily-clad females): Uh...ddduuurrhhh.... Wrap yourself in oily rags.... those are in the cardboard box by the workbench.... then douse yourself with gasoline.... oh, and use the grill lighter in the junk drawer.

Kid: Okay.

(A few minutes later, the sound of sirens can be heard outside. The father is broken from his daze and runs outside)

Father: NO! My son has been badly burnt! I'LL GET YOU, MTV!!! I'LL GET YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[StanJr]

cryptik76 said:

It's a universal law of modern stupidity: no matter what you portray on TV, and how many warnings and disclaimers you surround it with, there's always going to be someone stupid enough (usually kids, but sometimes adults as well) who will try to imitate it.

And where there's injury, there's someone wanting to exploit it in order to make a quick buck.

If we force companies to never show anything on TV that's potentially dangerous or immoral if done in real life, we'll all be watching Davey & Goliath on every channel.  We can't let the stupid people win.

Look, I totally agree with all of this. I wasn't saying that (although it appears as if I was). More to my point is that, in this age of instant litigation, do ad companies not realize that they are just ASKING for more morons to sue over moronic crap like this?

I'd love nothing more that for the idiots to weed themselves out of the gene pool, but if you throw an ad like this out there, you are just asking some stupid kid or adult to go out and drive a bike off a cliff onto a car and then sue. This is a vicious cycle. There are better and more clever ways of advertising, that is my point. Why ask for trouble like this?