Have you been forced to sit and watch daytime TV lately? It's sickening.
Nevermind the programs. They've always been sickening...
"I was a zombie love slave for a cross dressing paralegal for the mayor's office""My sister stole my mother's illicit lover after I slept with both of them"
"Chinese secret agents met a UFO in my back yard and cloned Elvis"
Oh, the humanity.
Anyway. The Desk almost longs for the days of hours and hours of game shows and 'Hogan' re-runs after that. Almost.
But this isn't about the shows that exist solely to shock and titillate housewives or fuel some political agenda of some half-baked quasi-religious wanna-be neo-socialist racially-profiled nincompoop. This is about the commercials that support the shows they are on.
The Desk was home with a sick kid one day recently, and between batches of laundry and sorting socks that never had a match, it watched a couple of hours of daytime TV. Not cable, not special interest programming off a satellite. Broadcast Network TV.
After the first half hour, it noticed a trend. It was there, and no mistake.
At LEAST two out of four or five commercials was for some sort of drug. Be it prescription or over the counter, medication made up nearly HALF the advertising that morning.
The majority of Americans that stay at home and watch TV during the day must be the most constipated, baldest, most post nasal dripping, red-eyed, athlete's foot-suffering bunch of overweight smokers that want to quit on earth. Their breath must peel paint off cars. These poor people have terrible dry skin that looks like the Bonneville Salt Flats. They suffer from hemorrhoids and indigestion. And they need to color their hair to improve their self esteem enough to go out and order a new Chrysler product so they can stop and get a bottle of Half Moon Wine and then call somebody long distance on their cel phone and only be charged for a local call.
Sheesh.
Bring back Joe Camel and put the Virginia Slims woman back on TV.
No wonder the kids today think they can cure whatever is wrong with them this week with a pill or a smoke or a shot. It's not the programming on TV that does it. It's their parents sitting and watching these ads and then consulting with their doctor or pharmacist to see if Ben's Salve might be right for them.
Face it. If WE didn't watch them, and then buy the products. They would quit hawking the stuff all over the TV.
And the ads for the prescription stuff were even worse. Most of them don't tell you what their magic little pill was for, but they showed you attractively sexy people canoeing down a perfectly charming river on a fantastically gorgeous day. OK, we give up, what is mervatrexloban going to do for, or to, us as the case may be? What is wrong with us that we didn't know about that it can cure?
Are we so gullible that we'll book into the MD to see if we need it based on some guy with an FM radio voice on a TV commercial? The Desk will bet good money against a cold cup of coffee none of the people in the commercial can even pronounce the name of the stuff. Let alone have had it prescribed by a Doctor of Medicine. Is it that easy to influence the American Public that these outfits will spend wheel barrow loads of money to buy time during the daily talk-fests to convince us to run right out and sign up to get the little green pill that will cure our whatever it is that ails us?
"Oh, Gee. I've got ear lobe fungus. I didn't know that! Quick, write down this toll free number so I can call and get more information so I can go see my doctor!"
Get. A. Life.
Yes, The Desk has arthritis. No it doesn't want to see if what-she-said is right for it. The last drug the Bone Doc prescribed was worse than the disease. Bourbon works better anyway. When it hurts, limp. Get used to it.
Evidently the people standing in line to get the new and improved snake oil don't listen to the side effects listed at the end of the commercial by the same guy that does the fast talking on the car ads. You may experience everything from toenail curling to sudden death. In some people their hair might turn green and their left arm might shrivel up. And in less than one tenth of one percent of patients, they turned into a werewolf and were then kidnapped by aliens.
If it's OK by you, the Desk'll stick to the Wild Turkey when a cold front comes through.
Excuse me. The talk show host with the fake teeth, fake hair, fake tan, and fake body is back on talking about how vain teenagers are and how terrible a problem that is.