Commercials — The Dumbing Down of America

By

William A. Gralnick

Which are the dumbest commercials on TV? Figuring it out is an Excedrin headache. Is it the football coach yelling to the locker room about wine? Is it every Geico commercial or all of them from every insurance company? Thank goodness for taping shows and then zooming through the commercials. Pity the people without smart televisions who can’t do that. They get more commercials than the rest of us because they have to watch them. And the children? What do these 10 or 15 seconds of ridiculousness do to them? Don’t get me started. But today’s rant is about politics and its commercials.

The Playing Field

Tackling this subject is like trying to catch a whale, it’s that big. Think of any product. There’s a commercial for it, otherwise you probably wouldn’t have it, save for word of mouth. Since there are a countless number of products there are a countless number of commercials. Some are good, the definition of being good is the commercial is obvious, it relates to the product and tells you to buy it. Hand lotion commercials fit the bill. Rub it in, your skin feels good, your skin smells good, you feel good. Now that’s a commercial that works for me. We used to produce those kinds of commercials. I don’t know what happened. Watching an Alka Seltzer commercial you knew what the product was for. It was very straightforward and sometimes even funny. If you had an upset stomach those speedy little bubbles would make you all better. If you had a…