The more you know...
Of all the crazed, and ultimately failed, TV ads in the history of public service announcements, I had assumed that the by-far most sensationalized was the infamous "smoke pot and you'll blow your friends face off with a handgun" commercial that I inexplicably can't find on YouTube.
Turns out I was extremely wrong.
For reasons that remain unclear, but that probably have something to do with wanting to ruin my day, a friend messaged me this morning with a hyperlink to the below ad, from a Canadian movement called "Prevent It", whose goal seems to be to make sure that good, hardworking Canadians never do anything without a healthy dose of panic.
That god-awful, menacing clip is what got me thinking about the gunshot ad, which, as I mentioned above, seems not to exist on YouTube these days. And good riddance. But, of course, there's still this here ad:
Uh... right. It really seems, based upon my scientific survey, that in the past five years, PSA producers have decided to go the "scare people about everything with totally batshit ad campaigns" route, instead of the reality-based route, which, in addition to being non-stomach churning, is much, much more effective. Take Pete's Couch:
Or even this relatively reasonable spot featuring Pee Wee Frickin Herman:
I don't really know what my point is. I guess mainly I didn't want the hours I spent trolling YouTube in the wake of that Canadian monstrosity to go to waste. But seriously! Where the hell do people come up with this stuff?
P.S. Try to imagine the horror if this ad had been created circa-2005:
Comments
Intellectual: One who spends his life thinking up new ways to scare himself to death.
It's 1:35am on Sunday. I should have read or just laid in bed hoping I'd fall asleep. But instead, I decided to surf the web. I stumbled upon this post which led me to your website. "Hilarious post about Public Service Announcments," she said. Who wouldn't want to read that?!
Then I watched that Canadian PSA.
Now, even if I weren't afraid of the nightmares I'll see when I fall asleep, it doesn't matter because I'm not going to be tired for at least 2 more hours.
I can still see her scalded face when I close my eyes.
Yeah. Hilarious isn't a word I'd use to describe that video.
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