HOORAY FOR COMMERCIALS
(ON TV CHANNELS IN PAKISTAN)
(with certain amendments in some paragraphs to meet the current standards BUT with sincere apologies to Art Buchwald) By Yours Truly.
There has been a great deal of talk about the number of commercials on television.The FCC chairman has complained, as have viewers, who for some reasons think they have rights.
We happen to be one of those who think there aren't enough commercials. After watching what else television has to offer, we have decided we'd rather watch commercials. But every time we tune one in, it's interrupted by a program. Some of the commercials would make wonderful shows if there weren't so many programs scheduled.
For example, we were watching a wonderful scene one day of a plane following a beautiful girl in a car. The pilot then get’s out of the plane & goes to the girl and inquires about the car she is driving "It's a............................, of course," she said. But before she could ask the pilot what kind of a plane he was flying, the commercial was interrupted by a stupid baseball game. They never did get back to the couple again.***
We happen to enjoy toothpaste commercials, the ones that tell how half the school used a certain kind of toothpaste and half the school didn't. The half that used the special toothpaste had far fewer cavities. But they never show the half that didn't use the special toothpaste.
We'd be interested to know how they felt about being given the wrong toothpaste. Surely the parents must have been furious paying for all those cavities. Perhaps the kids with fewer cavities had their teeth knocked out by kids who had to go to the dentist. But just when the commercials get interesting, somebody like Batman or the Fawlty Towers comes on and spoils the show.
Then there are the soap advertisements. A girl complains that she never could get on a cover of a popular magazine. Her girlfriend whispers the name of a soap. Sure enough, in the next scene the girl's picture is on the cover of many popular magazines. Will some guy ask her to marry him? Will her friends ask her the name of the soap? Will some lad ask her the name of her girlfriend? Nobody knows.
The most maddening commercials are the ones for cellphones ISPs. We see a beautiful girl clad in a typical asian dress...dancing and speaking out that her lips are free to do nothing but talk talk and talk...in fact she is being told to speak as her lips are free. You wait patiently for her to speak (instead of expressing shyness) but she just dances while her suitor high jumps in excitement that his lips are also free to speak in fact he also loops in a famous sportsmen clad in Nehru jacket to join him for a price. Will that sportsmen teach a trick or two to them on bowling---like he did to Irfan Pathan invariably to skittle his own country players during key matches with arch rivals? Will the guy high jumping ask the girl's hand after speaking and talking and talking or sending sm’s on cellphone but only through that Cellphone ISP's service? No one knows? because just as the girl, finally, gives her shy smile to the boy who again makes a very high jump and freezes in air, you find yourself staring at an anchor cornering politicians one way or the other and same old discussion leading to no end or resolve.
If we were the FCC chairman, we'd do away with television programs and just let them broadcast commercials. There is more plot, more substance and better writing and 'talkshawk' in a soap, vegetable oil, movie, bread, milk, and Cellphone ISP's mini drama ad than in most of the stuff that they show on the air.
*Raju’s Roses Club *
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