avablog

Dude, chill. You know this isn’t marketed at kids, right? It is marketed at parents who might now choose Burger King (over Hardee’s?) because they remember the funny ad referencing a song from when they were 12.

I imagine I would be offended, too, if my kids were up at 10 p.m. watching this. But they aren’t.

I thought it was funny (despite the creepy King character. Jack from Jack in the Box is a much better faceless mascot). I like the juxtaposition of Sir Mix-a-Lot and Spongebob. I thought it was clever.

But I still hate BK. The burgers just suck.

Dear god. That’s appalling. Your kids may not be up watching that, but you KNOW those people who bring their toddlers to Wal-Mart at midnight are letting their kids watch it. And those kids go to school with your kids. So your kids are going to see it.

It’s because SpongeBob is not actually a show for children. It’s a show for adults and apparently Burger King is trying to tie into the stoned out college kids that also watch it. Just because a show is animated does not make it child appropriate and that has always annoyed me about SpongeBob. It is SO not appropriate for kids…..it’s like letting them watch Ren and Stimpy back in the early 90′s.

I’ll get off my soap box now…..gotta go let the kids watch The Simpsons. LOL.

I also resent that BK is making me feel negatively about dancers in booty shorts. Is there no end to the offense here?!

Very true….but as Vanessa stated above, parents who let their kids watch TV at 10 p.m. don’t really care that their kids are watching booty dancers gyrating around a freaky guy in a costume. Those are the same kids getting arrested when they’re 10 years old for committing sex acts on the school bus.

Dude. First, DVR. Prevents the whole issue. Secondly — we have such shows as, “My Redneck Wedding”, “Hannah Montana”, and “Baby Daddies with Maury Povich” and you’re worried about…a burger commercial?

Srsly. For the record, SBSP is awesome, but not when perverted like that.

Ah, but then you have this bunch of awesomeness. I have this on repeat on my iPod (sometimes).

Jonathon Coulton Got Back

Danny, JC just shot an arrow through my heart with that cover. Thank you.

All of you male commenters have neglected to point out that the whole premise is sexist beyond belief. No one commenting on this post–even the fathers of GIRLS–seems to object to the fact that women’s bodies still are being used to move products. When would we EVER see a mainstream commercial with a bunch of scantily clad, buffed-out men sticking out their asses to show off square shapes stuffed in their tighty-whiteys?!!

That reminds me of a joke, Leah:

Cousin Earl, visiting from Nashville, asked me why I did so well with the women at the beach.

I told him that I put a small potato in my Speedos.

So Earl left for the beach, excited, wearing his Speedos and carrying a small potato.

He came back dejected, saying his trip to the beach was an utter failure.

I told him that next time he should put the potato in the front of his Speedos.

Leah: I guess I’m not so bothered by the use of sex to sell; it’s kind of a theme and has been for ages. The fact is, to the less-than-intelligent-as-you-or-I, it works. And it’s very pervasive. Hannah Montana is about sex selling, too, just in an “attraction” or “cool” way. What is any of that stuff rather than a means to be attracted to someone else, either by being cool, sexy, or powerful?

Now, we could have a very long, drawn out discussion about whether this is MORAL or ETHICAL to use these techniques that appeal to our baser instincts, but I think that’d all end up in, “Well, theory is nice, but in reality, marketers aren’t going to abandon it simply because it’s objectionable as long as it moves product.”

I trust in myself, and my ability as a parent, to shape not only my own viewpoints on the world to see around and above such tactics, but to give my child the same abilities. I cannot remove such influences and experiences from their life, but I can give them the tools to overcome and see through it for what they really are. I think that’s the most important part.

leah – that is because seeing a man’s ass doesn’t make women want to buy a hamburger. As usual men are the problem.

i refused to click the link to this ad on your blog (primarily because i can’t trust you after that star wars/dallas debacle…) but, i actually saw this ad on t.v. last night at seven p.m. pacific.

and while the ad itself is fairly stupid, it has succeeded in getting people who don’t even buy kids meals to talk about kids meals…

Well, sure, but plenty of people talk about mass murder, too. That doesn’t mean they’re going to go out and buy one!

ah, but buying a happy meal isn’t likely to land you in jail…

ha!

I agree with Mark and Leah wholeheartedly. Almost didn’t click on the link, because the mere idea was bad enough, but (unfortunately?) curiosity got the better of me. The moral and ethical ramifications of such things are, actually, worth the time and effort to draw a debate out over, because they are that serious. And sometimes the debate actually does have an impact, like the time Candia did an ad campagne in France for Babette cream that was supposed to be humorous, but was essentially male masochism gone really wrong. You can read about it (in French) here: http://www.strategies.fr/actualites/marques/r11871W/les-feministes-digerent-mal-la-creme-babette.html Basically, the words on the woman’s apron in the ad (photo at the bottom of the page) could refer to the beating a woman could give to a heavy cream, or… the beating a man could give to a woman. The controversy was so great that the ad was taken down within a couple of days.