Guanajuato, Mex -- Let's Talk Advertising

When we left America in 2003, we noticed that TV commercial were beginning to take more and more medicine ads. I am not talking over-the-counter crap but ads that promoted prescription meds. I mean, it was like being in a doctor's waiting room and having only pharmaceutical magazines to read only audio.

Well, in Mexico the TV ads also feature prescription medicine commercials. Not only are there hordes of them but a plethora of them. And, on top of it all, they are very graphic.

There is one ad for "varicose veins" which is, I am sure, so interesting that it will win some sort of international award for television commercials. To stress how you, the sufferer, needs to use their medicine instead of surgery, it shows on TV someone having their varicose veins cut and then ripped out of their leg like a nail is being ripped out of a wall. It even has sound effects of what it sounds like as the dying veins are violently extracted from someone's leg. This ad is on at all hours day and night and through the supper hour. (It is bloody!)

Then there is the ad that just began to be shown for "anti-phlegm" medication. You know the condition. The guy (actor) on the ad is hacking, gaging, choking, gasping, with chest congestion and then, GET READY FOR THIS, he straightens up, suddenly faces the camera, projectile spews (just like Linda Blair in the Exorcist) a fountain of GREEN SNOT all over the camera lens.

The "Linda-Blair-Effect" is animated and you can tell this immediately when watching. But, he vomits green foam all over the screen and it begins to drip and slide down until the actor's face is uncovered and visible and he says something to the effect, "I wish I had taken "such-and-such" medication for my phlegm."

Excuse me, but is this not beyond the pale or what?

But, remember that TV programming is really all about the TV commercials and not actual TV shows.

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