In their book “Ad Nauseum,“ Carrie McLaren, Jason Torchinsky and Rob Walker refer to advertisements as predators. In our experience, they can also turn into zombies, rising up from the grave to try to crawl into your skull via your eyeballs. (Or in some cases, your ears). Take this improbable but true story from our family archives:
Three or four years ago Bob brought home a library DVD of 1950s “Superman” episodes that happened to include a commercial in which Superman plugged the corn flakes made by the show’s sponsor, Kellogg’s. Now, this is a commercial that was made more than half a century ago. The man wearing the Superman suit in the commercial, George Reeves, has been dead since 1959. Nonetheless, the ad still managed to hypnotize three of our kids, because when movie time was over they dutifully filed out to the kitchen to pour themselves -- you guessed it -- heaping bowls of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes.
What makes it even weirder is that this wasn’t a cereal in our regular rotation. Bob picked up a box on a whim a few days before because it happened to be on sale. When he first brought it home, the kids rolled their eyes. Nobody even bothered to open the box -- not until they saw the zombie commercial, that is.
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