“Pillow Fight Causes Advertising Row in Toronto”:
The Blue Jays have been forced to revise a television commercial featuring DH Frank Thomas after the ad drew objections from the Television Bureau of Canada, a regulatory body for private broadcasters.
A 30-second spot that shows the 6-foot-5, 275-pound Thomas taking part in a pillow fight with two young boys was edited to remove a scene where Thomas knocks one of the boys off a bed and onto the floor. Thomas leaves the room with a smile on his face as the youngster gets to his feet and says, “Wow.”
Laurel Lindsay, vice president of marketing for the Blue Jays, said Thomas and the child still exchange pillow blows in the edited version but the child is not knocked to the floor. Instead, he pops into the air when struck.
The decision to revise the ad was first reported by the Toronto Globe and Mail. Lindsay called the controversy over the commercial “ridiculous.”
“Clearly we have taken ourselves entirely too seriously if we have given a pillow fight this much attention,” Lindsay said. “The reaction we’re getting from the fans is that people can’t even believe this is an issue.”
The new commercial also features a disclaimer reading, “Dramatization. Do not try this at home.”
The original commercial still will air on CBC television, a public broadcaster that can set its own standards for content and advertising. Private broadcasters who have been running the commercial will have to switch to the edited version.
You can view the commercial here.
Interestingly, the CBC found the commercial—which, for those of you who aren’t baseball fans, is a lighthearted attempt to sell the people of Toronto on Frank Thomas’ power—less objectionable than the TBC, a body that regulates private broadcasters.
Of course, that any regulatory body would find the commercial objectionable is ludicrous—but still, I find it strange that private broadcasts are more heavily regulated than public broadcasts.
Seems to me that such would give public broadcasting an advantage over private broadcasting, which may be the point, given Canada’s penchant for soft socialism—though its not clear to me whether the TVB is a government agency or a concern of private broadcasters regulating themselves (I am inclined to believe the former). The fact that the site is down at this writing simply confirms that it is another silly bureaucracy made up of petty tyrants bent on “protecting” people from imagined offenses—the end result being that humor is moribund, and PC culture is pressuring parody itself for the title of “most parodic.”
Of course, we can always just laugh at the Television Bureau of Canada. So you see, nature finds a way!
For kicks they should also include Dave Winfield’s warm-up throw that killed a seagull in the Toronto outfield. Play up the strength angle even more.
Of course, disclaimers will need to be added to that as well…
Ferchrissakes, what’s next? Making him drop his nickname (“the Big Hurt”)?
Pathetic. I used to wonder why Canada had such an inferiority complex. Now I *know* why. They work hard every day to earn it.
–from Libertarians Don’t Get It, Volume 584
Explain it to me.
Hey, it’s not the companies’ fault that they have to lawyer-proof their advertising. I once saw a TV spot for a pick-up truck. The truck was shown tooling around through a coral reef on the ocean floor. At the bottom of the screen was the disclaimer: “Dramatization”.
And when you write your explanation, BoZ, please use short words. Many of us here are products of the public school system.
Suprised they didn’t make the kids wear helmets of some sort .
Hey, what’s that black guy doing pillowfighting with those white kids?
The Chicago Tribune reports they changed it to the kid going straight up. Sounds funnier but I haven’t seen it.
Why do I get the feeling that if Thomas’s last name was Mohammed the tone of this post would be completely different?
Hey, what’s that Muslim guy doing pillowfighting with those Christian kids?
More like “What did those imperialist crusaders-in-training do to poor Frank Mohammed to force him to lose his self-control? I bet they got Cheetos powder on his glorious Q’ur’’’an’’!”.
Extra apostrophes added for increased respect.
WHAT???!???!? Frank Thomas plays for the BLUE JAYS?
There is a fundamental difference between stupidity foisted on the public from within and stupidity foisted on the public from without.
It’s like political/cultural lung cancer: one feels differently about it depending on whether it was first-hand or second-hand smoking that caused it.
I, for one, am still eagerly awaiting BoZ’s explanation.
CRIPPLE FIGHT!
I’ve been waiting weeks to say that. I figured there would be a Pelosi-Clinton smackdown that Jeff would review and comment on after Nancy Astor- I mean Pelosi – made her little appeasing/judgment-into-question-calling trip to suck up to Baby Asad and raise the question of the judgment of liberal women who came of political age in the 1970s by implication.
But this will have to do.
Why do I get the feeling that if Thomas’s last name was Mohammed the tone of this post would be completely different?
Because there wouldn’t have been an article and you would have been staring at an empty computer screen, as it is unacceptable in polite conversation to express the opinion that an uslim-may just might possibly have engaged in iolence-vay, even if there is ideo-vay?
That seemed awful easy. Was it a trick question?
Because you’re daft?
No, really. Were this commercial to feature, say, Khalil Green, would I be cheering its forced revisions? No, I would not.
Or were you talking about a commercial where a guy in a Semtex vest named Mohammed gets onto school bus filled with little kids?
The private broadcaster has to be more heavily regulated than the government broadcaster because that private fella might decide to put something on the air that would draw an audience away from the public broadcaster, or say something that would go against the information stream that the public broadcaster has been maintaining for years in the face of overwhelming common-sense.
Or as my Canadian cousins say, “CBC stands for Canadians Boring Canadians.”
*Although I do consider Red Green to be a great contribution to male culture.
As long as Don Cherry lives, there is one Canadian who still rocks. Well, him and the guys from Rush, of course.
(And Khalil Greene is actually Bahai. Hey, since the Muslim issue got pulled up via threadjacking, why don’t we ask the Bahais how they’ve fared in Iran? Short answer: they’d be profoundly relieved to just be hit with a pillow.)
Don Cherry is a GOD amongst Canadians!
Hockey Night in Canada!
Ahem! Allow me…
Y*see, there are vestiges of the Nanny state permeating all nooks and crannies of the media and government here, even though a conservative government is now at the helm.
Things are slowly getting better though. Yes there is certainly hope in the air.
You have the same leftiod nannyism swelling up in the form of persona like Pelosi and Algorewarming.
Pelosi, the Chamberlain of our times.
**The spectacle of Pelosi making nice with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in Damascus and accepting at face value his claim that he is ready to *resume the peace process* with Israel had a large portion of official Washington tittering.** Newsmax
The Kurds are booming happily along in Northern Iraq and they love us for it. A pull out would turn them into the mother of all enemies. Even the Turks are afraid of them.
MichealTotten.com
Lets hope Pelosi nannyism fails to reach our troops. The mess would be too much. = TG