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Brush With Stupidity

Tooth brushing is one of kiddom's most hated tasks. Why? Because kids are filthy jerks and they hate being clean. I don't think I brushed my teeth more than once a week until I was a teenager and got braces. Then I did it constantly, because I didn't want neglect to ruin very expensive orthodontia. I wasn't so much afraid of my teeth rotting out as I was of wasting my parents' very limited financial resources.

As such, dental hygienists and marketers alike have struggled to get kids to brush their teeth. When I was a kid, the dental enticements of the time were toothpastes with sparkles and/or stripes in them. Colgate had tubes of toothpaste with star-shaped mouths, because stars are radical, or something. In retrospect, I get the feeling that the toothpaste companies spent most of their time and energy on the ad campaign rather than the product.

Continuing this grand tradition of style over substance is Tooth Tunes by Hasbro. I've seen the commercial many times in the past few weeks, and it just gets more baffling with each viewing. (If you want peep it for yourself, check out The Official Tooth Tunes web site.)

The ad is clearly inspired by the (in)famous Apple "1984" ad. A room full of children dressed in gray button down shirts stand in neat rows and columns. They brush their teeth, moving their brushes up and down with robotic motions, as directed by a School Marm Overlord shouting at them from a large TV screen in the background.

Then, a Savior emerges! Granted, it is a 10 year old savior in a blue jumpsuit who looks vaguely like Jamie Oliver. Nevertheless, he wants liberation for this room, Ian Svenonius-style. His weapon: Hasbro Tooth Tunes. He pops the Magical Toothbrush in his mouth and it belts out "I Want to Rock and Roll All Night and Party Every Day".

Immediately, the kids are awash in a wave of brightly colored Rock. The School Marm Overlord is dispatched with a shriek, and the kids' lame gray clothes are magically replaced with brand spankin' new colorful togs. The kids dance and brush, free at last.

Fatal Flaw #1: The commercial uses KISS to demonstrate its product's coolness. No ten-year-old kid knows about KISS or gives two shits about them if they do. Unless we've all stepped in a time warp and it's actually 1978.

My best guess is, KISS is used to entice not the kids, but the parents with the dough. Especially since the other available Tooth Tunes are standard Radio Disney fare, and I think most parents would rather jam red hot barbecue skewers in their ears than listen to Radio Disney. But if a dad actually brought home a toothbrush that played KISS, in the hopes that his kid would think it (and he) was cool, he would soon be dissuaded of that notion. Quickly and brutally.

Also, it should go without saying: Don't waste time trying to convince your kids you're cool. You could be a mutant hybrid of Miles Davis and James Dean, and your kids would still think you're lame. If you're not a total dick, they'll get over it as they get older. And if you want something in your house that worships your every move, get a dog.

According to the web site, the tune is actually played through the user's teeth. The song vibrates through the user's jawbone and can be heard in the inner ear. This sounds to me like a terrible way to listen to music, and a fantastic way to mess with your equilibrium or lose your lunch. I see hundreds of kids twitching on cold tile floors, covered in puke thanks to a jaw-rattling song from High School Musical. (Personally, regardless of medium, I find all songs from High School Musical vomit-inducing.)

As ridiculous as Tooth Tunes is, however, it is a perfect demonstration that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Because this type of Kids Commercial has been on TV for as long as I can remember. I call this ad template Breaking the Boring Routine, and it contains two steps.

1) Take whatever it is you're advertising and show kids yawning as they do it the "normal" way. Dress the kids in lame Howdy Doody-type outfits and film them in black and white to emphasize just how boring it is to do whatever this is. Make sure some lame adult authority figure is forcing them to do this hated task. Fat middle aged women with glasses and hair done up in buns work quite well; for some reason this is a look universally despised among kids.

2)   Have your product burst on the scene with a blast of color. If you can, use a radical animal mascot with sunglasses and a skateboard to emphasize the awesomeness. The kids' outfits should have neon squiggles on them, kind of like Trapper Keepers, and should be so blindingly bright that no sane person would wear them outside of the house.

This pattern taps into a common childhood paranoia: Adults exist for the sole purpose of preventing you from having a good time. Somehow, you must rebel against this intolerable state of affairs. But how? Why not try a toothbrush that plays Hannah Montana? Or run away to the Honeycomb Hideout?

You see this attitude employed to its most extreme in fast food ads. This isn't a restaurant--it's an awesome alternate universe with no spinach and homework, where kids rule! This formula convinced a whole generation of kids to eat shitty pizza at Chuck E. Cheese. And it still gets kids to scream at their parents to go to McDonalds, even though nothing awaits them there but juvenile onset diabetes.

My favorite example of this kid come-on was used by a line of toys from the early 90s called Spy Tech. I'm pretty sure I'm the only idiot who remembers them. The commercial shows a boy and girl using the devices to peep on their neighbor, a businessman who apparently lives alone.

As weird and possibly illegal as this is, the best part of the commercial comes in the last 10 seconds. You see the Evil Neighbor on a city street, walking up to a newsstand. He takes a paper and leaves some money. Without making eye contact with the cashier--dressed in a classic plaid Newsie hat--he mutters ominously, "They have Spy Tech," before quickly leaving.

The camera quickly pulls in for a close up on the stunned, horrified face of the Newsie. "They know!" he gasps. End of commercial.

No further explanation. Not a single word. To an adult, this is completely confusing. To a kid, this makes perfect sense: they know. All adults are actively hiding things from children. Bad things. Isn't that obvious?

Posted 08.14.07 07:51pm * Permalink

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