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Remember last year’s collective jaw drop as Nationwide ran an ad on the Super Bowl that featured a kid dreaming about all the things he’ll never get to do — biking, sailing, having a girlfriend — because he’s DEAD? And not just dead for any ol’ reason. Dead because his parents just weren’t CAREFUL enough?
Let ydhnrnetik
me refresh your memory: “I’ll never learn to ride a bike. Or get cooties [from a girl’s kiss]. I’ll never learn to fly,” mourns the the elementary-age boy. We also see him in a tux in a forest. (You know the old saying, “Always the dead kid, never the groom.”)
So today, come up with the scenario for an equally or, if possible, even MORE depressing Nationwide ad. It’ll make the hours till the Super Bowl go faster!*
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*If you live that long — Nationwide.
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34 Comments
I remember that horrid ad – my husband and I were shocked, like, “Did they REALLY just run a dead kid commercial during the Super Bowl?” Supposedly this year’s ads are more upbeat and cheerful overall.
I’m thinking they’ll go with an ad, set to a classic like Louie Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World”, with a whole minute of kids in slow-motion accidents, cutting just before any blood or decapitations or dismemberments (you know, to keep it family friendly), with a black screen at the end reminding us that it’s a parent’s duty to keep kids “safe”.
I’m thinking a PSA about the dangers of playing in the snow. Like a kid gets all bundled up and then a snowball hits his head and kills him, or a kid riding a sled runs into a tree and dies. With the tag line, “soft, fluffy white death is all around you.”
A kid says, “I could have lived a great life, but I studied hard and worked hard, and became part of the 1%, and the other 99% stoned me to death.”
“Remember last year’s collective jaw drop as Nationwide ran an ad on the Super Bowl that featured a kid dreaming about all the things he’ll never get to do — biking, sailing, having a girlfriend — because he’s DEAD? ”
Well, at least he’ll be spared the agony of actually playing in the Super Bowl and having someone try to break his knees:
http://deadspin.com/rodney-harrison-on-how-hed-stop-cam-newton-hurt-him-1757159933
I didn’t find that last one depressing. Sorry.
Of course, last time I cared who won the game, and this year I don’t, really. Maybe that makes a difference?
The dangers of recess.
Won’t be watching the Super Bowl, lovely holiday day here today, but Boy and his mates are. Ridiculous really, as none of them have ever played gridiron.
I think there’ll be a suburban home, panning into a side window where you can see four or five fat younger on a sofa and chairs, squealing their heads off and throwing back the junk food and booze. Behind them the camera will spot the Angel of Death, Munsch’s Scream, the demon from Insidious and that guy from Saw, all just about ready for action…..but the guys don’t notice them. Not until the camera pans back to a window splashed from the inside with red.
No moral to it, just something that makes about as much sense as last year’s commercial. And this time even more death, bahahaha!!!
“I’ll never learn to ride a bike.”
I’m wondering why he hasn’t already, given that he looks (way) older than 5… Guess I should blame his parents for THAT! 😛
I’m already depressed by the one about the Stalker Dad Vehicle. I get so annoyed by all the memes on Facebook depicting fathers who won’t let their dating-age daughter date without being completely rude and disrespectful to the boy, sometimes while armed.
Daughters reach the age at which they are interested in boys. Deal with it.
…and I should add that she might be interested in girls. Deal with that too.
” I get so annoyed by all the memes on Facebook depicting fathers who won’t let their dating-age daughter date without being completely rude and disrespectful to the boy, sometimes while armed.”
About the only time these days men aren’t portrayed as complete wimps in popular culture.
The stalker dad commercial is quaint. Teens don’t go on formal dates like that anymore. They send each other nude pictures on their phones, and apparently occasionally get drunk and have sex at parties. A guy who sets up a date with your daughter to go to a movie and then the local fair is probably a winner.
In Australia we saw mostly ESPN adverts
Some kids will never get to post photos and videos of themselves half-naked on the web.
Just as questionable as that ad is the caption USA Today put up on the screen while the woman was talking in the video you posted above:
“ACCIDENTS ARE THE LEADING CAUSE OF DEATHS AMONG *CHILDREN* AGES 1-24”
[All-caps theirs, asterisks mine]
24 year old children? Really?
“I’ll never be in Mensa, or get into Harvard, or learn advanced algorithms.
Because my mother had a glass of Chardonnay when pregnant,
I will forever be destined for Community College.”
“ACCIDENTS ARE THE LEADING CAUSE OF DEATHS AMONG *CHILDREN* AGES 1-24”
What would they like the leading cause of death among children to be? Old age?
Of course they won’t mention that *car accidents* are the leading cause of accidental death, and perhaps offer their customers something useful like a car seat check.
” fathers who won’t let their dating-age daughter date without being completely rude and disrespectful to the boy, sometimes while armed”
You’d think they’d be interested to know what the boy of Daughter’s choice is like, instead of scaring him away and make Daughter & Boyfriend sneak around behind their back…
And even if they don’t like the boy, knowledge is power, keep your enemies close and all that…
@Havva: Or a speedometer… Like a really big one, or an audio speedometer that starts screaming when the super-careful helicopter parent breaks the speed limit. *evil grin*
“24 year old children? Really?”
Sure.
Every person alive, even the 24-year-olds, are somebody’s children.
@ James Pollock “Every person alive, even the 24-year-olds, are somebody’s children.”
Yes, I thought of that too, and if I was in an ornery mood, I’d play along, but the caption does not refer to grown children. It refers to dependent children, children who still need to be cared for by their parents. It runs along the same lines of the way the federal government believes parents should be responsible for their dependent childrens’ medical coverage up to age 26 (if they’re still college students). College or no college, a 26-year-old should not be considered a dependent—barring a medical condition that renders the person incapable of independent personal care. They are old enough to vote, legally buy a drink, fight in military conflicts around the world, and be a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, but they are too young to be responsible for their own health and well-being.
“Yes, I thought of that too, and if I was in an ornery mood, I’d play along, but the caption does not refer to grown children”
Twenty-four-year-olds aren’t “grown”? Whose side are you on?
I can imagine an ad where the parents leave a kid home alone. [Cue dark music] The kid burns down the house along with himself inside the house. Then there is a long drawn out scene where firefighters put out the fire and bring out a smoking corpse from the ruins. [End dark music] A Nationwide insurance agent appears on screen to remind us that it’s never too early to get life insurance and you should buy it before your kid starts smoking.
Am I a terrible person if that ad made me laughR
“it’s never too early to get life insurance and you should buy it before your kid starts smoking.”
Now that’s funny, I don’t care who you are.
This is so late, just caught this. The full bathtub at the end, implying that’s how that kid, he looked 10, “died”? Wow. Guess us parents should sit and stare at our kids in the tub until…they move out? And what age is safe now for them too move out these days, 28?
@Rivkacatholicaspie
Well if your a horrible person for laughing at that ad, I am too! Lol
Correction on super late reply, the kid probably isn’t 10, but come on…close enough.
BL,
Your point is about the knees? This is football, not bridge club. Football is a rough, physical sport. And though not the most sportsman like way to play, it is the way the game is played. They are not talking about giving anyone a broken knee, they are talking about using legal hits to force him out of the game.
@Warren
“Your point is about the knees?”
Well, most of what you just said in on the mark, except that they are at the very least heedless about breaking someone’s knees. This has been discussed on talk shows quite a bit in the days leading up to the recent Super Bowl, mostly by former players, because of the remarks I linked to.
It’s a game that often cripples its players, from gimpy knees all the way up to CTE and beyond. It’s worth knowing that going in. Simply resolving to be “tough” doesn’t confer immunity.
BL,
“It’s a game that often cripples its players, from gimpy knees all the way up to CTE and beyond. It’s worth knowing that going in. ”
Anyone that does not know and understand this already should not step on the field. I have always believed that anyone playing any sport has to understand that it is not a matter that you “may” get hurt. You have to accept the fact that you are going to get hurt. Most will be minor and some will be major. But it will happen.
Football is a full on, full out contact sport, and there isn’t a cold, damp day that my knees don’t remind me of such. In hockey I damn well knew that each and every time I crossed the blueline and cut across the middle there was a better than good chance I was going to be laid out. In baseball, coming into home on a close play, you have a choice, slide or take out the catcher. In football, if you cannot intercept or disrupt a pass, you make the receiver pay for catching it.
Sports evolved as a replacement for battle and such things as gladiators fighting in arenas. Aggression and the need for physical superiority is not something that we thought up, it is instinctual and hardwired into our dna.
Humans once looked up to the best gladiator, the best hunters, the best warriors. They have now been replaced with athletes.
That was a horrible ad you are right!