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Gormongous

Ruining Children's Minds with Marketing

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I figure this'll be a great place for some stories. What were the marketing campaigns of your childhood (and young-adulthood) that totally overrode your common sense?

 

I'm asking because my mother just sent me a birthday care-package containing eight (8) packs of Juicy Fruit gum. I don't chew gum, the stuff is gross, but it suddenly came rushing back that it was something I always demanded when I was six years old and waiting in the grocery store checkout. I guess the commercials for Juicy Fruit, where some dude chewed some gum and then biked down a mountain, were super effective. And the jingle (the taste the taste the taste is gonna move ya).

 

Youtube videos welcome:

 

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All cereal everywhere, basically. Who doesn't want oceans of chocolate rocketing in their mouth?

 

 

Also, I maintain that my Batman action figures were never sufficiently fun because they didn't come with all those translucent blocks that the commercials promised.

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^ OMG i loved that board game, although i'm pretty sure it wasn't called spookslot in the UK... Oh yeah it was Ghost Castle (the clue was in the youtube title)

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Ghost Castle and Mouse Trap both made my young mind explode with awe. So many pieces!

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The gambling angle where I could get a million dollars from buying a happy-meal during Monopoly season or have a $20 bill pop out of my can of Coca-cola had a persuasive effect on me. I've always wanted to be blessed with currency.

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Mouse Trap was definitely too advanced for my young mind. That and the Dominoes toy set that came with bridges and random pieces of architecture. I'm sorry, parents for wasting so much of your money.

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Mouse Trap was definitely too advanced for my young mind. That and the Dominoes toy set that came with bridges and random pieces of architecture. I'm sorry, parents for wasting so much of your money.

 

You speak of Domino Rally? To the tubes!

 

 

Not the soundtrack one remembers?

shows how important Sesame Street style rap had become to the commercialization of the kinderfolk. Thanks, Bart Simpson!

 

Video (space) games aside: There was also a Domino Rally for Wii, in a way, also named Go! Go! Minon or Minon Everyday Hero.

 

 

Earlier,

on PS1 dared to use actual domino pieces, anthropomorphic though they may have been, in combination with the annoyingly lightweight Domino Rally pieces that were, in real life, guaranteed to fall over at precisely the wrong moment during set up, most likely disturbed by a gust of wind caused by a mouse farting in a village 50 miles away, thus making a vital, telling, and increasingly annoying contribution to the ruination of your entire day. Domino Rally piece, YOU SPOILED MY WHOLE DAY.

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Not quite the same but, when I was 10, my family went to America to visit my relatives. Horribly jet lagged, I got up at 2 am and watched hours of tv until my cousin got up and showed me how to work the cable.

14 years later I visited New York and was still able to sing along to 5882300 Empiiiiiiiiire.

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14 years later I visited New York and was still able to sing along to 5882300 Empiiiiiiiiire.

 

Oh Jesus! I wasn't even aware how ingrained that was in my head until you mentioned that!

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14 years later I visited New York and was still able to sing along to 5882300 Empiiiiiiiiire.

 

I can hear the music, nooooo...

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