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Should Advertising to Kids Be Banned? · Stuff You Should Know

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• 0:38
  Speaker 1: to Stuff you should know from the house Stuff Works
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and Jerry's over there.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: It's nice and cool in here in the Studiosdo one
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: a it's a it is, Yeah, don't tell us what
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: happens if you're listening to this after Tuesday the right
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: spoiler free zone. Hey, feeling nervous tents by the puke? Nope,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: none of the above. Well, good man, you look like
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: you're jelling like a felon. Chuck that means, don't you
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: remember those? Uh, that doesn't matter. Um, do you remember
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: being a child? Uh? Sure? Do you remember? About two
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: weeks ago when we released our action figure episode do Well,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: we talked a lot about being a child and about toys,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: and we even touched on advertising and deregulation, which we
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: will get into again a little bit here. But um,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: if you were a child and you watch television, basically
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: at any point from the nineteen forties on, you were
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: probably advertised to in some form of fashion. But early
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: on it was kind of clunky, right, Like the first day,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: I think the first dad ever on TV was a
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: bull of a watch ad and it just showed a
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: bull of a watch ticking off sixty seconds. Say what
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: more do you need? Apparently nothing? Right? And then they thought, well, hey,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: people love to tune in to watch the hosts, so
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: we'll have the hosts just pitch you know, coult brand
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: firearms or whatever. You know. I thought you could say
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: malt liquor. You know that came later first? Is the
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: firearms well together? Actually one makes the other go off? Uh?
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: So they would have like hosts read this stuff. So
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: when kids programming came into the fold, that it followed
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: that kind of natural progression where like an ad was
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: just this, uh, the host suddenly saying like, hey, kids,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: by the way, you will love these firecrackers that have
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: my picture on it. Right, who was that kind of
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: kind of hockey there was? Actually I found this one
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: really great UM article on retising to children, and it
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: talks about this nineteen fifties show called Miss Francis is
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Ding Dong School and Ms Francis she would like read
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: to the kids, talk to them like they were kids.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: But just basically it was a cute little kids show
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: from what I can gather. Then every once in a
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: while she would take kids, it's time for a very
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: special message. Go get your parents and bring them in
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: to hear this special message. And the kids would run
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: and get their parents and bring them in to see
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: the TV. And uh, Miss Francis would fool everybody by
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: pitching an ad basically. So these are like the early ads, right.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: It wasn't until I think nineteen fifty two that the
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: actual first ad for kids product, a toy by the
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: name of Mr Potato Head, first hit the airwaves. That's right, Uh,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: you know, fifty ninety two wasn't that long. Ago. But um,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: things have really really changed since then. And one of
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: the big reasons why it's changed just because companies and
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: corporations and toymakers and fast food chains and candy, candy ears,
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: candy Yeah, sure is that a word. Sure it is now,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: taffy makers. They all know that. Kids. There's a lot
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: of money, not only in what kids want to buy
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: for themselves, but the influenced kids have on their family
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: and what they do. It's blockbuster. And not only that,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: but like you know, we talked we're gonna talk about
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: this a little bit later, but indoctrinating these kids at
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: a very young age as brand loyalists because like, get
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: them while they're young. Yeah, and if you you, if
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: you do that, you're kind of like planning seeds that
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: will hopefully grow into something where you're like, well, Colgate
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: toothpaste love me. I remember that from being a kid.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: So when I don't want the cartoons, I want to
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: be loved by mother Colegate. Yeah, so that's what you
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: buy as an adult. What was the uh we put
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: holes in teeth? Remember that vaguely? I don't know who
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: might have been a little before your time, it was
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: I don't remember the toothpaste may have been Colgate. No,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: I think it was the Crest team, but it was
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: just a full on super hero team of cavity fighters.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: I remember them wedged into cartoon programming. Yes, I remember that,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: and uh, you know as well, we'll talk about it,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: but I couldn't tell the difference between that in the
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: cartoon I was watching. I remember being at school and
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: being taught how to brush my teeth with those same guys. Yea,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: the Crest Cavity Fighters or something like that. Yeah, and
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: of course we're talking about fighting cavities. And as you'll
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: see in some of this material, like sometimes these brands
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: try and push things for good, but they're still pushing
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: their brand. Yeah. That's the thing. Man. It's so easy
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: to just be like, oh, wow, Colgate really does love
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: my children or Crest really does care about my kids teeth. No,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: they don't. They do not. They don't love you or
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: your family. They don't actually care about your kids teeth.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: They care about creating this kind of relationship between the
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: brand and your family. They care that your kids have teeth.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: There you go, because they could sell toothpaste. It's true.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Uh So when we talk about influence, um, you found,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: um a study from about eight years ago. Yeah, this
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: is the this is the most recent stuff I could find.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: Some of it seems a little old ish, but this
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: is as as new as I can find. Man, I'm sorry,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: that's right. So the influence basically is what we're talking
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: about of kids over their family. These um, these little
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: power wielding monsters, three foot tall, power wielding monsters. Ye
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: know that apparently of the time they will influence, um,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: the breakfast choice, the lunch choice, going out to eat,
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: of the time you're gonna go where your kid wants
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: to go, And thirty four per cent of kids have
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: a say every time, which okay, all right, I think
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: was just casual family meal. What's the difference mean that
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: in the choice of restaurant, So like I want to
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: eat hamburgers or specifically I want to eat, you know,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: in an out burger? I think no. I think with
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: the thirty four percent of kids, every time the family
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: DESI to eat, the kid has to say in thirty
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: percent of families, whereas overall percent of restaurant choices have
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: a kid saying it. Okay. That doesn't mean every kid
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: gets that say every time. It's a bit it's a
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: bit confusing, maybe even unnecessary. One could argue, I think
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: we could just agree that kids have an undue amount
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: of power software. Seventy percent at a time, they're gonna
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: influence what kind of software you're buying in the family,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: and sixty percent a time what kind of computer. Family outings,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: family trips and excursions. That's a pressing staff. I didn't
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: have any choice of where we went as a child. No,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: I was told where we were going on vacation. I
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: was never asked. I don't remember being asked to either.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, like they my parents mostly planned family trips
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: that like we would enjoy, but I remember them being like,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: do you want to go here? Here? It was like
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: this is where we're going? Yeah, and I was. I mean,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: it was always camping for us, and a lot of
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: times in Florida or uh mostly in Florida. Well yeah,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: you grew up in Georgia, Florida. Why a lot of
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: beach camping. But um, yeah, we certainly never got any
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: say like I want to go to Disney World. You
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: wish in one hand, yeah, exactly. So you take that
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  Speaker 1: influence that kids have over their parents purchases, and you
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  Speaker 1: combine it with their actual like allowance or lawnmowing money
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  Speaker 1: or whatever, the money that they actually spend from their
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: own pockets. And what you have is called kids buying power,
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: and it is staggering. Right back in two thousand, kids
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: buying power equaled about five hundred billion dollars a year
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  Speaker 1: in the United States. It's just got more and more,
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: higher and higher. Two thousand and five it had gone
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: up to seven hundred billion, right jump change. You want
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: to hit him with the two thousand twelve stat and
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: this is this is almost five years ago. Now one
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: point two trillion dollars. That's how much money kids directly
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: or indirectly spent in the United States. It's amazing, it is.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: So there's one more factor too that makes advertisers really
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: want kids. They will eventually grow into adult consumers. There
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: are already kid consumers. They're already influencing their parents buying choices.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: But they'll eventually grow up. And like you said, if
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: you can hit them young, can get that brand loyalty developed,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: then they will grow up and remember that that affiliation
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: to it, that nostalgia you know, and you will you
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: will buy that product throughout your lifetime. I think I
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: used crass toothpaste. I still I still go to Colgate. Yeah,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: that's what I was raised on. Uh. So I looked
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: up something. UM it's called pester power. Have you ever
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: heard of that? That is, Um, well, it's exactly what
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: it sounds like. It's it's how kids manipulate their parents
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: into getting them things, and it's by pet bothering them. Uh.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: And they did some uh some the you gov Omnibus
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Parents survey got some stats and UM, fifty seven percent
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: of parents I think their children are successful persuaders. And
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: the top tactic from a kid, according to seventy one
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: percent of parents, is verbal negotiation. Uh said they were.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: They were bartered like I'll do more chores. I'll get
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: better grades if you get me this stuff, whereas it
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: should be like, no, you should get better grades anyway.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: You know, not really gonna buy you this garbage. Uh.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Create wish lists. That was big when we were kids.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: I that was one of the funniest things to do. Um.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: All those kids always look so happy in there too,
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: you know, do you I've showed you that like wish
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: book web before, where they just go through scan old catalogs.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: Talk about nostalgia. It's John Hodge. Won't even look at that,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: and like I would see a slight tear goes down
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: his cheek and then drop a blood goes out of
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: his ear, right, and then that tear turns to acid
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: and then burns through the floor. He's like, stop, no,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: I won't give him. Uh. Parents say, some kids list
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: pros and cons or write letters or power point presentations
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: of kids. Right, power Point presentations, that's the lobby for
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: a gift. I'd be like, good for you, buddy, you're
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: learning some future skills. You're gonna be a salesman, a
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: road warrior. And apparently of parents said that they buckled
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: and bought the item at an average purchase cost of
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: two hundred and thirty three dollars. Whoa talk about pestor power?
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: I would I would make a power point presentation for
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: a two dollar item, but first you have to lobby
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: for the power point software. Right, you can make your
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: presentation to get your garbage toy. That reminds me, um,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: you me told me when she was a kid she
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: made this basically this menu of stuff that her parents
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: would pay her money for. It would be like, didn't
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: put salt on my food at dinner. You give me
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: fifteen cents, not penalties. It was stuff that she was
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: doing and then they would just pay her for it.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: And her parents looked at it. We're like, this is
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: a really great idea, except, like you said earlier, you're
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: supposed to be doing this anyway. We'll tell you if
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: you can put salt on your food. We're not going
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: to give you money to not put salt on your food.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: You just can't automatically, no money involved. But yeah, pestor power,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: do you know what my allowance was? Do you remember
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: what your allowance was? What? Five dollar or a month? Well,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: this is back in nineteen seventy six, right, yeah, seven,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: Well that's like a hundred thousand dollars today. I should
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: look that up. I'm curious what that would be in
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: today's dollars. Five dollars a month bucks a month, That
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: does seems small. What did you do with it? I
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: think I probably saved it if I remember correctly, and
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: saved up to buy things I was. I mean, I
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: got my first job when I was thirteen, who because
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: I was like, I want my money to buy things, well,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: to buy Star Wars and my own stuff. I knew
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: that you know. I mean my parents were teachers were
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: In fact, at the time, my mom wasn't even working.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: It was a single parent teacher household. So we we
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: were fine, but we didn't They didn't throw money at
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: a lot of stuff. So those socks are good, just
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: sew them together and make a new sock and rugal.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: And they didn't give me a hundred dollars a week.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: And oh yeah, I had friends that got allowances like that,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: and I was just like, that's not Even when I
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: was a kid, I remember being like that seems wrong. Yeah,
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: like why why are you getting that? You're not doing
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: anything for that money? Like the kids who got the
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: hundred dollar a week allowances were the ones who did
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: the least of all. Yes, you know, liked I worked
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: around my house. I'll tell you that, I'd sit on
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: my face all the time. I didn't get a hundred
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: dollars a week sweeping that chimney. All right, So all
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: this equals a lot of spending, And then on the
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: flip side of that, you're gonna have a lot of
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: spending on advertising. UM In the US, in two thousand nine,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: company spent seventeen billion dollars on advertising directly at children
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: and kids in America. This is horrifying. Kids in the
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: United States today see forty thousand ads a year. Wow,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: so seventeen billion. That sounds like a lot, and it
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: is right. But in nine eight three, just in nine
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: eighty three, they spent a hundred million dollars on ads.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: It jumped up that much since three. And we'll see
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: why in a little while. That's a hundred and ten
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: adds a day that kids are seeing. Could that be right?
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: That's a hundred and ten ads that are out there
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: on on kids programming. It doesn't necessarily mean they see
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: them all. They're just there for them to see. Oh.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: So when it says kids see an estimated, that just
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: means they're out there for So here's something. Here's something
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: that I'm I've run across. There are there's a huge
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: body of research on advertising to kids that will get
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: into There are also some figures out there where it's
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: like I've seen this, but then I've also seen that.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah sure, you know, so, like you said, a hundred
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: and ten adds a day, Yeah, that's that's there's no
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: way that any kid has ever seen a hundred and
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: ten ads in a day. I don't know, man, think
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: about it. But we've willboards internet commercials. I guess that's
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: entirely possible. I guess that's possible. You might see twenty
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: five ads on your way home from school, but I
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: have seen that forty thousand ads a year thing all
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: over the place. For sure. I could buy that so
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: ads in school, which we'll get too. So yeah, so
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: there's there's this whole idea that yeah, oh man, that's
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: that's a lot of ads, or that's a lot of
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: money being spent to advertise to children. Maybe we should
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: tone it down, or maybe we should think about how
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: we're doing this a little differently. No, say some people.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: There's a particularly a group called Commercial Free Childhood Campaign
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: for a commercial Free Childhood, and they say kids should
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: not see ads at all. Yea, even the say the
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: good ones that say eat this healthy thing or a
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: brush your teeth, don't Because what they're saying is is
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: if you teach kids to identify with products through the
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: kind of advertising, which is basically celebrity endorsement, whether that
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: celebrity is Don Mattingly or um Tony the Tiger, like
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: a made up celebrity, it's still a cult of personality
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: that the kids buying into not Oh, these carets actually
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: are good to me, are good form me. It's don
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: maddeningly says that I can be a world class home
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: run hitter if I eat these carrots. You know what
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: I'm saying. So the focus is still on mindless consumerism,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: even if they are being leaned towards like good commercial
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: or yeah, good good product or whatever, good habits or whatever. Yeah,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: this one selection that you pulled here was really telling.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: It says, um, advertising in and of itself is harmful
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: to children. Marketing targets emotions, not intellect, trains children to
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: choose products not for the actual value, but because of
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: what's on the package of the celebrity, undermines critical thinking,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: promotes impulse buying. Yeah, that's like it says it. All
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: that was Susan Lynn of the UH campaign for Commercial
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: Free Childhood makes a lot of sense. Don't regulate it,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: get rid of it, exactly. And there's been a lot
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: of pushes over the years to do just that in
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: the United States. Other countries have done it. Um And
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: as people have kind of battled over this this, a
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: lot of study has been and done on what impact
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: advertising has on kids brains, and we'll dive into that
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: right after these messages, all right, before we broke Uh well,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: earlier we were talking about I was saying I couldn't
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: when I was a kid. I remember the Crest Cavity Fighters,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: and I just thought it was another cartoon. Um, that's
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: not because I was a dumb kid. It's because if
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: you are. They've determined, this is through scientific study and inquiry,
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: that if you are under four years old, you literally
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: cannot tell the difference between a commercial and the program
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: you're watching. No, like, not at all, even if they
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: use commercial break techniques like we'll be right back after
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: these messages or whatever, right which they have to use.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: You notice you don't see that between you know, commercials
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: for Seinfeld. You know, No, it's true, we'll be back
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: right after this. Can you believe? But you have to
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: have that stuff in kids programming, even though if you're
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: under the age of four does no good. No Like,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: the kid literally cannot discern between the program they're watching
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: and the ads. That That's nuts to me. I didn't
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: realize that until I started researching that. Did you know that?
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: Uh well, we talked about it in a couple of
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: weeks ago, but yeah we did yeah, okay, um between
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: four and five. As you start to get a little
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: bit older, you might be able to tell a difference categorically,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: but you're still it's it's more along the lines of,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: well that's shorter, that that cartoon was really short, or
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: it was funnier yeah, or look different or whatever. So
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: you can tell the difference, but you still don't know
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: you're being you know, shoveled and add on your tiny
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: little throat. Ye. And there's two there's two things that
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: children lack that you need to be able to understand
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: and add at its basis right, and one is you
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: have to number one, be able to differentiate it from
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: the program. So you have to be able to say, oh,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: it's an AD. When they said after these messages will
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: be right back, it means that the show went away,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: and now what i'm seeing is an AD. That's step one.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Step two is that you have to be able to
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: understand that in any kind of ad you're being advertised to,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: you're you're being persuaded, and that the message that's coming
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: at you is biased and therefore you should take it
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: with a grain of salt. That comes even later than
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: understanding the difference between an AD and the program. Right
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: the the idea that you're you're being advertised to doesn't
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: come until at least seven. From what I've seen, you
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: don't even know what grain of salt means. You don't
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: know what that expression means. You have no idea because
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: you can't even say, as a parent, I would take
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: it with a grain of salt. At an AD, they'll go,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: what are these words? What I like salt? Uh? There's
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: a Center for New American Dream and um, this is frightening.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: They said. Babies he's young as six months old, conform
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: mental images of corporate logos and mascot's. I didn't find
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: what that's how they figured that out? Was it like
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: your baby draw draw dome? Manningly, what has he ever endorsed? Promoter?
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Right now? Is he? I don't know what years is? Okay? Uh?
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: And brand loyalties can be established by the age of
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: two and um, yeah, that one that's crazy to me.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: And apparently in the British study at least they found it.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: You have to be close to a teenager up to
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: about twelve is when you can finally really discern an
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: AD from content and its intent on an adult level. Yeah,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: it's about where. And what's interesting thing is the the
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: group that that conducted that study and concluded that was
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: an advertising lobbying group. So even they are like, yes,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: kids under the age of twelve are mentally incapable of
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: discerning the intent and content of ads. All they get
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: is the the overall message of the ad, which is
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: you want this, Go tell your parents that you want this,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: Go make your parents pastor power exactly use a power point. Yeah.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: And the American Psychology Association they had this task force
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: in two thousand four and they basically looked at all
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: the available literature over the last like, you know, several decades.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: I think it was the sixties where they really started
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: looking into it. Um and the a p A basically concluded, yes,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: kids are kids can't understand advertising. It's unfair to advertised
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: to kids. This is the position of the a p A. Like,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: if it were up to us, it would be banned. Yes,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: they suggested that it should be banned. Kids under the
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: age of at least seven. I think the a p
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: A said should not see ads directed towards them, But
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: like I say, not up to them. They can only
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: recommend and be laughed at corporations with hippies pocket on
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: a commune hippie. Uh. So when it comes to nutrition,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: this is a really big deal. Um. There are a
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: lot of advertisements for candy and junk food and fast
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: food that are rammed down your kid's throat from a
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: very early age, and there's been You can't provide a
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: direct uh causation. Of course, everybody's like, give it to me,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: but there's a lot of correlation that watching these commercials
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: and seeing these ads, uh, correlates to your kid eating
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: more of the stuff and maybe gaining weight and maybe
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: affecting overall childhood obesity. Yeah. And again, remember the advertising
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: on or the money spent on advertising to children in
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: a hundred million dollars, it went up to seventeen billion
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: in two thousand, nine hundred millions. Yeah. Yeah, but even
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: still I think, I think it was still considered kind
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: of paltry. Ishi, I mean, especially if you adjust for inflation,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: it's still nothing like seventeen billion, right, And if you
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: go back over time and look at the rates of
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: childhood obesity, it tracks along the same the same UM graph.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: So it's one of the factors. Can we just say
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: agree on that. Yeah, and uh. Studies have found also,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: so not only are your kids being exposed to a
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: high percentage of the ads that they see are junk
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: food ads, but it's we've also it's been shown that
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: if you show kids junk food ads and adults to
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: actually but it really works on kids, they will eat
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: more junk food while they're watching the ads. It's basically,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: um what's called the priming effect. The kid will be
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: sitting there seeing an ad for Twinkies. Well, there's no
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Twinkies in the house, but there's a box of twigs.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: I'll eat the box of twigs. And actually a box
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: of twigs. If I used see a box of twigs,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: my mom would hide it around the house. So when
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: I found him, I had to eat the whole thing
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: because I knew that she'd find that I found them
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: and hide them. Even better, you never knew where they
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: were going to end up. That would just be eating
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: them like a little fat squirrel. Uh. So it's two
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: thousand and ninth study found that kids who watched a
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: program with commercials um a more calories than the kids
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: who watched the same program without commercials. So the actual
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: presence of the commercials gets kids to eat more food.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: And the food that they usually have at hand and
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: they're being primed to eat is junk food. Well here's
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: a study, boy, this is study. Instead. I thought you'd
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: like that. It's got my juice flawing kid. Uh. In Quebec,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: America's had one part of America's had, they have the
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: opposite effect. They for the past thirty two years have
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: banned fast food advertising geared towards children online and in print.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: And that providence says the least childhood obesity in Canada.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: It's actually it's even older than that. I said, correct
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: that was that they and yeah, they just said no, no, yeah,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: no more like America's pants. Uh they said no way
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: a yeah, no, I come back, they said in French.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: She said no, okay mate, no, no, doc. But I mean,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: how can you look I know there are still other factors,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: of course, but how can you look at these statistics
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: and not just run screaming down the street like a
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: crazy person. I don't know, like companies are trying to
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: make your kids fat? Yeah? Yeah, again, we come back
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: to the Dorrito. The book should read it, because if
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: you read it, it's like even with me. It's taken
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: malicious intent off the table. It's more just like this
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: is just the way it is. These people, these companies
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: have products and they make money selling the products. So
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: they're going to advertise the product. Your your kids going
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: to love it, and if you don't want your kid
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: to eat it, tell your kid no, you lazy parents.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: Well yeah, which we'll get into later. Uh, this is
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: what we should point out to. This is not just
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: in traditional advertising. Product placement has been booming for the
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: past past decade for sure, but even before that. Yeah,
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: I think it really started in the eighties. But I
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: mean it's really like product placement is like it's never
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: been before. Uh. They did a study in two thousand eight.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: Why has every study in the same at least eight
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: years old? I couldn't find anything new or it's crazy.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Gig Ridge came along and some cut off funding for it. Well,
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: I think we can say everything's worse than these studies,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: then I would. I would guess in two thousand and
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: eight there were nearly thirty five thousand food, beverage and
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: restaurant brands and primetime TV programming. And that's not in commercials.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: That's product placement. Yeah. Yeah, Apparently kids on average of
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: a hundred coke product placements throughout the year. Uh during
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, that's about three to four a week.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: And that's just in a movie that you're watching, in
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: a TV show that you're watching. That that's on top
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: of all the ads that they're going. It's literally like indoctrination.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: So not only are your kids incapable of understanding what
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: ads are, um, the ads are having a pronounced negative
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: effect on their health. Is speaking through correlation, right. It's
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: again there's no smoking gun that where some kid was
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: like that oreo and just made me eat this oreo everybody,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: and then he was whisked off to John Hopkins to
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: be raised in a cage for the rest of his life.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: That has not happened yet. We can only hope one.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: But the correlation, uh is is definitely there. And they're
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: also becoming more and more ubiquitous. Right. Um. So there
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: was this Yale study from two twelve, Chuck, not that
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: long ago. In two thousand and twelve, they looked at
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: um fast food, fast food marketing to children, fast food
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: advertising specifically, and they found um that McDonald's was far
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: and away the biggest spender on advertising the kids, specifically
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: with their Happy Meal brand, which is basically now a
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: sub brand of McDonald's. The Happy Meal is I think
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: I remember when the Happy Meal is invented. Yeah, and
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: the Happy Meal that was seventies or eighties, right, And
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: it was not invented for adults. No, no, no. The
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: toy tie ins Ronald McDonald's were not things that they
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: developed to sell more hamburgers two adults or because the
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: adults make the choice of where to go eat. It
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: was for kids, right, It was a specific choice to
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: sell more fast food to kids. Yeah. And in this
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: two thousand and twelve study, in just that year alone,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: um McDonald spent forty two million dollars on advertising just
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: the Happy Meals in two thousand twelve. Here's one that'll
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: shake you to the core. The average US child between
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: two and eleven saw one hundred and eighty five Chicken
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: McNugget Happy Meal commercials on TV last year hundred and
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: eighty five ads for chicken McNuggets and then so that's
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: a lot. But to really put in perspective, the number
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: two advertiser to children for fast food was Burger King.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: They had a Kid's meal. Um kids saw an average
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: of twenty three point four of those per year, not
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: a hundred and eighty five. Twenty three was the second
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: place contestant, which is why Burger Kings never in first.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: They're not spending enough on advertising the kids. There's a
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: Burger King execut of right now that just made like
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: pulled over, made a note spend more. Uh. I remember
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: how they got I don't. I'm sure they still do this.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: I haven't, like, I literally haven't looked at what a
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: happy meal is. And it's nothing like kids. Remember it
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: came in the box and like is it not it's
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: in a bag, a paper bag? Is it a special bag?
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: But like puzzles and you have to be a kid
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: to really recognize it as special, you know what I mean?
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: Where the boxes like it's its own thing. Yeah, it
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: was a little gift. Um. But how they really got
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: us back then, I don't know if they still do
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: this is uh, you know collect all four they still
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: do that. They do now it's like collect all sixteen.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: So it would be I remember some stupid little car
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: that you would put a penny in. Oh, those were
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: great penny racers. Yeah, and you would like pull it
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: back and it would spin or something or Papa wheee
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: or just take off like a rocket and collect all four.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: So it's like it's not even an enough, Like it's
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: hard for me to not visualize the devil. And in
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: an advertising room going like, yeah, well, we we can
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: sell this this meal to kids more if we can
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: include a toy, and some other guys saying, oh, well,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: how about if there's four different toys and they have
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: to go back four different times to get a different
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: color each time. Yeah, And I remember the drive through
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: people would be like, you got what you got, you
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: have to go through and buy another Happy Meal. If
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: you want a different you have to keep you weren't
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: guaranteed to get that. Yeah. So yeah, way more than
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: four trips to get your Happy Meal. What a time
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: to be alive? Oh yeah yeah. Um so advertising has
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: actually gone down and on on some ways kids kids
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: by fractions of personage a little bit, yeah, but for
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: the most part it's trending upward. And apparently there's um
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: nowadays little tots that go on to websites to play.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: Some of these websites like happy meal dot com. Not
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: to pick on McDonald's, but man, they definitely have spread
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: it out enough so that they're a a an enormous
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: part of this. Dude, McDonald's had a website for preschool
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: children Ronald dot com. They shut it down finally, but
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: they literally had a website for preschoolers. I know, it
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: sounds like it was clown heavy happy happy meal dot
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: com and two dozen twelve had a hundred thousand monthly uniques.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: I don't even think how stuff works has a hundred
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: thousand monthly unique and happy meal dot com does, right,
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: And these are little kids and they're going on and
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: doing their thing, having a great time playing on happy
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: meal dot com. But this whole website is one big ad, right,
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: And even outside of happy meal dot Com, on other
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: websites like cartoon network dot com or nick dot com,
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: like Nickelodeon's website, you're going to see ad placements, banner
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: ads or whatever kind of ads on these other websites
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: for happy me. They're all over the place. Yeah. Of
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: the top twenty five advertisers, nineteen of those twenty five
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: increased advertising to preschoolers. Uh, Domino's Pizza. I guess they're
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: more than pizza now, they're just Dominoes now. Kinds of stuff, right,
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: Domino's increased advertising to children. I think when was this
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: between two thousand nine two thousand twelve. Wendy's by and
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: McDonald's is the only restaurant that advertises more to children
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: than teens. Are adults more, they advertise more to kids,
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: all right, hard to believe. Plus also there's I was
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: looking at this, there's some apps now too, So beyond
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: the websites, you can also download apps that again, if
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: you're a kid, you're just playing, you're on the mic
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: play app. But if you go onto the mic play app,
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: so like their their toy giveaway. The big tie in
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: now is the Trolls movie. It was recently, and you
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: would get your troll character out of the happy Meal
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: box and you would scan it with your phone and
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: upload it onto your mcplay app, and you could make
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: your troll character the little real one that you have
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: in real life, go play in the troll game. And
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: the mick play app was the troll game like McDonald's
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: Wonderland or something. Yeah, but it's also the Trolls movie.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: So you're being like hit with this advertising, this joint advertising.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: God knows how much the Trolls production gave to McDonald's
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: to host this whole thing. So there there's this. Uh,
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: there's the average ads are not even ads anymore, don't
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: even websites anymore, they're games. I I don't mean to
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: get worked up, it's just astounding like that, when you
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: start digging in, you just feel like you're drowning. And
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: I think once people listen to this, you start to
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: notice things a little more around you. Like even reading
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: the stuff over the past few days, I just start
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: to see it everywhere all of a sudden, like, oh
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: my god, some I'm paring out there was like Mick play,
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: I get it, now, give me that phone. Uh. Here's
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: something we mentioned earlier that is, um, well, you think
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: that school would be the one place where your kids
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: can go for eight or nine hours a day and
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: escape this onslaught of advertising. But no schools are Uh.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: They have budget cuts increasingly across the country. And so
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: who sweeps in but corporations to say, hey, we'd love
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: to get a computer center for you. We'd hate for
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: your school to fail. Yeah, so how about the new
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: um uh Jack in the box computer center. Well, we'll
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: Jack in the box be there to cut the ribbon
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: on the first day. Well, sure you will. I think
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: it will be homeless man dressed as Jack in the
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: Box will be Well, every kid get a Jack in
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: the box and tin ahead. Oh, I think they will. Uh.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: So that's what's happening is corporations that they either have
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: partnerships or they have vending machine contracts. Um, and that
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: you make I don't know where you got this particular part.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: This was very well put together, by the way, but um,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: they make the point here that you've got a captive audience.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: Kids are like prison. You're stuck there, can'tie there's a
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: cop that's making sure they stay there. Well, I didn't
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: have a cop in my schools, but I don't think
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: they're They came along about my era. Okay, Um, we
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: had our guy. He wasn't a cop, but he was
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: the resource officer. Yeah, I don't know. We didn't call
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: him that, just Barney five sort of. He just basically
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: kind of walked around the parking lots with a billy
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: batt looking for looking for kids smoking or or leaving
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: in their car or doing whatever. I remember. He was
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: always very easy to evade. Only so much ground you
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: can cover as one single man, single board man um
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: and this is before cell phones. Do I imagine that guy?
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: Now it's just like park somewhere playing on this mcplay.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: I love this trolls again. Uh, but not only they
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: are captive, but that it implies the endorsement of the
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: teachers and the educational system, which is huge. Yeah, yeah,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: and so much so that, Like I remember, we were
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: talking about the Crest Cavity team, and I learned about
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: like oral hygiene but those two words put together awful,
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: by the way. But I learned that through Crest, right,
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: and it came with free toothpaste and a tooth Crest
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: toothbrush and all that. And there's like an activity book,
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: and yes, I was learning about this stuff, but it
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: was Crest sponsored. But in my little brain, I'm like, well,
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: I guess my school that thinks Crest is great, therefore
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: Crest is great, you know. Or they might come out
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: and a bunch of out of work actors dressed up
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: as the Crest Cavity team might make an appearance at
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: your school. Yeah, if you go to like Hollywood High
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: or something rich school, that's pretty funny. If you've ever
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: seen Hollywood High, it's like not very rich looking. Nope,
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: there's rich kids that go there, right, Dylan, And now
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: that that was Beverly. That's what I mean. That's what
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: I meant. Okay, that is a rich school. Yeah, I'll
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: take you about Hollywood High next summer in l A
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: get a lath it's right there in the middle of
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: the town. I think, right next to the In and
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: Out Burger. I'm not mistaken. Uh, that was Bukowski stumbling out.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: So what else are you gonna get in school? You
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: might get a Craft healthy eating kit again, maybe trying
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: to teach you about eating healthy, but got their logo
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: and and products all over it. No more than five
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: boxes of Kraft brand macaroni and cheese a day. What else? Um,
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: there's exclusive contracts with companies. Were like your high schools
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: a Coke high school. You're not gonna find a pepsi
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: vending machine in this high school district, you know. Um,
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: and those are probably fairly lucrative. Straight up advertising on buses. Yeah. Uh,
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: we didn't have that when I was a kid, but
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: apparently they do. Now, how about this a reading program? Uh? Book?
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: It brought to you by Pizza? Hut? I did that?
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: Did you? Oh man? Reading enough to get a free
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: personal pants. Is that what the deal was. I was like,
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: just give me some books. See. And that's the thing though,
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: It's like they're incentivizing reading. That's a good thing, but
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: incentivizing reading to eat their garbage food product. And it
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: was like the focus of the summer to to to
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: get to that point where you would get your free
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: personal pan pizza certificate? Man, how did you prove that
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: you read the books? I was an honor system. We
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: were all very honorable kids, apparently. Uh, all right, should
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: we take a break here, Yes, all right, we'll pause
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: for this ad. The irony is not lost on enough.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back, all right, Chuck. So, if this
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: kind of stuff is making your blood boil, some people
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: out there totally understand it. Are saying, hey, man, we
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: live in a capitalist country. Should be able to advertise
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: the kids. You've got a product, to sell, sell it
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: the best way you can. Okay. Other people out there
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: are just so mad, they're trembling in their barking stocks. Yeah,
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: that's actually not that's terrible. Uh, they're just uh, they're
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: just upset at the thought of all this, right, and
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: it does seem very overwhelming and unfair. Um, and for
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: a while. Now in the US, we've got a long
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: standing tradition of groups coming up and trying to fight
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: the advertisers, getting almost somewhere and then failing. Yes, that's
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: the history of it here. Yeah, we talked a little
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: bit about this in the Action Figures podcast. UM, and
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: we'll go over some of it right now again the
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: well remember that inspired this episode. Yeah. Uh. Nineteen seventies,
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: the f c C Communications Commission, Um, they said, you
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: know what, we should ban advertising to young kids. But
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: they said, all right, well, maybe we shouldn't completely ban it.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: Maybe we should just limit it and limit the kinds
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: of how much they see in the kind of things
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: you can say and do right, specifically hosts selling like
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: Ms Francis in her little Ding Dong hour, stopping and
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: selling something that was off limits. Now, that's right. Then
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: later on in the late nineteen seventies, UM, they once again,
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: the f TC, this time considered banning all the advertising
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: the kids, citing all the evidence that's always been out
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: there all over the place that in the direction that
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: kids can't tell the difference and unfairly takes advantage. UM.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: And Congress said, well wait a minute, now, we we helped.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: We we got here based largely on you know, Crest.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: They got deep pockets and they funded us as a whole,
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: our congressional election campaigns. Right. Uh. So they stopped it.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: They put a stop to the FTC and the FCC said, fine, fine,
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: do what you want your Congress, but we're going to
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: take a parting shot saying if you look even cursorily
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: at the at the medical literature on kids in advertising,
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: you will see that this is wrong and it's a
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: public concern and should remain that way. And this is
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: on you and they who cares. Uh. And you talked
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: about groups popping up, there's one called Actions for Children's
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: Television Act, founded in nineteen sixty eight by Evelyn Sarson
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: and Peggy Charin Sharin char she's the boat keeper on
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: the river sticks, the guy, the boat rower who would
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: row you over to the world. Yeah, I believe so,
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: oh man, I hope so. Uh. I thought it was
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: um old skippy. I mean, if you knew him, you'd
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: call him that if you were a neighbor boy. Um.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: They're a big deal now, uh, twenty thousand members. But
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: back in the day, when they were just getting going,
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: they were a pretty small little grassroots unit and Romper Room,
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: of all things, was squarely in their sights at first. Yeah.
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: One of the first ones they took on, Romper Room
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: was like the least harmful, nicest show ever. I loved it.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: I did too. Um, isn't that what Mr green Jeans
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: was on? That was Captain Kinger. Oh, yeah, you're right, Yeah,
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: I don't remember Romper Room then, I just remember I
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: loved it. Romper Room was one that had the magic
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: magic mirror, and at the end of the episode, the
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: lady would look into the mirror and say like, I
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: see Joh, Should I see Jerry? You just sit there
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: and being like, oh, my name and I didn't get
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: many chucks? So did you say, Charles? Did you count
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: yourself for that? I don't remember. It was sort of
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: that feeling you get when you go to the anything
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: that had like the names printed key chains with the
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: little license plates, and it was always like, why is
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: it my name Mike or Josh? Yeah, I'll just go
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: with the number one astronaut one, the generic one, not
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: the chuck is so random. But I didn't see it
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: a ton. Sure you don't hear a lot of chucks
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: these days. My name is out of fashion. Now, Yeah,
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: that's cool. It's it's not though it's a retro. I'll
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: take it. Um So, what did they do with Romper Room?
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: They said, your host selling. Yeah, apparently they had their
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: own line of toys. And one of the things was
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: I guess she'd look in the mirror and say, I
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: see this brand new line of toys that you're gonna buy,
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: and the a C he said, hey, this is against
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: the rules. And they didn't even go to the FEC.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: They went to the station that produced Trumper Room and
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: knock it off. Yeah, we're made, and they listened to him.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: That was I think their first real victory. Uh. So
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan, we talked about in the action figures when
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: this is when things got real in the eighties. When
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: Reagan specifically appointed Mark Fowler as Commissioner of the f SEC,
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: everything changed. Yeah. Because Reagan he liked the regulation, sure,
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: he believed in free markets, uh and he appointed Fowler,
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: who believed in free markets just as much as Reagan did.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: Fowler had a um A saying as the FCC chairman,
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: which is pretty rich frankly, because the FEC had long
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: been tasked with basically overseeing broadcasting for the public interests. Right.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: It's one of the big reasons why UM broadcasters got licensed.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: They had to like have public interest programming certain amount
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: of week. UM they were looking they were supposed to
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: be looking out for people, right, And Mark Fowler said
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: the public interest would be decided by the public's interest,
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: meaning that if somebody started doing something nefarious under this
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: deregulation where the government wasn't paying attention anymore, well, then
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: people would stop watching that network and they would go
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: under the market would decide it. And advertising to children
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: fell squarely into this this purview or this this worldview
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: of his. Yeah. And between nineteen four and nineteen five,
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: and this is what we touched on in the Action
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: Figure show was cartoons featuring license characters increased by three
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: hundred percent. It became the new Well, I mean, I
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: don't think there almost were none that didn't have a
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: tie in. No, there was there. Yeah, and before that,
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: just a couple years before, there was none that did
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: because there was a rule against what are called program
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: length commercials, which was what Jem was and My Little
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: Pony and pac Man and and ThunderCats and he Man,
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: all of them were these these shows that were created
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: to sell the products, and they tied into the products
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: and it was just like open season on little kids minds. Yeah,
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: I mean you're you loved he Man, right, Sure. I
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: definitely did an ThunderCats, Jason the Wheel Warriors, like all
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: that stuff. And I was just a total sucker for Smurfs,
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: although I don't think Smurf's I think they started out
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: as an actual cartoon and then like their whole product
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: line was launched as a result. Six months later, they
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: were like, weren't we selling these things? I was gonna
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: ask you that. Uh In f CC finally had some
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: rules pushed through that limited the airtime to ten point
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: five minutes per hour on weekends in twelve minutes per
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: hour and weekdays for kids, programming and host selling was
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: officially prohibited. Yeah, that was the Children's Children's Television Act,
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: that's right. Um. They also the idea of having to
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: break for commercials with we'll be right back or now
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: a word from our sponsor that came out of that
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, although I seem to remember it before
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: maybe not. All right, So you mentioned earlier that other
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: countries are doing this, Um, Australia, Canada, Sweden, the UK,
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: they all have regulations on stuff like this. Yeah. By
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: doing this, you mean actually doing something, yes, yeah, correct. Yeah,
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: there's a whole spectrum, right, Yeah, that has to do
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: with how a country approaches advertising to children. The US
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: actually represents one radical end of it, which is actually nothing. Yeah. Yeah.
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: On the other end, there's countries that have banned it,
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: like Quebec, which again is a province, but yeah, it's
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: also occupied countries. Uh in Norway and Sweden. Big surprise there,
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: Nordic countries coming in there, swinging the bat of justice, right,
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: swinging the rack of justice. They completely banned marketing the
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: children under the age of twelve in those countries, right.
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: And then a little more in the middle, you've got
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: like the UK and Australia, where there's far more regulations
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: than there is in the US, but there's also a
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: large measure of self regulation among the industry too. Yeah.
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: I was really hardened to hear that in the UK.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: A lot of these aren't necessarily laws. They're just sort
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: of unspoken rules among advertisers that you don't uh suggests
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: that a child is lacking in loyalty, or you don't
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: encourage them to pest or their parents or I mean
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: that's a big one, you know, like a commercial that
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: shows a kid like, mom, can I have this? Right?
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: There was this um oh, I think it was like
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: Itchy and Scratchy was up for an Emmy on The
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: Simpsons once or something, and they were showing the other
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: cartoons that it was up against in the category for
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: Best Animated Special, and one of them was like the
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: Action Man Holiday Special how to buy Action Man, And
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: this showed some kid go, I want it and the
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: parent looks at the boxes like it's a pretty it's
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: basically right there. Yeah. Another one in England they say
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: you don't make a child feel inferior, unpopular for not
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: buying a product. Yeah, that's a big one too. Yeah,
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: And apparently these are just things that they think are
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: decent that you shouldn't do, because I remember too. Like
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: with with advertising, I don't remember seeing too many like
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: Polo ads. I was very much aware of Polo, but
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: I also knew that Polo was a great brand because
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: my peers knew it was a great brand. Right, So
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: there's that peer pressure that starts from a young age,
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: especially with things like clothing. So did to remove that
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: out of the equation a little bit by not letting
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: average tisers like make a kid feel smaller inferior for
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: not buying a product. I wonder how much it mitigates
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: that at all. Yeah, hopefully some you know, our own
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: TV show might not have come around if that hadn't
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: have been for the conscience of our director and leader.
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: What do you mean Chad? Our director was he went
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: and started his production company because he was an ad
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: dude and he was on set one day. I remember
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: telling me the story selling a doing a commercial for
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: a garbage junk food product for kids, and was just
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: like I had one of those moments. He's like, what
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: am I doing? What am I doing? My life? And
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: he quit it, quit his job and went and started
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: his own production company. H to where they make as
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: Now I'm just kidding, that's why I started it. Yeah,
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: nice where you go? Chad? Yeah, he developed, he didn't
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: develop a conscience. He had a conscience and it was
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: agitated and it was agitated. It's pretty Yeah. So in
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: our TV show came, uh what about online? That's the
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: big sort of new brave, new not so brave new world. Yeah,
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: like those apps who were talking about Yeah, they're like
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: all over the place, right, Yeah, they're all over the place.
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: But they're also they're interactive. So your kid is actively
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: participating in something that has to do with the brain
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: on the couch. Yeah right, But they're interacting with that brand,
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: you know, in their in their head. They're also immersed
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: into a branded environment for long periods of time. Plus also, um,
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: a lot of the advertising, if not a hundred percent
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: of it, is um targeted. Right. They're using metadata based
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: on the your kids other play habits, search history, other
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: apps that's downloaded where your kid lives, any demographic information
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: they can get to make the add like even more
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: targeted to him that works on its Yeah, I can't imagine.
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: It must be like utter magic on a kid. I'll
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: buy you can be like, watch, I'll make that kid
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: get off the couch right now, watch this. I'll send
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: him this ad. The kid gets off the couch and
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: goes to the fridge. You know. Yeah, there's a very
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: Truman Show element to it. Yeah, it seems like um,
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: but then again, you you like you said, you hear
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: the companies and the food industry and people saying there's
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: just consumer demand. It's up to the parents like, say no,
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: don't let your child pester you into buying something, be
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: a good parent. And that's definitely that seems to be
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: their position. The counter to that is, well, if you
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: guys think that the parent really has any kind of
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: say over this, how why are you spending eighteen billion
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: dollars a year advertising directly to children. Why don't you
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: spend that money on me? They're like, oh, we like
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: a good fight, right, we don't like money like the
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: way we're trying to be see a good competitive situation.
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: Plus also, these these um the advertisers have a tremendous
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: amount of our when they're going directly to a kid
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: to go around the parent and apparent it's any parent
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: just by definition as harried as far as a human
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: being goes, right, So they don't have time necessarily to
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: keep up with everything their kids watching, encounter every argument
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: and every pester session that their kid comes at them with,
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: and advertisers know that, and it's it's I mean, it's
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: that's unfair as well. Yeah, it was a lot easier
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: back in the day to regulate and monitor what kind
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: of content your children were made available to because you
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: had TV and there were three channels you know pretty much. Um,
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: and there was something called outside. Yeah, alright, so how
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: you combat this? Well, again, if you can find time
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: in your harried life, there are some techniques that you
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: can use, apparently magically talking to your kid. Yeah. Kids
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: are smart, Yeah, they unless it comes to discerning ads.
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: We always joke about dumb kids, and that's always a
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: joke because kids are very very smart. Kids get things.
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: And if you talk to your kids about what buying
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: things means, and what advertising is and the difference between
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: wants and needs and how marketing works, like on very
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: basic levels, you can have these discussions from an early
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: agents and um, the value of of spending smartly. Right,
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: So that's actually there's a tech. There's something. There's a
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: concept called media literacy. And up until fairly recently, this
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: was the prescription for combating advertising the kids, among parents,
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: and it was exactly what you just described, sitting down
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: explaining them like why do you why do you want that?
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: Do you want it? Do you need it? Um? Yeah?
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: Like what is there something better that's less expensive or
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: the same thing that's less expensive, and just teaching them
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: that that's media literacy, and it's teaching them to create
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: a cynical filter that when they're being advertised to they're
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: being manipulated and they need to take it with a
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: grain of salt. And then you have to go, Okay,
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: this is what a grain of salt means, to take
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: a step backwards, right. Cynicals is such a bad word,
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: though it's maybe discerning. That's another word for sure. The
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: problem is is people like the Campaign for a Commercial
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: Free Childhood says, again, what you're doing is teaching kids
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: to be good consumers. You're focusing on consumerism. You're teaching
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: them everything there is to know about consumerism. Let's just
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: remove kids from the equation of our consumerism. So media
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: literacy has kind of fallen out of favor in the
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: last few years. Yeah, I mean it may be impossible.
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: That's the conclusion I came to, Like, our kids aren't
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: living our childhood life, and you can't expect that, you know, No,
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: it's and it's true. Like if you're like, no you
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: can't watch TV, or no you can't play video games,
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: or no you can't like use your YouTube app or whatever,
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: like would your kid have anything in common with any
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: of his her peers. I wanted you to be a
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: complete outcast. Yeah, an interesting one, but no one will
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: know how interesting and charming you are because they won't
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: talk to you. Yeah, they're like, but just wait when
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: you're in your thirties, you're really gonna blossom, Like what, Yeah,
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: you're gonna have a four oh one k already? Yeah,
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: no thanks, You're gonna be a real catch. Uh. Setting
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: limits on this exposure is is obviously kind of a
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: no brainer. Screen time and phones and gaming and internet
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: and all the things are inundated with um and limiting
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: your own screen time it's that's a big one. Yeah,
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: it's tough to tell the kid. You know, if you're
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: constantly staring at your telephone as a parent, you know
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: you can't see that stuff. Shut up, Barney Miller's on
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: on your phone. Yeah, I guarantee you can find where
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: your own Barney Miller on a phone some way. Well,
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: my Barney Miller app doesn't feature full length shows. Oh
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: it doesn't, just video clips, just clips. And there's a
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: game too. It's fun Mcbarney Miller. Um what else? Apparently
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: there's a book called The Barren Stain Bears Get the Gimmis. Yeah,
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: have you read that one? I don't remember that one.
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: I read the barren Stein Bears get the gimmis. Okay,
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: well this is at an alternate universe. Uh no, I
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: never heard of that one. Apparently it's all about teaching.
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: It's it's teaching kids how to um not be a
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: little brat's right, and to just chill out and be
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: happy with your two sticks that your parents gave you
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: to rub together. Uh. This last one or this last
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: bit I think was pretty interesting on how to how
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: to be involved in what they're watching. The three ways
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: co viewing it just means you're not even discussing it.
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: You're just sitting there and watching it with them like menacingly,
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: menacing overlord. Just cross your arms and look at them. Everyone,
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: So just relax. Do you feel like you should be
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: watching this? Active mediation or instructive guidance is when you
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: are watching and discussing things and saying, you know, like
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: what we're talking about talking about these ads or whatever
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: the content is. And then there's restrictive mediation, which is
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: you can't watch that. Yeah, And apparently active and restrictive
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: mediation has been shown to decrease kids asking for stuff,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: which is ultimately what the parent wants it's like, I
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: don't care how b should get. I just don't want
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: to hear you ask for another thing. That's what we're
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: really after. If you get thin as a byproduct, great,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: you got anything else? I don't think so either. Oh.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: I did think this final bit was pretty interesting that
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: you had in here that um they found that things
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: the tactics to sell kids junk food have the same effect.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: So if you put carrots and celery and McDonald's rapper,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: the kids are going to be more apt to eat
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: it than if you just gave them carrots and cellery.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: Though that's frightening, and I guess good, I guess, But
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: again it goes to that heart of that thing where
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: it's like you're just teaching kids. McDonald says, eat these carrots,
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: not carrots are great in and of themselves. All right,
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: Well that's advertising. The kids make of it what you will. Yeah,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go walk out into traffic. Uh. If you
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: want to know more about advertising to kids, well dig
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: into the internet, because it's all over the place. I
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: found a great site called the PBS Kids Don't Buy It,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: and it teaches kids how to discern ads at a
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: younger age. It's neat you might want to start there. Uh.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: And since I said PBS kids, it's time for listener. Man,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this first time writer from a new listener. Hey, guys,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: new listener, first time writer. My boss used to work
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: for Kinner in the eighties and the early nineties had
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: some interesting tidbits about Star Wars toys. Kinner had a
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: robin Hood Prince of Thieves collection, remember with the weird accent,
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: that kind of it was a little British sometimes a
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: little southern California kind of came and went. I have
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: to say that I love that movie. When it came out.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: It's terrible, but it wasn't as good as Men in Tights. Oh,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: I remember robin Hood and Point Break came out that
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: same summer. Yeah, I don't know why I remember that.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: It shoul remember him either. Whatever the heck of a summer.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: Uh of the robin Hood Prince of Thieves line was repurposed.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: I can't imagine why. Uh into the rerun of Return
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: of the Jedi and at the time New Power of
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: the Force line of toys, most notable, the Sherwood Forest
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: Place set was simply rebranded the Ewok village and the
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: robin Hood Battlewagon. Uh was altered slightly in the Ewok Battlewagon.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: It's pretty smart when you think about it. They're all
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: forest bandits. Um. Also, there was one figure of the
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: robin Hood line. That one figure that was reported repurposed
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: from the original eighty three Return of the Jedi line.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: The Friar Tuck action figure was a more smooth out
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: version of the Gamorian Guard, the pig like guard in
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: Java's Palace, remember, with a new head plopped on. That
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: sounds about right. I had another listeners send in um
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: a video of Rick Springfield's Star Wars collection that No,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: I haven't seen it yet, dude, I saw the email,
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: haven't seen the video. Rick Springfield is the most avid
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: collectors of Star Wars figures, Like he literally has one
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: of a kind figure, the only known one in the
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: world he has. Is it that Boba fette with the
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: missile launch? He does? He has several of those? Apparently
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: He's like I used those toilet paper. Um. Yeah, everyone's
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: while just up, but um, it was. I was impressed
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: and he was. He's like from the time I was
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: a kid, I collected him and I, uh, it was
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: a little bit older when the Star Wars things came out,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: Like he always collected things, but when Star Wars came out,
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: he was older, so he started not opening them because
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: he was over playing with them. But he really just
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: loved the packaging. I thought they were beautiful and cool
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: and has this amazing collection. How do you recommend? Just
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: YouTube Rick Springfield Star Wars. There's some really big Star
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: Wars magine there too. There. It's very jealous of Rick Springfield, right,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: did I had Ricky's collection? All right? Anyway? That was
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: from He just says, cheers from Cincinnati, Ohio. That doesn't count.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: That's dup. Well, thank you anonymous listener who apparently he's
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: worried about being fired for revealing Kenner Cincinnata. If you
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: want to get into to this, you can tweak to
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: us at Well. You can hang out with me at
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: Josh M Clark on Twitter. You can also go to
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: s Y s K podcast. You can hang with Chuck
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: at Charles W. Chuck Bryant and at Facebook dot com
• 1:05:10
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• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: email the Stuff podcast at how Stuff Works dot com.
• 1:05:15
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• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: Stuff you should Know dot com for more on this
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is it How Stuff Works
• 1:05:29
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