Point of Personal Privilege: Hanna-Barbera's "Godzilla" was always equal parts cringe and creepy

 

I'm not going to get into the weird physics of this awful Hanna-Barbera schlock that could only have existed on American TV in the 1970s- like how the signal to summon Godzilla (yes, he's being summoned, more about that in a moment) is the same through the water and through the air, or how no matter where the ship is, when Godzilla appears he stands ankle-deep in the OCEAN right next to it.  Nor am I going to try to justify the presence of a stupid kid on what are always very dangerous scientific expeditions- again, that was just required content for a Hanna-Barbera offering at the time.  

Instead, I'm going to focus on the Scrappy Do of the show- Godzooky.  The presence of this obnoxious, clumsy, totally pointless annoyance bothered me even when I was a kid (if you didn't find Godzooky a time-wasting irritant by the time you are six years of age, there was something wrong with you.)  But as an adult, I realize that the character plays a vital and very disturbing role in the series.  

The revelation came when I read this query in the comment section:  "how does Godzilla simply appear seconds after he's called?  Is he following the boat around all the time?"  The answer is yes.  Yes, he is.  Godzilla is forever swimming around near the boat, keeping a respectful distance until he is called upon to put himself in danger for the benefit of the humans who are HOLDING HIS RELATIVE GODZOOKY HOSTAGE.  Clearly the "scientists" have made a deal with Godzilla- you don't destroy Japan anymore, you come whenever we call and risk your life for ours whenever we deem it necessary, and in turn we won't do what we want to do with Godzooky, which is kill him in the most painful way we can come up with. 

Godzilla isn't a friend to the humans, rushing to their aid, throwing himself at fire dragons and other Not Trademarked creatures to save everyone from doom at the risk of his own life.  He's a hit man forced to work for the mob that has his kid under their control and will mail back pieces of him if he doesn't reply "how high?" when told to "Jump."  Godzooky is tolerated because he's a non-human human shield; the instant something wonderful happens and Godzooky is no more, those scientists and that stupid kid are Godzilla food.  And they'll totally deserve it.  I want to see that episode.

By the way...this is the junk kids my age got fed along with Tom and Jerry (nonstop violence!), Sylvester and Tweety (pet abuse!) and Roadrunner (animal cruelty!)  Kids today get Bluey, Peppa Pig, Pupstruction, SuperKitties, Paw Patrol, Doc McStuffins....maybe they can't afford to attend college without taking out loans they'll never pay off, maybe they'll never own a house, and maybe they'll hold down two dozen different jobs over the course of their lifetimes, but no one can argue that their choice of animated entertainment is vastly superior to the stuff we were assaulted with growing up.  

  

Rinvoq is an Rx for an entirely unfamiliar life?

 

As near as I can tell, a prescription for Rinvoq comes with unlimited amounts of travel and adventure money, a supercharged level of youthful energy, and a crowd of cool friends to hang out with.  It also comes with a myriad of skills you didn't previously have- rock-climbing, skiing, guitar-building, gourmet cooking, etc.- and a permanent vacation from what used to be the everyday routine before you started to take this amazing pill or injection or whatever it is Sign Me Up!*

*can I get the version that doesn't come with the cool friends, though?  I don't need cool friends to remind me that I wasn't cool until I started taking Rinvoq.  I didn't need cool friends BEFORE I started taking Rinvoq.  As the comedians say, a friend will help you move a couch- but more often will need a couch moved.  A GOOD friend will help you move a body.  I'd rather deal with those minor stresses by myself than deal with the major stress that comes with having "friends."  Heck, I'd rather deal with all these awful Possible Side Effects that come with Rinvoq  than the CERTAIN side effects that come with having "friends."

I don't care how much it costs- if you buy a Nissan Sentra without the Sport Mode option, you are cheating yourself..

 

After all, look what the simple addition of this option offers you:  With just a click of a button, you are instantly relieved of any responsibility for staying within the legal speed limit.  Stop signs and red lights do not apply to you.  And (as near as I can tell) pedestrians are required to leap out of your way and other automobiles to pull over to let you move along.  I assume that Sport Mode engages flashing red and blue lights and a siren, I'm just not sure why they weren't shown in the actual commercial.

Because nothing is as good as it appears on television, I must also assume that there are limits as to when the owner of a Nissan Sentra is allowed to engage "Sport Mode."  You probably can't use it if you are late to your shift at McDonald's or want to swerve around the three cars in front of you in the Drive-Thru.  But if you need to get home to your Suburban Estate because your dog is doing damage to your furniture, crank that thing up and let everyone know that your need to get home has become the most important thing in the Universe and will continue to be for however long it takes you to get to your driveway.  And if another car or a pedestrian rudely fails to notice that your car is in Sport Mode, well, dents can be fixed, scratches can be buffed out, and blood washes off easily.  Time?  You never get that back.  

Tiktok, the sands of time are running out on you....

 

Time to celebrate the utter failure of millions of dollars in propaganda shoveled on to American television last year, competing for airspace with commercials for Gambling Makes Sports More Fun Apps and Whiskey and Beer Makes Everything Better messages, designed to convince my fellow countrymen that before the Chinese created the brain cancer that is Tiktok nobody ever organized into groups or started small businesses or did much of anything at all.  How civilization developed before the Communist Party's favorite data-mining tool was created is something I'll leave to real historians, because as near as I can figure, nothing involving more than two people is possible without the benefit of the most important contribution to human society since cultivated rice. 

Assuming that four members of the Supreme Court (plus Clarence Thomas, who I'll assume has already negotiated his price and banked it in advance) can't be paid off to strike down the House and Senate action to force the sale of Tiktok, the app will disappear from American phones in 270 days.  Thousands of Health Coaches, Life Coaches, Couch Activists, Multi-Level Marketing Gurus, Preachers and other grifters will have to seek out real lives and maybe (horrors) have to seek out a way to make an honest living.  Thousands of others will simply have to find something else to do that doesn't involve making total jackasses of themselves for the benefit of an unseen (but hopefully subscribing) audience.  I have this weird idea that small businesses will survive and life will go on, maybe even better than before the Asian Brain Rot reached our shores just a few years before COVID with more devastating effects on our mental health, but maybe I'm just an incurable optimist.

Here's a heartfelt prayer to the multi-billionaires out there- please, keep your money in your wallets.  Don't bid for this valuable-yet-worthless nonsense.  Do the patriotic thing and just Let. It. Die.  Better yet, buy the rights to it, and shelve it.  The person who does that will deserve the Nobel Peace Prize and earn the gratitude of future generations into perpetuity. 

A few mean-spirited takes on this Finishyourdiploma.org ad.

 

This version cut out two parts that I am going to comment on anyway, because otherwise these takes wouldn't be as hateful as I want them to be:

First, in the original version, this guy says "I always dreamed of going to college," which instantly reminded me of a great line from the Rodney Dangerfield movie Back to School:

Thornton Melon:  "I used to dream about going to college."

Jason Melon:  "When do you dream about going to college?"

Thornton Melon:  "When I fell asleep in high school."

Second, and also in the original version, we hear his father say "this is a dream come true."  Yeah, I'm sure it's a very common dream of American men to see their son graduate from high school at the age of 38, after providing him with at least one grandchild.  

A third point- which is included in this version- features this guy saying that he decided he wanted to go back and get his High School Diploma because he didn't want to do manual labor jobs his entire life.  Um....I've got really bad news for you, buddy.  Unless you are a tech wiz, that piece of paper that says you completed High School is going to do absolutely NOTHING for your job prospects.  I'm very glad that you got your diploma because it sets a great example for your son (better late than never) and maybe you expanded your horizons a bit with that study, but if you think that this opens the door to a better-paying job....well, I hope they paid you appearing in this ad, anyway.  Because chances are most of the people around you at every job you've held since you became a legal adult had High School degrees and were being paid the same as you were.  I really hope you weren't expecting to show that paper in front of your boss tomorrow and get a raise.  

Again, I'm glad this guy got his High School diploma, but he isn't a role model and he isn't an inspiration- he had a chance to be those things, but decided to punt the twenty most productive years of his life instead, and choices have consequences.  Simply put, he's not getting those twenty years back.  The life lesson his kid should get from this is "dad's a great guy, he's worked his butt off to provide a roof over my head and food on the table, but I am NOT going to follow his path.  And I guess what I would really have liked to hear at the end of this ad is something like "I want to make sure my son doesn't think that this is a good plan, that he should not be dropping out of High School and having a family before he finishes his education because that's like strapping on a backpack full of cinder blocks before competing in the race of life.  I'm glad he's proud of me, I'm glad my dad is proud of me, but I'll be much happier if people see this ad and think 'yeah, to hell with that, I'm getting my High School Diploma when I'm in my late-teens, not my late-thirties, and I'm not dreaming of going to college, I'm GOING TO COLLEGE."

The sad, scary implications of these Chime Banking App Commercials

While driving up to Vermont from Maryland last Tuesday morning, I listened to a news story about the obesity epidemic in the United States.  A woman being interviewed talked about sitting in the McDonald's Drive-Thru hitting "refresh" on her banking app over and over again, literally racing her direct deposit paycheck with her breakfast purchase.  

What sounds to me like an absolute nightmare, and a huge red flag/wakeup call that it's time to get your finances in order.  That person in the interview got it- she realized that she was addicted to fast food AND living on the margins of poverty with the ridiculous amount of money she was spending on "food" that was literally killing her in two ways.  Eventually she went back to her banking information, did some hard, cold research, and found out that she had spent $40,000 in three years at the Drive Thru.  

Scary, but at least she figured it out and realized that her lifestyle was not sustainable and is no longer throwing good money after bad.  Unlike these nitwits, who seem perfectly happy to play a stupid game with their financial health and maybe even get a gambling-level electric thrill out of Beating the Clock every two weeks.  Personally, I don't see the attraction of wondering if I'm going to need overdraft protection every time I make a purchase.  These people are fine with it.  I wouldn't be able to sleep nights if my finances were in this kind of shape. 

I do not understand, but what do I know- I don't even get the "fun" of risking my financial stability on gambling apps.  

Why I'll never be on Rinvoq

 

It's not because I don't suffer from rheumatoid arthritis, though I've never had that skin condition thing that's really focused on in these commercials.  It's because I'm nowhere near cool enough to qualify to take this or 99 percent of the other drugs advertised on television.

All of these people ride horses or engage in competitive roller dance or BUILD guitars in their workshops (I'm not even cool enough to play one; this guy BUILDS them.  From scratch.  In his own freaking WORKSHOP.)  They are also always hanging with pretty friends (I don't have any friends, let alone pretty ones) and heading off to beautiful romantic places with incredible views and cafes and opportunities for selfies, not that they need to ever take a selfie because they are always surrounded by those pretty friends. 

If I had lives like this and was being slowed down by arthritis or plaque psorasis or whatever (I'm not looking it up- it's that red flaky skin thing) I guess I'd insist on trying this drug too.  But apparently when I walk into the office of my arthritis specialist he looks me up and down and realizes that I''m not Rinvoq-worthy.  Maybe I should take riding lessons or get some skates.  I'm sure not learning how to build a freaking guitar.