PARTNERSHIP FOR A ‘NICK AND NORM’-FREE AMERICA:

Nick: This, uh, this whole “drugs fund terrorists” argument is complicated.

Norm (Looking incensed and borderline constipated.): Complicated?

Nick: Yeah. Complicated.

Norm: I am supporting my opinions with nothing except more opinions. I will not make reference to anything that could potentially support my case. My chief argument is my constipated-looking face, which says “You are stupid if you don’t agree with me.” Why should you believe me when I say that drugs fund terrorists? Because I say so.

Nick: Okay, it’s not so complicated.


NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY UNRELATED:

You know, I stopped watching TV a ways back because of anti-drug commercials. Is it just me, or do they occassionally have the tendency to get a wee bit too intense? I remember when I was ten, watching cartoons on the couch in the den back in Miami. It’s, like, eleven in the morning, I’m waiting for the next round of Bugs Bunny cartoons, and here comes this 30-second spot for Partnership for a Drug-Free America. I never saw the same spot again (Not that I was actively looking.) It wouldn’t surprise me if parents had called ABC and verbally berated them for showing something that intense and horrifying during a CHILDREN’S CARTOON, ‘cause believe me, Marilyn Manson videos weren’t this chilling.

Basically, the spot featured this guy working in a morgue. Not a normal-looking mortician, but a hairless, Nosferatu-looking fucker. Bald, pale skin with pink patches, rings under his eyes. And I could swear he had fangs, or at the very least, really prominent canines.

Nosferatu spends his 30 seconds of fame opening various doors in his mortuary, and PULLING OUT DEAD BODIES! Sure, they still have those corpse-clothes draped over them, but THIS IS DURING A CHILDREN’S CARTOON! And the camera, making like Wes Craven, tracks right up to the frozen slabs! “Here’s a fresh one who did a little too much marijuana!” Nosferatu says in the background. Again, this is a CHILDREN’S CARTOON!

All I wanted was to watch Bugs Bunny cartoons. Now suddenly, I’m being exposed to this! Good lord! Remote controls weren’t in widespread use yet, and anyway, I was a little kid—I was transfixed. That 30-second spot seemed to go on forever. Only after showing all us little tykes as many dead corpses as he can, does Nosferatu grant us some mercy. But this is no happy ending. The last thing Nosferatu says is “Pot. Join the party.” He laughs, and the camera does a whoosh pan right up to his hideous, laughing face. And there’s bright light in the background. Everything is hazy. The message to me is clear: When I die, I will not go to Heaven. Instead, I will go to HIM, the avatar, whom I shall have to fight for my very soul.

I was probably reading a little too deeply towards the end. So anyway, I wonder how many people out there saw that same 30-second anti-drug ad, and were deeply scarred by its blatantly inappropriate material. Write in and let me know. Strangely, all the combined anti-drug ads in the world never deterred me from experimenting in college (Nor did they push me towards it.) However, they did succeed in making me never want to watch commercials again. Maybe I should’ve written THAT to the Ad Council.