The Duffer

by Ian Robinson

........ TV advertising and me

Ever since I was a little kid, grownup people with university degrees and IQs only slightly higher than Tiger's score over nine easy holes --- who real should have better things to do with their time --- have been trying to screw up television for the rest of us.

And that's just plain wrong, the same way marrying outside your species is wrong. The way voting Liberal if you live west of Hamilton is wrong. The way it's wrong, when your wife asks, " Do I look fat in this? " to reply, " Not if we turn out all the lights ".

OK, maybe that last one isn't  entirely wrong, 'cause every now and then, it's important to remind our wives that we're still the untamed, dangerous-looking beasts they fell in love with in the first place, before the urge came upon them to CIVILIZE us, God help us, and we went for it.

Every now and then, it's important to get into a fist-fight, drink your weight in Jack Daniels and pass out on the front porch and freak out the neighbours as they parade out to their minivans to attend the church of their choice on a Sunday morning, thus becoming the scandal of the neighbourhood. Or wake up one day, head down to the Smiling Buddha and get yourself a great big honking Harley logo tattooed on your butt. Or buy the chunky peanut butter. Just for a change.

You wild thing, you.

Speaking of wild things (and I know this is completely off topic, but I can't help it, OK?) a Los Angeles restaurant recently booked the Hidden Valley Golf Club in Norco, Calif. for a company golf tournament.

Now, I dunno about you, but the last company golf tournament I played in was not a huge amount of fun. I didn't time my beers right so I got stupid early, and lost my hat.

Add to that the tension you get when you're frat party drunk and playing in a foursome that includes three fat guys dressed in the Greg Norman collection and a fourth ---that would be me --- wearing bright orange surfer shorts, hiking boots and a T-shirt that read I'M WITH STUPID, only the arrow was pointing straight up at my face.

Plus, I was the only guy wearing an earring. My clubs were borrowed. And I was the only one carrying two clubs. A putter and a wedge, just because I thought it would be fun to play a round of nine with only a putter and a wedge. And it IS fun, and not only because it annoys all the other golfers, but also because it forces you to really think about what you're doing. But if you're carrying a borrowed putter and a wedge that originated in Wal-Mart and you're actually beating one of guys in your foursome ---a guy who spent huge bucks on the precious golf outfit and four figures on the clubs and is your boss ....

Well, let's just say I didn't get the big promotion. Didn't do well in that company at all. Something I've always thought: guys who wear hats with pom-poms on them ... no sense of humour. 'Cause if they knew the difference between funny and not-funny, they'd realize the pom hat makes them look like the guy on the Canadian Tire money and not buy the hat in the first place.

So, in brief (and when have I ever been brief?) company golf tournaments and me? Not a good combo. Not fun.

But this restaurant that booked Hidden Valley, they did it right. Until the Sheriff's Department turned up. Because tents were set up around the course. There were young women in the tents and...

Is this cool or what? Shouldn't that company be listed as one of the top 100 companies to work for in the world? I mean, the outfit I work for now, I got a gift certificate for a turkey last year and two free drink tickets for the Christmas party bar.

Some things are too easy. I mean, we're talking easier than the questions on Celebrity Jeopardy. "Britney Spears, what's your favourite colour?"

"Green. No blue! Darn. Don't I win?"

Anyway, the people who get paid to ruin things for the rest of us have just released a study about television. They're pretending to be scientists, but what they really are is a bunch of maiden aunt spoilsports, they of the purse-lipped, post-menopausal, disapproving glare. The great fun-killers of life. The lady grade school teachers with mustaches who wanted you to sit still and JUST BE QUIET!

They've discovered that if you watch a TV program full of good stuff like sex and violence, you're less likely to remember commercial messages, as compared to watching a television program without lots of sex and violence.

This is  designed to get the people who advertise on TV to take money away from programs with sex and violence and, instead, put their ads into programs without all that stuff.

So here's the bottom line. If you watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for instance, you are less likely to remember the ads than if you watch Seventh Heaven.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a television program starring the uberhottie Sarah Michelle Gellar. She is cute and is featured in sexual situations with vampires and soldiers. When she isn't doing that, she is killing vampires and demons using tae-kwon-do, swords and stakes. Every now and then, Buffy dies but gets brought back from the dead with CPR or magic. Buffy the Vampire Slayer also involves a character called Willow, who is what they call a "lipstick lesbian."

Those are the good-looking ones, not the ones who look like diesel mechanics servicing heavy machinery at the oilsands. Every now and then, Willow does a serious lip lock with another lipstick lesbian. And then Buffy swings in and kills somebody.

All in all, watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer is more fun than watching a monkey fall in love with a football, which is about as much fun as you can have without involving the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders and combining them with a visit to the Hershey Chocolate Factory in Smiths Falls, Ont.

By contrast, Seventh Heaven is a television program that features stories about a Protestant minister and his family. Zero martial arts violence. Somebody brought a gun to school once, but that was wrong, gosh darnit. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Thank goodness  nobody was injured.

Seventh Heaven is a television program that promotes honesty, chastity, frugality and old-fashioned spirituality.

There is no karate. No vampires. No sex with vampires. No killing vampires. No sword violence. No witchcraft and no serious good looking lesbian hijinks.

And according to the study, you're more likely to remember ads that air during Seventh Heaven than during Buffy. You know why?

'Cause the ads are the most interesting thing about Seventh Heaven, that's why!

Of course you're going to remember the ads. The ads are colourful and probably have women in tight tank tops advertising bikini waxing, or something.

The show is monochrome morality. It's about decent, normal people living decent, normal lives and trying to do the right thing.

It's MY life, for crying out loud. And there's a good reason I'm not on television.

You take all the fun sex and violence off TV, why I might just have to go out and, you know ---get myself a real life.

But I'd rather stay here on the couch. (Say honey, can you hand me the remote? And do we have any more Doritos?)

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