Peeve Farm

g r o t t o 1 1

Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets

  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
     A stream-of-consciousness Web journal, containing
     links, commentary, and pointless drivel.

On My Blog Menu:

InstaPundit
USS Clueless
James Lileks
Little Green Footballs
As the Apple Turns
Entropicana
Cold Fury
Capitalist Lion
Red Letter Day
Eric S. Raymond
Tal G in Jerusalem
Secular Islam
Aziz Poonawalla
Corsair the Rational Pirate
.clue

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Monday, October 28, 2002
19:57 - "Because of me, they now have a warning!"	(top)
Something I've been having to remind myself of lately is that whenever you see any disclaimer or warning on any ad anywhere on TV, in print, or anywhere, there is a lawsuit behind it. Or at least a complaint. As my boss mentioned in passing, one of the best classic disclaimers he's seen is to pregnant women: Refrain from sexual intercourse after the water has broken. I mean, do people really have to be told these things? What, is the guy sitting there lecherously rubbing his chin, grunting, "Well, hmm-- just how frequent are those contractions, honey?" It was with such things in my mind that I saw an ad come on TV for one of the new Transformers, which contained a disclaimer that for some odd reason I can't remember being a part of Transformers ads back in the heyday of the 80s. It said: Actual transformation time may vary. ...In other words, my brain was startled to realize, some oh-so-caring parent watched one of these ads with its trick time-lapse cappuccino-laced kid converting Optimus Prime from a truck into a command base in less than four seconds, bought it for her son, and then was confronted with the kid complaining that he couldn't transform it as fast as the kid on TV could. And (now this is the part that really gets to me) the parent, secure in her child's purity of heart and righteous indignation at the blatant false advertising of the uncaring corporation, complained to the company and got them to put up a disclaimer so future hapless moms wouldn't be entrapped so cruelly when their own time of trial came. (Yes, I know this is all based on assumption. But if the story behind this particular case is off-base, I'd love to hear the true details. If they're in any way significantly different from what I'm guessing, I'll be very relieved indeed.) What I want to know is, why couldn't this parent trust in her own ability to handle the kid's complaints herself? How is this any different from the Santa Claus situation? Yes, Dear, I'll get that letter in the mail to the North Pole right away! You'd think this would be an ideal time for her to impress upon the kid some concept of what reasonable humans should expect from reasonable companies selling reasonable products: Sometimes, Junior, we can't believe what we see on TV. Or at the very least: Yes, Dear, I'll handle that mean old toy company for you. Don't worry about a thing! I'll make sure they don't mislead any more innocent families like us! ... on the full understanding that the kid's enjoyment of the toy in its own right would outlast his attention span for frustration at the transformation speed, and with no actual intent to follow through on an endeavor that's both Quixotic and moronic. Wouldn't you? And to think I thought it was bad when Barbie doll ads started foraying into CG animation, and they had to start peppering them with Dolls do not move by themselves... UPDATE: Wouldn't I know it-- Hiker has the whole scoop on this. Ask him, and he'll also expound on the horrors of he current crop of Happy Meal Transformers-- robots in primary colors with big chunky parts, designed for kids of choking-hazard age-- as well as "Transformers Go-Bots", a name which strikes me in my sojourning-from-the-80s ignorance as a juxtaposition of concepts so cataclysmic as to risk creating an antimatter explosion merely by my typing them together. Oh, the things I've been missing out on...