The Story Behind The "Don't Put It In Your Mouth" PSA
INT. PSA DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE ROOM - NIGHT
Three men in rumpled suits sit slumped around a table littered with Chinese take-out boxes and crushed, empty Styrofoam coffee cups. One man gets up and moves to an orange and brown-colored coffee maker on a sideboard in the corner of the room. He pulls a fresh Styrofoam cup off the top of a stack, and lifts the coffee pot, which has a thick sludge of lukewarm, bitter coffee dregs shifting at the bottom.
What do you think you're doing?
MAN 2
If we're going to be here past 9, I need coffee.
MAN 1
No you don't. Coffee is for closers.
The second man dejectedly puts down the coffee pot and slumps back into his seat.
MAN 3
Kids' health, kids' safety, got to keep kids healthy and safe, what do kids love? Kids love candy. That's it.
MAN 2
What if we have a police officer who arrests kids who are sick and takes them to jail, and at the end it says "Don't Get Sick, Kids, For Your Own Good."
MAN 1
No. But sick kids is good. How did the kids get sick?
MAN 3
They ate poison.
MAN 1
They ate poison? What poison?
MAN 3
Cyanide.
MAN 1
OK, I think that's a little specific.
MAN 2
They put Cyanide in their mouths!
MAN 1
OK, you guys need to relax on the Cyanide thing.
MAN 3
Hey, kids, don't put that Cyanide in your mouths.
Man 1 puts his head in his hands. A SECRETARY enters the room and tells Man 1 that his wife is on the phone. He excuses himself. Man 2 and Man 3 sit in absolute silence until he returns.
Well? Any progress?
MAN 2
I really think this Cyanide thing is going to work.
MAN 1
Gary, you're killing me here.
MAN 3
Well, if we can't say Cyanide, what if we just made the whole thing into a vague, innuendo-laden song that kind of sounds like it's about penises?
GARY
Don't put it in your mouth until you ask someone you love. It being a penis! Or a knife! I could imagine kids putting "things" in their mouths all night!
MAN 1
Boys, I think we might be onto something. Gloria!
The Secretary returns to the conference room.
THE END.
(Thanks for the tip, Cole.)
Posted by Gabe at 10:00 AM in PSAs
Tags: Business | Children | Health
akinyele must be so pissed he didn't use that sample!
Score = 1
i just really wanted to write in courier.
thanks.
Score = 3
Was this on Nick(elback) Jr.?
Score = 0
So what if daddy is the one telling you to put it in your mouth? You love daddy, right?
Score = 0
I hate when kids stuff it in their mouth and then think they can eat it. It can be a painful process but eventually they learn.
Score = -4
I wish I had seen this years ago. Maybe then I wouldn't have contracted mouth herpes.
Score = 4
Anybody remember that "it's unthinkable, poison is undrinkable" ad from the poison control center? The stuff of nightmares. The puppets were all scary plants and bleach bottles and dirty household syringes. It's nowhere on youtube... or even google. Maybe it's just teh stuff of MY nightmares.
Score = 0
Kids are always eating muffins and beets. Those are classic kid snacks.
Score = 5
Man this is some serious Canadiana right there.
But Gabe, seriously. This is like lite beer to the guiness that is this PSA (by the same people): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4Ku6RGlJyk
(actually most of their PSA's are hilarious. except the one with the guy visiting his brother in rehab while "He ain't heavy" plays in the background. that one makes me cry.)
Score = 2
Just one of many classics from the 90's... look up syringe psa on youtube, it's why a generation of Canadians are terrified of the flu shot.
Score = 0
yikes, I remember growing up with this ad.
Sadly, even at the tender age of 5, I understood that it suggested much more explicit connotations. But then again, that may be due to Pavlovian brainwashing us Canadian children received thanks to ads like this and the unfortunate wave of "DON'T HAVE SEX WITH YOUR UNCLE IN THE SHOWER WHILE YOUR MOTHER GOES OUT FOR A PACK OF SMOKES AND LOTTERY TICKETS" ad campaigns of the early 1990s.
Score = 2
"Always ask someone you love before you put anything in your mouth."
Words to live by.
Score = 0
I just remember the "Mr. YUK!" (I don't understand the "C" omission) neon green stickers with the his x-ed out eyes and protruding tongue, they were all over our house....to this day I express my disgust for things (and people) with neon Mr. YUK! stickers, also it's my way of telling guys, "I'm just not that into you"...here's your sticker!
Score = 0