Serious students of TV Guide understand that the program listings are pale enticement when compared to the ad inserts. Set off by a heavier stock of paper, these ads reach out to the impulse buyer too sedentary to visit an actual impulse aisle, but still desiring treacly and/or hyperpatriotic merchandise to decorate the trailer.
The Latest Offering
actual ad copy: Candlestick Park will be admired by all who see it.
critical commentary: This ad recalls a byegone time when sports venues were more moderately commercialized. The old name for 3COM Park, Candlestick Park, is preserved and miniaturized for all to remember -- a reality in which the "branding" had only gone two levels deep, to the NFL and the San Francisco Forty Niners. A new layer was added when someone working through or for 3COM decided that infamy is better for the company than total, deserved obscurity. A deal was cut, and the phrase "Candlestick Park" is now banned on NFL-sanctioned broadcasts -- but not yet in private homes.
Mouse and Baby
actual ad copy: He drifts off to dreamland with a good friend to cuddle nearby.
critical commentary: If this is cuddling, it is a very imbalanced variety of it: how alive the Disney Mouse Baby seems compared to the expressionless human, whose face suggests no contentment, nor joy, nor love. The human has no name of its own, it wears clothes matching the mouse's, and it bears the mouse insignia. Placing a baby next to a mouse with such an intense stare is probably an attempt to soften the mouse's image, but it fails. The highly alert mouse is even creepier next to such a still, indistinct, lifeless (if not dead) baby.
Bass Appreciation
actual ad copy: The entire edition is forever limited to just 45 casting days.
critical commentary: The official largemouth bass collector knife stands apart from and above the unofficial largemouth bass collector knives and the smallmouth bass collector knives alike. That the officiating entity is not named increases the ad's manly, confident, understated terseness. This machismo is most evident in the use of sentence fragments where more Oprahfied, estrogenic ads would waste precious casting days with complete sentences: "Wildlife art combined with incomparable knifemaking." [no verb] "Created in the finest traditions of wildlife art." [no subject] Given the brevity of fishing season and the limited casting days, the ad should have said, simply, "Kickass Bass Knife $37.50."
Get a Piece of the Glut
actual ad copy: The demand for these 22kt gold cards is sure to be great.
critical commentary: Some day, when no one can remember the names of the two men who almost made baseball believable as a spectator sport in 1998, all the trading cards, autographed scraps, and other collectible sports refuse can be gathered together and burned. The heat from this enormous bonfire can be used to melt these gold cards into something exchangeable, whereupon tomorrow's glutted sports collectibles market will cash out, if it does at all.
The Official Concealed Weapon of Vampire Hype
actual ad copy: As if by some terrible magic, the door of the coffin opens to reveal original art depicting the terrifying vampire...
critical commentary: When a fad finds expression on a knife offered in the pages of TV Guide, it ought to be near its end. Let's hope this is true of 90's vampire hype, the tiresome source of too many awful movies and fashions. The vampire knife is indeed terrifying, not as suggested in the ad but rather in the prospect that adults with the same voting and driving privileges as you or I would purchase it for $55 -- at which time they would be armed.
Shirley Temple Prior to the Rough Edge
actual ad copy: This is your opportunity to acquire the first-ever collector doll to portray Shirley Temple as a toddler!
critical commentary: At last, a doll is offered to comfort those put off by the abrasive, jaded Shirley Temple who sang "Good Ship Lollypop" to movie audiences. In the pre-fallen Shirley we glimpse a world a little less cruel.
A Lobotomy Patient Soothes Her Cat
actual ad copy: This make-believe nurse is tending to her kitten's 'injury' and making sure everything is all right.
critical commentary: Dolls are creepy. This example purports to show a sweet moment of tenderness between cat and kid. Judging from the facial expressions, however, it looks like the child is tottering and drooling in post-lobotomy stupor, and the cat is just about to lose patience. How much would you pay to recreate that scene on your mantle? The MSRP is several payments of $23.
Maximum Tweety Love
actual ad copy: Guess who loves Tweety the most? It's this adorable blue-eyed, blonde-haired little girl!
critical commentary: Whereas real life features children limited by noisiness, spittle, and non-aryan features, this ad beckons its audience toward the perfect, uncomplicated union of a lifeless doll and a lopsided, baby-talking cartoon bird. The idealization of childhood barely scratches the semiotic surface of this ad, which pictures a nameless doll with her famous sub-doll, representing children who love the rich, colorful imagery of cartoons and pester their parents into buying TV-themed toys. This doll appeals to the doll-buying public by showing an interest in doll-collecting -- modeling it, so to speak. These and other complicated-sounding layers of meaning present themselves. Where is a French poststructuralist theorist when you need one?
Harley Envy
actual ad copy: This sensational collector knife captures this legend of the open road as never before...The stainless steel blade bears the name of the motorcycle.
critical commentary: Wielding this knife may not recreate the sensation of riding a Harley with any realism, but it costs less and still offers the phallic expressiveness, which is critical. It is a knife that announces to an envious world, "my other car is a Harley -- I just felt like taking the Chevette tonight."
The Cult of Poppin Fresh
actual ad copy: The wooden display works with your figurines to create a working perpetual calendar. Show the month by moving the appropriate Doughboy figurine to the top of the display.
critical commentary: The utter impractibility of this calendar is striking. It is not possible, for example, to pencil in important dates on such a calendar. No, this calendar is all about Poppin Fresh, placing him at the center of the passage of time and proposing a sort of Poppin Fresh Zodiac. It asks -- and answers -- the question, "what is Poppin Fresh's pose this month?" and trades in an astonishing level of brand loyalty to Pillsbury, but allows for nothing more.
Elvis Under Glass
actual ad copy: The King actually sings 'Heartbreak Hotel' in this must for every Elvis collector! The only fine art miniature that plays an excerpt from the recording of this classic hit . . . officially authorized by Graceland.
critical commentary: Can it be coincidence, the selection of 'Heartbreak Hotel' for a rendering of The King encased in a plastic bubble? For the "Elvis collectors," Elvis embodies a definite developmental moment they never tire of reliving. Whatever it might have been, the Elvis moment can endure thanks to the time-defeating power of photorealistic porcelain. The Elvis action figure can never decline musically, gain weight, mumble through a drugged up stupor, shave off the muttonchops, or curse his excess fame: no, he can only look purty and sing classic hits on command. The ideal Elvis is made flesh. Meanwhile, the billions for whom the Elvis moment passed quickly tend to agree with the words of Peter and the Test Tube Babies: "Elvis is dead. Thank god! What a fat c**t he was!"
Jackie on Job Training
actual ad copy: Jackie Zeman, Bobbie Spenser Cassadine on ABC-TV's General Hospital says... "With ICS, you can train in your home for a better job, more money, and greater job security!"
critical commentary: While this ad's demographic targeting is masterful (the homebound TV Guide reader is exactly who would respond when TV's Bobbie Spenser Cassadine advocates for in-home degrees), the social ramifications are ominous. What if every dedicated soap watcher took the advice seriously? What happens when the reserve army of labor becomes dominated by well-trained scholars of Air Conditioning & Refrigeration, Floral Design, Bridal Consultation, Pet Grooming, and Day Care Management? The wage depression could be disastrous and pervasive. Shut-in's and others of lesser skill ought to stay at home but forget the degree. They also serve who stay on the couch.
The Queen of Country
actual ad copy: Tap your foot and hum along! The Queen of Country lights up the stage, ready to entertain you with the rousing chorus of 'Delta Dawn' -- played on her own 18-note musical movement.
critical commentary: The Queen of Country recalls the heyday of the pre-teen pageant circuit, a lost Eden in which the exhibition of sexualized toddlers was still considered normal and natural. These days, with child molestation such a hot button issue and the median age of breakout country recording artists creeping into the teens, solace can only take the form of an eternally-young figurine, her expression frozen in blank innocence, clutching a microphone too big for her hand, crooning lyrics she can't understand -- just the way it should be.
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