Your Father’s In That Glass, Talking to You
by Jim Washburn
Did your dad drink suntan lotion, and if so, will you?
There seems to be a lot of money riding on that question, since it’s the message of a widespread print ad from Canadian Club.
The full-pager shows a faded color photo of a James Brolinish guy with ’70s hair carrying his gal along the beach slung over his shoulder caveman style, with these lines below:
“Your dad didn’t put on his own lotion. Damn right your dad drank it.”
Now there is some little black text between these lines: “He chose the beach. Picked his spot. And decided it was time for some drinks. C.C. and Gingers. Smooth. Refreshing. And brought to him in his beach chair.”
The idea, as I see it, is to speak to a generation of larval men who missed out on the manly rituals that helped past generations define themselves and their place at the center of the universe. Dadly, un-manscaped men. Decisive. Self-centered. Instinctive. In-command. Didn’t take strap-ons up the ol’ bungport. Drink up, young larvae, and you’ll grow some balls. Like dad’s.
That’s the intended message, but the received message, for the many who can’t bother with small print, is that Dad drank Sea & Ski. Damn right he did.
Canadian Club has been running similar ads for the last two years, soliciting photos of real old school dads from their customers, and pairing them with text to help you grow a pair, if you’d only get out of your dad’s Oldsmobile and into a tall tumbler of CC. That’s a whisky, by the way, not an actual club of Canadians, though the net effect at 2 a.m. is about the same.
Other CC ads tell us, “Your dad was not a metrosexual” and “Your dad had groupies” while the best of the lot crows, “Your mom wasn’t your dad’s first.” The provocative title is accompanied by a photo of a smug guy in a chair, drink in hand, leggy hottie in his lap, the two of them looking about four minutes away from full penetration on the umber shag carpet. That’s right, Your mom wasn’t your dad’s first: Ol’ Pops squirted his semen into a heap of liquored-up furburgers until he got Mom pregnant with you. Let’s celebrate with Canadian Club, on the rocks!
Your dad spat raw oysters at traffic cops.
Your dad had the Saigon drip.
Your dad’s liver looks like the Great Lakes. Damn right he drank it.
Comments
Didn’t know anyone still drank that stuff. It’s like cigarettes, somehow they managed to poison succeeding generations even though they, wise little shits otherwise, really ought to know better.
Seems as if they’re going for a twofer here: create more booze hounds dreaming of morphing into male chauvinist pigs. Surely y’all remember those.
Good luck on both counts. We have a guy in the White House with two daughters and a wife who, I am pretty sure, takes no shit, even if it’s from the pres himself.
Times have changed CC but then why was MadMen such a hit?
I’m having myself measured for a Burkha just in case.
Best lesbian orgy movies
2009-06-27 by grut
...un-manscaped men! I love it!
2009-06-24 by Leslie