Sense and Censorship
Channel 4 continued their Banned Season with a program about adverts that have been banned or withdrawn from UK television. Some of these adverts were (naturally) absolute rubbish, others works of genius.
In fairness to the censors, one of my favourites, the Wrigleys “Dog Breath” ad, was withdrawn only after a large number of complaints from the viewing public. The ad takes the concept of post-lash “dog breath” to it’s literal conclusion, with very angry dog forcing itself out of the mouth of a clearly hung-over bloke. The visuals are extremely well executed, but surely it is obvious to any clear thinking person that the dog wasn’t actually forced out of a hole the size of a human mouth? It never ceases to amaze me that people are so easily offended, particularly when some cartoons contain far more disturbing imagery. Obviously, the production company (Arden Sutherland-Dodd) just did far too good a job. I do wonder though if the complaints would have been so loud is it had been a less well loved animal that was ejected from his mouth.
My other favourite from the banned list is the Volkswagen Passat “Bollocks” viral ad. It features a sweet little girl expressing her frustrations with a choice bit of English vernacular. On the Banned program, the makers of the ad claimed that the girl (or girls to be more accurate, since they used twins) in the ad was actually saying “Pollocks”, and was then dubbed. It’s fairly obvious that it would never have made it past the censors, even post water-shed, but it is (as with the Wrigleys ad) extremely well executed and, frankly, hilarious. Sorry folks, but swearing is just funny.