Month: August 2011

Panicky Smurf In The McDonald’s Happy Meal – WTF?

Chris Wilson1 Comment

There are times when I come walking through a room and notice a new plastic figurine (mainly because I step on it or kick it), and I know instantly that it is the toy from a McDonald’s Happy Meal.  Like a lot of other people I know, I probably eat less McDonald’s now than ever before, but I can still spot a Happy Meal toy, and the most recent one has me puzzled.

Here’s Panicky Smurf…

No, I’m not making that up.  It’s written on his foot, in a rather elegant (for a Smurf) script.

Panicky is one of 105 known Smurfs.  It is rumored that there are others, but they are no longer in SAG and have been excised from both Wikipedia and IMDB.  In other words, there are only 105 Smurfs.

The thing that has me so puzzled is this: how did Panicky Smurf land a role as one of the 16 Collectible Smurfs from McDonalds, a plastic ambassador for the new Smurf movie?

Let’s just start with the foundation of this situation – the Happy Meal – that evergreen promotional tool that always needs a new gimmick, a new way to charge a toll on those who would ride the pop culture super-highway.  The Smurf movie is a big hit; kids love it.  They beg mom and dad to take them for a Happy Meal so they can get their own Smurf.  And whamo, the Happy Meal delivers again.

(Let me just step aside here for a moment and throw out a disclaimer – Don’t take this as a criticism of McDonalds and their ilk.  If anyone deserves blame, it is we parents who foolishly accept the illogical premise that the only way to get Junior to shut up about the Smurfs is to buy him a Happy Meal.  I bet I could order one from Zappos, and it’d be here before I finish this sentence, and it would come with a Starbucks Gift Card that would exceed the cost of the Smurf itself, and I could have chosen from all 105 Smurfs, customized my Smurf’s get up, and posted it all to Facebook in less than two minutes.  We live in the future, yet we accept a stupid economic premise without question.  Anyway, we also deserve blame for not standing up to kids who use pestering as means of acquiring what they want.  We’re all guilty at times, but I believe a default position of NO for acquiring new toys is good for a person’s character.  It’s also the only way to have any sort of feng shui in your joint.)

Back to the curiosity du jour – evil or not, the Happy Meal has to operate within an ever more strict set of guidelines.  Most of them flow from fear of litigation.  The legal teams for big companies have a lot to say about what gets printed on boxes, published online and in literature, and made out of plastic and painted blue.  Don’t break a law, overstate a point, or offend anyone.  I’m guessing they have a checklist they use to review new stuff – it has to be organic, cage-free, free range, and without lead, nitrites, and BPA at the very least.  And then you’d assume that the political correctness whiners would weigh in.  So, for the life of me, how did PANICKY SMURF make it through?

I mean, it’s a Happy Meal!  With all of their environmentally-conscious and health conscious PR, how could this slip through?  What’s happy about a Smurf who would normally be whiling away the years in bliss but for his panicky disposition?  Not that Panicky doesn’t deserve our sympathy and encouragement…he does.  But are there really not 16 other Smurfs who would perhaps more appropriately reflect the values and feelings normally associated with the Happy Meal?

If you’ve got a few minutes to kill, go read all of the Smurfs and their descriptions off Wikipedia.  It’s awesome.

You’ll immediately notice famous and beloved Smurfs such as (descriptions directly from Wikipedia):

  • Vanity Smurf – Vanity Smurf is the epitome of a Narcissist. He has a flower in his hat, and he often holds a hand mirror, staring into his own reflection, which he kisses often. In the Hanna Barbera cartoon series, Vanity speaks in an effeminate voice.
  • Natural Smurf – Originally a full grown Smurf known as Natural Smurf, he had his age reversed, becoming a Smurfling, and then went by “Nat”. He wears light brown overalls, a straw hat, and goes barefoot. Nat can talk to animals and loves all things related to nature and the environment.
  • Alchemist Smurf – A Smurf with an unusual interest in doing his own chemical and magical experiments.
  • Finance Smurf – Finance Smurf is notable in Smurf comics for introducing the currency to his peers, after being fascinated by its use in the human world. It was abandoned after a while since using currency created poverty and corruption among them.

Now these are some upbeat Smurfs.  How could Panicky – bless his little blue heart – get picked over these standouts?  The media would eat each of these up in turn.  Can’t you just see Natural Smurf in a Levis ad?  And Vanity Smurf hanging with Paris Hilton on TMZ.  And Finance Smurf carousing with the Donald.  This all makes sense.  This all fits with how shit works these days.  And there are plenty of other Smurfs who are ready to go.  Blue bloods, one after the other, literally.  But Panicky?  It doesn’t add up…unless…

McDonalds is having an attack of conscience.

Maybe it’s just a sign of the times that even the Happy Meal needs to take it down a notch from time to time.  Maybe it’s time to put crassness aside and look around.  Take a good hard look and recognize that there are Panicky Smurfs everywhere, and they deserve to be in a Happy Meal just as much as Pretentious Smurf (who lives on the Upper East Side) and King Smurf (who lives on an island in the Bahamas).  Not everyone can have the carefree life of Lazy Smurf (He spends almost all his time sleeping, either in his bed, a hammock, on the grass, or anywhere, anytime, day or night.)

I guess that’s it.  This is just a subtle way for McDonalds to let us know they care about all of us.  Well, I for one would just like to stand up and say “Bravo! McD…”

But wait…if this is for real, seems like they’d have chosen Dabbler Smurf:

  • Dabbler is the most introverted and sentimental Smurf. He is constantly tormented by an inherent sadness, which stems from the inability of his friends and family to understand him. Dabbler’s life is a never-ending quest for love and to be understood. In what appears to be a positive turn, Dabbler eventually becomes Doctor Smurf when Papa Smurf leaves the village to visit Homnibus. Sadly, it comes to light that Dabbler has started dabbling in heroin, which he obtains as Doctor Smurf.  He finally dies of an overdose, with a painting of his redemption only half-finished by his side.

I guess I’m still confused.

Jackie Chan Has Slanted Eyes

Chris Wilson1 Comment

If you want to be a really good communicator, you have to be good at engineering the sequence of the content you’re delivering.  This is also true in charades – since acting something out and trying to get someone else to guess it is a very raw form of communication – a caveman-esque form, if you will.  In any case, I got roped into playing Cranium recently, which has a charades aspect to it.  If you (or anyone else) ask me to play a board game, I will say no.  If you ask me again, I will probably say no again.  If you keep pestering me, I will either spit my drink on you or say yes.  You never know.  This past weekend, I said yes because it was obvious that my board game-loving wife had her heart set on playing.  So we cozied up with two other couples and started drawing, acting, humming, deliberating, and rolling.

One question in our game was an “all-play” charades kind of question.  The clue was person.  So an actor from each team had to get his/her partner to guess the name of this person – Jackie Chan.  I was the actor on our team.  Someone yelled GO! and we started.  The first thing I did was pull my eyes into a squint to resemble the eyes of an Asian person.  Then, I started doing a bunch of awesome karate moves.  Bam!  In about 5 seconds, my wife guessed correctly and we were victorious.  Then, the inevitable post-question discussions ensued.

Amidst the laughter at how silly we looked – standard fare for games like this – there were accusations of racism, which made me lol.  Since when does identifying something by one of its most recognizable qualities amount to racism?  Since the word racism has completely lost its meaning, I guess.  Aaaanyway….

Turns out, my friend Mike was doing almost exactly the same thing.  However, he sequenced the information differently.  He started with semi-awesome karate moves, and then moved on to indicate the Asian eyes thing.  That’s what messed him up.

By starting with the eyes, I was using the biggest demographic that would lead to Jackie Chan – race.  Then, once I had that established, I got more specific by indicating what the person of that race is most known for.  It was either going to be Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan.  (I don’t know that my wife could have gone much deeper on Asian martial arts guys.)  The idea was to go from general to specific.  The human brain works like that, so if you want to communicate successfully with one, it’s something to keep in mind.

The alternative – starting with what the person is known for – becomes a problem when you think that doing karate moves could indicate a lot of things – it could be Jackie Chan, Elvis, David Lee Roth, etc.  Without a clear idea of what the initial part of the act was communicating, the Asian eyes bit just created confusion.  And loss.

Perhaps one of the most common causes of miscommunication is a mismatch with respect to context – one person thinks you’re talking about one topic; the other thinks something else.  Avoiding those types of issues is simply a matter of providing context first.  In other words, what are we talking about?  After that, we can move to what is it we’re saying about it.

Normally, successful communication moves people forward.  It’s how business gets done and human connections get formed.  When you’re playing Cranium, it just means you get to roll.  Yawn.

 

 

Rice Cereal is Murder

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This article about how rice cereal may lead to childhood obesity came across my radar today.  Even though it’s a few months old, I couldn’t resist using it as an example of how we really have to maintain a skeptical point of view in our modern society.  The experts really are so often full of shit, and the fear industry (aka, the media) is all too happy to peddle their inanity.  Here’s a quote to get us warmed up…

Doctor Alan Greene says that because white rice cereal is the number one source of calories from solid foods in a baby’s first year he believes it conditions children to prefer sugary processed foods.

Makes sense, right?  Or does it…

First of all, I think it’s safe to say that most babies do the rice cereal thing at some point.  So, if rice cereal is the culprit, then why aren’t more kids obese?  Sure, lots are, and the number is getting bigger every year, but we’re talking about causation here.  If you have 100 babies who eat rice cereal and rice cereal leads to childhood obesity, then somewhere close to 100 should turn out to be obese.  The reality today is that more like 20 would end up being obese.  According to the CDC,

The prevalence of obesity among children aged 6 to 11 years increased from 6.5% in 1980 to 19.6% in 2008.

Beyond the logical disconnect between what they say may be happening and what actually is happening is the underlying premise that a kid’s preference for one thing or the other impacts whether he or she becomes obese.  This is the part that steams me to no end.  WHO’S IN CHARGE AROUND HERE????  I could give a shit what my kid prefers as far as food is concerned.  I’m the boss.  Or rather, my wife is the boss when it comes to nutrition.  Kids are like dogs – they eat what you give them.  If you see a fat dog, there is only one reason – his owner feeds him too much or he is fed crap.  Same with kids.  So whether the rice cereal causes babies to prefer sugary processed foods is completely irrelevant if you’re on your game as a parent.  Feed them healthy food and obesity will never threaten.

Lastly, I’d just like to point out that Lewis and Clark bribed hostile indian tribes with sugar cubes as they traveled through dangerous territories in their search for the waterway to the west coast.  I’m guessing the indians didn’t have rice cereal, but lo and behold, they developed a quick preference for sugary (er uh, sugar) foods.  My point is that you can deprive a baby of sugary, processed foods as long as you want, but the moment that first hit of birthday cake crosses those lips, junior will be hooked.  The question from there is what will you do about it?

Will you let junior decide what junior eats?  Or will you tower over him as he cowers in your shadow and say, “I’m in charge.  You eat what I give you or you starve.”  From my perspective, the childhood obesity situation is simply due to the fact that most parents are more interested in being their kid’s best buddy than they are in raising healthy, well adjusted children.

(And lest I forget the standard counter-argument about food these days – that poor people can’t afford to eat healthy foods – let me just point out that they can definitely afford to eat less of unhealthy foods.)