Latest / Presented by Speaking Human / #207: McGruff & Most Memorable PSAs

Transcript

#207: McGruff & Most Memorable PSAs · Presented by Speaking Human

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Speeding Human.
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  Speaker 2: Today, on Speaking Human, we sniff out whether McGruff's cartoon
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: crime fighting tactics still hold up today and revisit the
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: PSAs that's scared inspired and permanently lodge themselves in our brains.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Speeding Human.
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  Speaker 3: Welcome to Speaking Human, where we simplify the world of
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: marketing for humans. I'm Shad Conley, and with me is
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  Speaker 3: my co host Patrick Jebber. How's it going there, Pat.
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  Speaker 2: It's good, but it's even better when you fight crime
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: like a dog.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, a dog in a trench coat.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean that's so clearly the right mascot for
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: crime fighting.
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: So yeah, I'm doing good. You know, going down memory lane,
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: it's something we love to do.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, every once in a while we take these strolls.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, strolls. This one's pretty unique. I don't think we've
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: ever touched on We've never touched on McGruff.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: No.
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  Speaker 3: I think if you touch on McGruff, I might be
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  Speaker 3: a crime. I don't know what the sentencing is, but
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  Speaker 3: it's it's probably pretty bad. Don't touch me, kids, don't
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  Speaker 3: let anyone touch on you, and never touch on McGruff.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: That was real.
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  Speaker 3: That Yeah, that was that was not me. That was
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  Speaker 3: a recording of an old commercial.
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  Speaker 2: So I got a little trivia for you today. I
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: think this is gonna be a fun one because this trivia,
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  Speaker 2: believe it or not, has some merit, maybe even a
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: little trickery happening in here.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, merit and trickery.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, merit in that. You know, we are going to
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  Speaker 2: be talking about some of these PSAs today, and trickery
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  Speaker 2: in that. I'm gonna basically so this is how I'm
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: gonna set it up. Okay, So I'll give you a name.
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  Speaker 2: You tell me whether it's a real PSA slash safety
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  Speaker 2: mascot or one I made up. Okay, all right, okay
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  Speaker 2: McGruff the crime Dog real or fake?
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  Speaker 3: That one's real?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, I gave you the easy one right off
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  Speaker 2: the bat. All right, yeah, all right, Scruff McGruff reeal
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  Speaker 2: or fake?
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  Speaker 3: That sounds fake, but maybe it just sounds so fake
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  Speaker 3: it's real. Oh but I'm gonna say.
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  Speaker 2: It's fake, that's real, that's real. Okay, Yeah, that's McGruff's nephew,
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  Speaker 2: Scruff McGruff kind.
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  Speaker 3: Of like the scrappy do to his Scooby Doo.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So all right, Sparky the fire Dog.
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: That one's real.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: That is real. That is real. That's a National Fire
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  Speaker 2: Protection Association mascot.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, Sparky, that's good.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: I like Sparky, and it's a fire dog. Sparky. You
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: know there's you know, spark How about Louis the lightning Bug.
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  Speaker 3: That's fake.
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  Speaker 2: No, that's absolutely real.
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  Speaker 3: That's real too.
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  Speaker 2: Louis is an electrical safety mascot.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, okay, yeah, he's Louie.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: How about officer sniffs.
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  Speaker 3: I mean it seems like they're all real. I'm gonna
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  Speaker 3: I'm gonna go with the real.
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  Speaker 2: All right, this one's fake. You should have went with
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: fake on this.
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: Officer sniffs not real. Well, that's catchy.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: I like officer sniffs.
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  Speaker 3: I mean it sounds as good as the others.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: All Right, I know you're gonna get this one. This
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: one's easy. Vincent Larry the crash test dummies.
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  Speaker 3: I know those guys. I know those guys. Those guys
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  Speaker 3: are very very real.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: How about woodsy owl?
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: Woodsy owl sounds real.
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  Speaker 2: Good, you got it? Give a hoot. Don't pollute?
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  Speaker 3: That's woodsy Okay, so he's uh, take care of the
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  Speaker 3: forest kind of owl.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, don't pollute, you know, in the environmental Yeah, all right,
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  Speaker 2: how about safety Steve the seat belt retriever.
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  Speaker 3: Safety, that's that's fake.
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  Speaker 2: Good, you're catching on to the fake ones.
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  Speaker 3: Safety Steve.
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  Speaker 2: Safety, Steve the seat belt retriever.
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  Speaker 3: Why would you need to retrieve your I guess to
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  Speaker 3: put it on.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, Darren the Lion.
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  Speaker 3: I want to say it's fake, but I'm gonna say
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  Speaker 3: it's real.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a Dare mascot.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, Dare. I was like, what could it be? But
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  Speaker 3: that makes sense?
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  Speaker 2: All right? And the last one, Clicky the seat belt Squirrel.
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  Speaker 3: It's gotta be fake. Please tell me it's fake.
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  Speaker 2: Sadly that one is fake. Yes, so you got you
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  Speaker 2: got a good chunk of the you know, once you
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  Speaker 2: caught on fake versus real. I mean, they can't all
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: be fake.
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  Speaker 3: Well that first stretch of real ones really just threw
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  Speaker 3: me off.
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  Speaker 2: Louis the Lightning Yeah, well.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: We got Louis the Lightning Bug. We got Scruff mcgrauth.
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  Speaker 3: It was kind of like, Okay, I guess anything goes here.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, Sparky the fire Dog, I mean they're all those
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  Speaker 2: are all really good, you know too, So this is
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  Speaker 2: what we're dealing with. You know, there's a lot of
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  Speaker 2: mascots out there.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. No, that's a good list to kind of bring
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: us into the topic today because it shows you kind
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: of how extensive the PSA category is. You don't really
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: think about it being that big until you kind of
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: start to dive in and peel it back and think
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  Speaker 3: about all the ones there were just those ones you mentioned,
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: You start to think about all the characters that were created,
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  Speaker 3: particularly in the eighties and nineties when they were really
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: like pushing these and seeing that they kind of worked
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  Speaker 3: in a way. You had all these different ones emerging
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: for these different groups and like doing these different things.
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  Speaker 3: I'm dare in the line for dare you know, I'm
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  Speaker 3: like associated with a different group or a different cause
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  Speaker 3: or something like that. You're like, oh, there's actually a
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  Speaker 3: lot of these.
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  Speaker 2: Out there, a lot of cartoons obviously a.
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  Speaker 3: Lot of cartoons with kids or you know, geared toward kids.
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  Speaker 3: And one of the big ones is, you know, kind
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  Speaker 3: of our main topic we're going to talk about today,
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  Speaker 3: which is McGruff the Crime Dog. So back in the
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  Speaker 3: nineteen eighties and nineties, McGruff the Crime Dog was everywhere,
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  Speaker 3: this trench coat wearing bloodhound telling kids to take a
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  Speaker 3: Bite out of crime, warning about drugs, kidnappings, and stranger
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  Speaker 3: danger in a style that somehow managed to be both
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  Speaker 3: goofy and genuinely intense. But after fading from the spotlight
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  Speaker 3: for years, McGruff got an unexpected reboot in twenty twenty
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  Speaker 3: through a campaign called Go for Real, educating young people
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  Speaker 3: about counterfeit pills, fentanyl, and online scams. But even that
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  Speaker 3: comeback was short lived. In twenty twenty five, the presidential
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  Speaker 3: administration cut nearly two million in federal funding tied to
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  Speaker 3: the campaign, forcing the National Crime Prevention Council to scale
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  Speaker 3: back research, cancel new PSAs, and scramble for other ways
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  Speaker 3: to keep this old dog alive. So McGruff still kind
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  Speaker 3: of out there. He's come back, but he's you know,
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  Speaker 3: he's faded. His heyday's a little bit over, but he's
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  Speaker 3: still kicking around out there. He's still on the beat.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, the world's changed.
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  Speaker 3: It's like McGruff, we need you to come back. And he,
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  Speaker 3: you know, puts on his trench coat, runs out there
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  Speaker 3: and then they're like, all right, McGruff, I think we're good.
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  Speaker 3: Funding got cut. It's like bureaucracy. So, you know, going
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  Speaker 3: back to the heyday. We grew up in that kind
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  Speaker 3: of the heyday of McGruff. What are your memories of
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  Speaker 3: this guy? Do you have memories of McGruff?
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  Speaker 2: And I remember the way it worked back then was
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  Speaker 2: you were watching TV, You're watching some cartoon, or you
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  Speaker 2: were watching something on the tube, and then this would
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  Speaker 2: just pop up. I would say, usually it was Saturday
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  Speaker 2: Morning cartoons. Yeah, which makes a lot of sense, you know.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, they're appeal to that audience. Kids. He's a cartoon,
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  Speaker 2: he's got some sort of life lesson in a fifteen
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  Speaker 2: thirty second commercial public service announcement as it were. So yeah,
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  Speaker 2: I just remember that. And you know he had that voice,
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  Speaker 2: and he had that sort of gruff or dare I
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  Speaker 2: say McGruff voice.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. If you grew up in this time, it was
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  Speaker 3: one of those things. You know, you just knew who
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  Speaker 3: McGruff was. You didn't think about it. It went in
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  Speaker 3: and you knew who that was. If you ask anybody,
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  Speaker 3: they knew who it was. I mean, I saw this statistic.
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  Speaker 3: I can't verify it, but it said by nineteen eighty eight,
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  Speaker 3: ninety nine percent of children between the ages of six
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  Speaker 3: and twelve recognized McGruff putting him on par with Ronald McDonald.
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  Speaker 3: It sounds crazy, but I think that seems right for
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  Speaker 3: that time period. That's how kind of like just recognizable
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  Speaker 3: he was. And take a Bite out of Crime was
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  Speaker 3: one of those taglines that when you were a kid,
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  Speaker 3: probably even now just kind of like stuck in your brain.
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  Speaker 3: I can like hear him saying.
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  Speaker 2: That, Yeah, it was easy. This is the thing, especially
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  Speaker 2: with any of the mascots or the PSA's back then.
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  Speaker 2: They took these really big, scary concepts and then gave
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  Speaker 2: kids this sort of like clear mental shortcut almost, you
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  Speaker 2: know what I mean, Like crime is bad, you know,
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  Speaker 2: be alert, you know, tell an adult that kind of stuff.
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  Speaker 2: They flattened the complexity into something super simple that kids
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  Speaker 2: could understand, and I think that's what's the most memorable
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  Speaker 2: about it anyway.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and as you mentioned, you know, the TV component
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  Speaker 3: can't be under sold. This was in a time of
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  Speaker 3: pretty limited TV options. Cable was there, but it was
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  Speaker 3: kind of just emerging. You basically had these few channels
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  Speaker 3: and this stuff was just bombarded on us as kids.
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  Speaker 3: Like the main times you're watching TV, which was after
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  Speaker 3: school and like Saturday mornings that's when like cartoons were
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  Speaker 3: on and that's and you would see these things like
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  Speaker 3: non stop. It's strange to me how I can remember
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  Speaker 3: almost all the words from a commercial where McGruff sings
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: a song about how users are losers talking about drug users,
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  Speaker 3: and it's like kids are running in a park, but
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  Speaker 3: it's all almost like they're in my head. I can
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  Speaker 3: hear the tune and I can hear the lyrics to
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  Speaker 3: the song, and I don't know why. It just probably
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  Speaker 3: you know, it just imprinted on me over and over
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  Speaker 3: and over.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's such a weird thing for us in our
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: generation to look back and this is why we sound
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: like old people. You know. It's like our parents and
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: their parents, you know, like, oh, back in the day,
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: we only had radio, and you go, yeah, I like kim.
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  Speaker 2: People are like, yeah, I don't really care about that,
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  Speaker 2: Like you just sound like an old person. But this
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: is the reality is like things were so limited. I
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: look at today and I go, man, just how you
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: couldn't do that today? Yeah you could flood TikTok, or
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: you could flood Snapchat, or you could flood any social
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  Speaker 2: media channel, and yeah, you'll probably get some eyeballs on it,
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  Speaker 2: but it won't be the same thing because they have
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  Speaker 2: a lot of options. They can scroll, they can flick through,
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  Speaker 2: they can close an app, and we didn't have that option,
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  Speaker 2: and so we were just kind of soaking it in
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  Speaker 2: because we had no other choice, you know what I mean,
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  Speaker 2: or very limited anyway.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, there was like one big stream, you know, the
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  Speaker 3: kind of like monoculture, whereas now there's like a million
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: smaller streams. Even if some of them are big, they're
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  Speaker 3: nothing like that one all powerful thing that was just
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  Speaker 3: kind of zapping into all our brains. Yeah, you think
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  Speaker 3: McGruff was effective? Do you think it worked? You know
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: this cartoon who was like report a crime if you
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  Speaker 3: see it or don't use drugs? Do you think that
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  Speaker 3: was effective?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I would love to ask you this question, you know,
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  Speaker 2: like because you remember the you remember word for word
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  Speaker 2: the song, and I bet you you've reported a crime
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  Speaker 2: or two, haven't you shed.
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  Speaker 3: It's all I do is report crimes.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: They'd like stop calling people are like, mister connolly, can
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: you please stop taking a bite out of crime?
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: Like maybe maybe take a nibble.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So I think in a lot of ways it
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  Speaker 2: is effect you know, it's effective enough where it is
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: to use your words imprinted on us in our generation.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean, I can't say that it
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: like stopped crime, because that would have been the ultimate
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: and effectiveness. Right.
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  Speaker 3: Why do you think there's no crime now then?
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: Maybe? Honestly, and I don't I can't attribute this to McGruff,
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: but I could tell you there were levels of anxiety
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: I remember as a kid about crime. Yeah, just being careful,
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: being alert. There's strangers and stuff like that. I remember
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: I used to ride my bike to the end of
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: my driveway sometimes and I would be scared when I
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: like a car that I didn't know would be driving
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: down the street and be like ah, and I'd ride
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: my bike back up to our house. You know. Was
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: that because of McGruff. I'd like to say no, but
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: who knows.
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: Probably that was part of it. I feel like we
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: were getting it from all over the place. A lot
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: of things were like pointing kids toward danger, Yeah, like
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: don't do this or this is gonna happen to you.
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: So I agree with you. There was like a lot
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: of anxiety around this stuff like look off, this creeper's
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: coming around and stuff like that. They were doing on
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: commercials they were doing on TV shows. I think it
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: was with good intentions, but it did get in your head,
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: especially when a cartoon's like telling you this stuff and
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: you're young enough you listen. Joe Camill did the same thing.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: You see this guy like, I don't know, this cartoon
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: looks pretty cool with his cigarette hanging out of his
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: giant camel face.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there is there's some truth to it.
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: So yeah, you kind of start talking about this. Do
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: you think you could do this now? Do you think
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: it would translate into our current generation or time period.
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  Speaker 2: I don't think it's going to be as effective if
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: I'm looking at it and just saying, you know, does
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: this translate for a number of reasons, one being what
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: we talked about, just the exposure and trying to get
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: that exposure to a mass audience. I don't know how
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: you do that in a way that mirrors what we experienced.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: You know, like all kids watching cartoons on Saturday morning. Yeah,
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: good luck with that.
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: Or even you know, the brand setting in or the
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: familiarity where like half the kids know who this is.
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: Something can go viral and become a thing. I guess
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: that could happen, but the other you know, the other
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: piece I think about it is we also have the
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: Internet commenting on everything in real time now, which we
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: didn't have back then, which is why you could have
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: these kind of characters and Schwartzenegger and yacht rock and
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: sitcoms and all these things that were a little corny
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: and you might make fun of them a little bit
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: in your friend groups, but it wasn't like, didn't read
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: like wildfire and become like kind of undercut them. Yeah,
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: they could still exist and be sincere, and that would work.
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: I don't know that that can work now. It has
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: to go through the cycle where it's like made fun
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: of trashed and then maybe comes around to the other side.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and kids are you know, more media savvy today.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: I feel like, you know what I mean, if I
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: were to like make a pun, you know, they can
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: sniff out fake sincerity mm hmm. It makes it very
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: difficult for him to be able to just wag his
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: finger and be like, you know, don't do drugs, you
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: know what I mean, because they're looking at it going okay.
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe he becomes a funny meme mm hmm, and
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: then the message still kind of gets across, but is
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: it as effective. I don't know.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when everybody's making fun of it, or when the
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: comment trolls are out there, it's tough to make a
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: difference in that way. In that same way anyway, pop
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: up Thunderdome, we love a pop up thunderdome. McGruff versus
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: Smokey the Bear. Who are you taking and why this
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: is actually a pretty good matchup? I think?
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: M hm.
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: So I try to do it like we would do
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: kind of some of our other thunderdomes. I try to
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: break it down to a few different categories so to
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: try to figure out who's the winner here, Like I'm
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: thinking about physical build all right, Like say they're even
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: going at each other. I think in that sense, I
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: think Smokey has the advantage of there. Yeah, he's a
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: little bigger, a little more muscular. They're physically battling. I
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: think Smokey's gonna win.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Is he a grizzly bear?
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: I don't know if his class of bear was ever
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: spoken of. I don't know.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: I'm sure somebody could probably tell us what that is
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: just by looking at him, but I don't know.
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know either.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, he's gonna take out a dog though.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: He is, and you know, McGruff is a little he's
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: like kind of like a beaten down old dog too
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: a little bit. Then the other thing I was looking
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: at was the voice. And the voice I had to
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: go with mcgruf. He's kind of like a nineteen forties detective.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: A little bit.
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's like, you know, a little grizzled and stuff
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: like that. Though I listened back to Smoking the Bear,
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: who had a few different voices, a little weak in
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: kind of the eighties and nineties. But they later on
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: they got Sam Elliott.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: Oh really the smoky voice.
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and like the two thousands, so later on they
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: kind of toughened him up a little bit. I'm gonna
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: say McGruff for the voice.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: Okay, here's a good one.
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: Let me know what you think on this one. The
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: tagline McGruff, as we talked about, is a take a
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: bite out of crime. Smokey's got only you can prevent
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: forest fires. They're both good, you know, they're both like
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: to the point I lean towards McGruff. There it's a dog,
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: he's biting crime. I like that. So that's McGruff. Then
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: the name, Yeah, gotta be Smoky. Yeah, Smokey, it's very
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: on theme. McGruff is a funny name, He's gruff, but
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: I don't know what the hell that actually means. So
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: then kind of last thing, I went to the longevity,
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: and they've both been around a long time decades, but
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: Smokey been around since like the nineteen forties. So I
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: like McGruff a little better. But I think Smokey probably
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: takes this. He's probably, in my mind, the Thunderdome winner.
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: I don't know, do you have a different opinion here?
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: Now? I think you're right. I mean I like them both, Okay,
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: I didn't go into every detail that you did when
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: I was decided.
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: I don't know why.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, those are all really good points though, including
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: like the voice. Here's what I will say. McGruff has
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: the harder job, for sure, because crime that's complex. Man.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: It's broad too, and it's a harder message because it's
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: so broad. You know, he's touching on so many different
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: things throughout the PSA. Smokey has this sort of cleaner message.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: Only you could prevent wildfires one sentence, one behavior, one job,
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: one job exactly, just don't light a fire in the woods, right,
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: So I think in that way, Smokey has a better
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: brand because of this whole thing, you know. Yeah, that
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: and his age. He stood the test of time. Yeah,
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: McGruff is old, but Smokey's older.
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good point. McGruff has a much harder
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: challenge all of crime mm hmmm, which is probably why
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: he looks older and more beaten down.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: Here's one thing I you know, just thrown out there.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: A good voice for Smokey today would be Nick Offerman,
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: and he has the same stature as Smoking the Bear Like.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: I could see him just being the human version of
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: Smoky the Bear like standing next to Smokey. You know.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's a good one.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: So Thunderdome, I think it's Smoky Smokey wins that.
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: I think Smokey does too. Unfortunately he takes it from
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: our our guy McGruff. But good, good match up there.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The second part of this episode, we're going to
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: talk a little bit about other PSAs, because.
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: We've talked a little bit about them as.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: We're going, But we're each going to share one memorable PSA.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: There's a lot to choose from. I have a feeling
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: there's like a top five that we both sort of
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: think about when we think of these PSAs from our childhood.
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there's kind of a top group too.
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: So I have a couple on deck. I'm wondering, what
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: if you have one specific you want to talk about,
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: because I'm afraid we're going to overlap.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: Well, you go first, because I have a few I
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: could pick from. I kind of wrote a little bit
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: about each one. So if you go first, then I'll
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: just make sure I don't pick the same one as you.
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: Okay, I'll kind of talk about two in one here
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: a little bit because they're from the same year, produced
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: by the same group, which is the partnership for a
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: Drug for America. So there's two that kind of came
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: out same point nineteen eighty seven. One is this is
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: your Brain on Drugs and the other one was I
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: learned it from watching you. Both of these legendary anti
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: drug commercials often parodied every eighties kid. Just remember these
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: Seared in the Brain. I knew they were the same
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: time period. I was surprised they were the same year
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: they came out. For those who don't know, this is
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: your Brain on Drugs. In this PSA, a man stands
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: in a kitchen. He's kind of talking to us the
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: camera and he holds up an egg and says, this
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: is your brain. He then points to a frying pan
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: and says this is drugs, and then after cracking the
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: egg in the sizzling pan, he delivers the iconic line,
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: this is your brain on drugs, any questions. So it's
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: kind of this simple visual metaphor to basically tell you
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: that using drugs fries your brain. So that was one
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: that was a big one. Then the other one, you know,
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: I learned it from watching you. We get this teenage
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: kid who's in his room on his bed, and then
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: his father comes in. He's got kind of this box
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: and he's like confronts him and he's angrily talked to him.
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: He wants to know where he got these drugs and
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: who taught you to do this stuff, and you know,
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: the kid tries to deny it a little bit, and
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: then he finally explodes and yells.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: You, all right, I learned it from watching you.
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: And they kind of, you know, the father's kind of
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: like take it aback, just shocked. And then we get
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: the narrator who says parents who use drugs have children
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: who use drugs really like very dead, serious, ominous tone.
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: And this one was different because where a lot of
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: the ads were aimed at teens, this one was targeting
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: kind of parents and saying, you know, you're the source,
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: you're doing it, your kids are gonna do it. This
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: doubleheader for me were like standouts, pretty memorable. Whether these
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: actually stops people from using drugs very debated. People say
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: they were definitely effective. They were definitely memorable. You know,
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: they kind of like changed attitudes towards drugs. But whether
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: they actually stopped people from using drugs or whether these
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: like kind of fear tactics were a good method, you know,
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: has has been hotly debated. I would say this time,
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: if we're going eighties nineties, this is one.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: Of the top five.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: I think.
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: Was that in your in your Ballpark?
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah. I think these two fault definitely in that
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: top handful of really important and memorable ones. I think
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: they both did what they were intended to do very well.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: One was more the scare factor, you know that this
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: is your brain on drugs. I think that was more
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: of like the scariness of it, because you're you're really
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: just showing something that is clearly not your brain and
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: clearly not drugs. But this is like to represent that.
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: Good idea too, more cerebral than emotional, you know, yeah,
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: kind of like, oh, this is what happens.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and then the other one, you know. So it's
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: more of like basically flipping a little bit this idea
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: and putting the ownership back on the adult that the
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: adult is part of the problem, they could also be
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: part of the solution. Both very effective in that way,
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: and I really like that about them. I'm glad you
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: picked those that allowed me to pick something different. I'm
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: going to choose one that I think everybody still talks
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: about to this day, still say it in jest and
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: periodiot to some degree, And that's The More You Know,
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: which launched in nineteen eighty nine. NBC launched The More
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: You Know in September of that year, with Tom Brokaw
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: appearing in the first PSA. The campaign then followed NBC's
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: earlier kid focused PSA series One to Grow On, which
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: aired from eighty three to eighty nine, and it started
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: with education Right. This campaign was originally created in response
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: to concerns about a teacher shortage in the late nineteen eighties.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: So the first spots focused on education and encouraging people
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: to support teaching, and then it basically became a brand.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: This formula and consistency made it recognizable, and the graphic
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: and the soundkey almost became as important as the actual message.
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I can still remember the.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: Thing the more, you know. Yeah, And then you had
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: all these familiar TV faces, cast members from er sitcom stars.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: It just kept going and it covered so many issues
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: over the years, and everything from reading, staying in school, volunteering, addiction, bullying, diversity,
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: mental health, civic participation. It just goes on and on.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: You know, it's a PSA, but it's this ongoing PSA.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: They lasted for more than thirty five years. Some will
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: argue that the campaign is still very much alive even today.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: You know, we talk about how do you get at
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: McGruff and how do you get the you know, how
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: do you get these guys to sort of live in
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: today's world. This campaign still technically is active, okay is it?
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: In twenty twenty five, they still had the first animated
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: psays narrated by Saturday Night Live's ego Wottom, where they
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: had like spots focused on mental health. So twenty as
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: late as twenty twenty five, I don't I didn't see
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: anything about twenty twenty six.
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: But yeah, that's wild. I had new idea.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: But it's received all these award, national award recognition for
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: different reasons, the Peabody Award. But I'll tack this on
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: as a PSA and because of where we are in
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: today's world, you know, we talk about this like is
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: it translatable today? It's also become very mockable. I know,
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: just in passing in my own circles, somebody would say
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: something that sounded like a PSA will be like the
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: more you know, you know, does it cut it down
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: like you were talking about in that parody or that
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: mockery of it. People when they make fun of something,
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: does it lessen it or does it continue to keep
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: that alive? But just in a different way. I don't know.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: You could argue like maybe it's not as effective now
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: because of that, or maybe it's just as effective because
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: the memory lives on with that brand.
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, or it's still the message is still getting across,
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: even if it's in a comical, you know way. But
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: this is a good one. I'm glad you picked it.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: It's one of those things you can see in your mind,
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: I can see the star shooting across and hear those
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: like audio brand, you know, the little tones they had
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: that go with it, And it was always interesting to
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: see like, oh, who's gonna pop up and do this?
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: You know, is it Kirk Cameron? Is it Michael J. Fox?
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: What show star would like? News person or athlete? Who
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: are they going to get to do it? Is a
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: mister t you know, who are we gonna yet? What
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: are they going to be talking about? There were just
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: so many of these.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: And that was also part of it, you know what
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: I mean this Like we often joke about, you know
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: how celebrities and their sort of like collabs with brands
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: and things like that, but this was like one of
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: the first and more truer forms of those collaborations early
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: on for a good cause. Most of the time.
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, part of me wonders if it was like, especially
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: for the contract stars on NBC, if it was like
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: you have to you have to go down and film
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: this thing and they're like come on.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure there were some of them. Some of
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: them you know, were like probably like this is this
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: is a fool's errand.
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: I have to throw out here's the one. The other
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: one I was thinking about that I thought you might do.
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: You kind of mentioned it earlier. You mentioned Larry and
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: Vince the crash Test dummies. You can learn a lot
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: from a dummy. Hard for me not to throw those
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: guys in there, because they had so many commercials. They
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: were everywhere. I think they had a toy at one point,
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: so they did like fourteen years of that. And also
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: the voice of Larry on the commercials was the same
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: voice Peter Bankman and the Real Ghostbusters cartoon Garfield on
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: the Garfield cartoons, so very like recognizable if you were
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: a kid in that time, and that I feel like
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: that tagline really good. And this was a time when
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: people weren't wearing seat belts, and you know where we
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: are now, everybody wears a seat belt. It's like it's
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: kind of weird to see somebody not wear a seatbelt. Yeah,
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: so really, you know, kind of did did some work there?
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: Did you have any you want to throw out?
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: I did, Like, you know, it's ten pm, do you
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: know where your children are? M Yeah, we were talking
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: about earlier in the show this sort of anxiety and
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: doucing thing that happened back then with PSAs and us
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: getting hit with him all over the place, like this
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: is one of those and this was really geared towards parents.
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that one was almost more effective as a kid
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: because it was scarier. It was like less, they weren't
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: putting on the kid gloves to deliver the message to you.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And there was no mascot, no metaphor. It was
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: just basically almost in a way, it weaponized the clock, right, yeah,
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: it's late, you know where your kids are.
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: And I mean that probably changed mentalities a lot. You
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: think of like basically when you watch things from like
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: the seventies where it just seemed like kids were kind
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: of set loose and they kind of did whatever to
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: our world now of like you know, parents knowing where
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: their kids are at all times. Yeah, yeah, so just
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: a real, you know, kind of cultural shift there.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: So we're talking a lot about PSAs today, and here's
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: here's my takeaway. What's interesting about McGruff and all of
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: these old PSAs is how they show the power of
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: simple messaging. Their best PSA's take something big, scary or
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: even hard to explain and give people away into it.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: A dog in a trench coat, an egg and a
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: frying pan, a bear pointing at you from the woods.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: These things stick because they turn public problems into images
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: we can instantly understand, and it can make the message
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: memorable enough that decades later, these two grown men right
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: here are still talking about a cartoon dog who wanted
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: us to take a bite out of crime. So maybe
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: the real lesson is, if your message matters, make it
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: simple enough to remember the.
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: More, you know. I think that's good, though, you know,
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: there's something about looking at these efforts and how they
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: really boiled things down. Not only boil things down, but
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: let's boil things down so we can get it to
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: a kid's brain. And that's not necessarily a bad idea
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: to think about, no matter who you're trying to reach,
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: even if you're going for an adult audience, Like, how
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: can we make this simple enough that a six year
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: old would be able to understand this rather than like
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: overcluttering it with you know, trying to put like everything
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: in there and making it too complex.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the simple message is always the best. It's something
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: that we often talk about in marketing, and I think
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: that it's it's a good takeaway.
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: Gotta get it back. We need more PSAs.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: We do right now, right now, more than ever. All Right, Well,
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: that's it for today's episode. You can find current and
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: past episodes of the podcast on speakinghuman dot com.
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: We'll be back in two weeks with another episode of
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: Speaking Human. Catch you then, Humans
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: Speaking Human