Odd. With years of surfing experience under my belt I’ve never personally seen anyone wearing a surfing helmet, much less one shaped like this. Perhaps the manufacturer intended for the user to wear this Kaiser helmet while surfing the Internet? But the publication date of this magazine is from the 60′s, and from what I know of history the Internet wasn’t around then, so that shoots that theory out of the water.
Another thought is that this helmet provided protection while channel surfing, but how many channels did they have in the 60′s? This is pre-cable, so…what? Ten channels? Fifteen? Did people need cranium protection while walking back and forth between the couch and the television to change the channel?
And so the question remains. What exactly was this “surfing helmet” used for, and how much protection could a three dollar piece of plastic provide? Certainly this wasn’t DOT approved?
Some oversensitive types in America are claiming that a recent commercial aired in Australia is racist. Now, on the surface I can see the problem some people in America might have with this commercial, but since this is an Australian commercial, and I personally have no idea what their society is like down there, nor do I know anything about their culture, history, and daily living experiences, it’s unfair for me to project my American prejudices upon this twenty second television commercial and shout “racism”.
One internet poster wrote: “I wouldn’t consider this racist. Context does matter and the fried chicken thing really is an African-American stereotype thing.”
KFC Australia said of the advert: “It is a light-hearted reference to the West Indian cricket team.
It’s funny how certain people are quick to play the race card without taking the entirety of a situation into account, often seeing things through American eyes and never understanding that America is just one part of a larger whole that has differing opinions, ideas, and values.
Some of you people out there have got to relax a bit. Not everything you see is American-centric. If that were the case, then everyone in the world would sit down to take a crap, there would be no such thing as beer vending machines (which, IMHO, are one of God’s greatest creations), and animals would not be sacrificed during certain high holy days. Please, just get a grip on yourselves. We’re not the center of the world. The sooner you accept that fact the happier you’ll be.
To get into the marketing game you have to be smart, hip, and able to see beyond the next fad. It seems though that, at times, all of the good ideas have been taken, co-opted, and perverted until all hint of what made them special is lost. But, after seeing this clip, I’m renewed with a sense of awe at how “attention getting” this particular advertising gimmick is:
I know that similar ideas have been shared in the past, but I’ve never seen it applied to such affect. I can picture an intern, after having pulled the short straw, sitting alone in his cubicle with a tube of glue in one hand and a struggling fly in the other, wondering what poor choices in life had brought him to such lows…
Spotted this ad a few days ago, and am just as bewildered about it today as I was when I first saw it:
Is this the Michael Hutchence model? Perhaps Michael and David Carradine weren’t into closet kink, but rather suffered in silence with their secret shame of being cursed with gimp necks? A small part of me would like to think this is so, because I really want another Kick album.
Spotted this hand scrawled ad in an old comic printed in 1982:
Oh yeah, this guy seems legit.
Mr. Robert Robbins, welcome to the internet. I wonder what you’re up to nowadays. Did you move on to hawking Sea Monkeys and lawn darts, write a best seller, morph into a late night 1-900 spiritual adviser, discover a cure for an uncommon disease, become the manager for the hardest working rock band in Iowa, get married to your high school sweetheart, or perhaps even obtain the American white-picket dream…or are you among the faceless hordes living hand to mouth, day in and day out, surviving alone and unknown in a dank ground floor apartment, just trying to squeak by until the next payday when you can stock up on Top Ramen and perhaps bring down the balance on your out-of-control credit cards?
