I Hate Disney and the answer to smokin' in the youth market

Lemme tell y'all somethin'.

Dinsey ain't nothin' but a bunch of yellow-bellied cowards. How dare they smite the artistic creativity of creative types by not allowin' smokin' in their kiddie cartoons!?! This is just a complete outrage. And lemme tell y'all somethin' else, I ain't takin' this lyin' down.

In case y'all hadn't heard, the House of Mouse made the big announcement that smokin' will be outlawed in all their family type features. Plus, as if that ain't enough, smokin' will be discouraged in all their films from the Touchstone and Miramax brands. Still worse, they'll be featurin' anti-smokin' PSAs on all movies and DVDs where the characters light up. Ya can read the full article here.

The words beyond the pale seem to fit nicely.

Worth notin' that about 10 years ago Disney digitally removed smokin' from some of their old cartoons includin' the Pecos Bill segment in Melody Time. Ya'll can see the before and after photos to the left.

I stole that image off a really good article on the cartoon at 2719 Hyperion. Y'all can view the original post here.

Disney may think they're doin' the right thing but this is actually the complete wrong approach if they want to discourage the youth market...I mean....kids (sorry, old habits die hard) from lightin' up. And, in all sincerity the smokin' version of Pecos Bill is much more appropriate fer today's kids fer two reasons.

First, Pecos Bill is a cowboy. Look at a calendar people, its 2007! What kid wants to be a cowboy today? Maybe some looser kids in Oklahoma or somethin', but cowboys have no Ipods, no Nintendo WII, no Facebook, no MySpace, they work fer a livin' doin' manual labor all day long, and they spend lots of time outdoors.

Name two kids who'd want to be like that guy. I betcha can't.

So if smokin' is sooooo evil, then - by yer logic - ain't havin' a looser like Pecos Bill, puffin' away, a good thing? I mean, kids don't want to be Pecos Bill and Pecos Bill smokes. Logic people, if P then Q.

My second reason is part of a much larger argument.

Hey people, kids smoke. Kids have always smoked, kids are always gonna smoke. The more we try to prevent kids from smokin', the more we try to take it out of the social mainstream, the more attractive we actually make smokin' fer kids. Think about that one health types.

If ya truly want to make smokin' not cool, or hip, or groovy, or whatever they say nowadays, here's the one thing that sure to work.

Teach it in the schools.

I mean it. Its a radical idea but very progressive if y'all think about it. Mandate that kids must spend no less than 45 minutes a day smokin'. Ya can talk about the history of tobacco in the USA so there's social studies, economics and marketin' lessons. There's the chemistry curriculum in teachin' kids all the natural goodness that goes into makin' a smooth tastin' unfiltered product. Ya can replace gym, savin' school districts money(because after smokin' fer 45 minutes the kids won't be able to run anyway). Also, smokin' helps ya keep the weight off, so yer combatin' childhood obesity and reducin' kids risk of many chonic diseases.

This plan would teach kids valuable lessons and improve their long term health.

And fer ya anti-smokin' types, if ya tell kids they have to do somethin' they'll develop a negative attitude toward it right? Well, there y'all go. After being told to smoke in the schools fer say 12 years or so, I'm sure a certain portion of the market...uh....kids will opt not to continue smokin'. This just seems like the more natural way to do things.

Heck, I'm sure my ol' buddies at Liardare would be willin' to make special brands just fer the kiddies like tooty fruity or chocolate or...oh wait that's been done...we'll we'd figure somethin' out fer y'all.

Anyway, that's the best answer I've heard and trust me, after workin' at a tobacco company all those years we spent a lot of time talkin' about kids.

Tobacco Taxes Kill People: Bipartisan Agreement in Congress Calls for More Gang Activity, Increased Attacks on Truckers

In a stunnin' development a bipartisan (that means both Republicans and Democrats) bunch of kooks in Washington, called fer more crime, specifically gang activity and increased attacks on truckers throughout the United States!!!


When will this madness end!?! Ya see, accordin' to the New York Times, theses government lunatics are callin' fer higher tobacco taxes. And I've been doin' some research on tobacco taxes at RJ Reynold's new corporately organized, grassroots movement website called NoCigTax.

Lemme tell ya somethin' boys and girls if you ain't been to nocigtax.com yer missin' some important knowledge. This grassroots effort of well paid volunteers, has put together pack and a half of info on why cigarette taxes are the worst thing since Ebola.

My favorite part is this page which shows y'all in simple terms the top 10 reasons why it's clear tobacco taxes are an idea spawned in hell. Numbers 3 and 8 on the top 10 deal with how cigarette taxes increase crime at home.

Accordin' to the irrefutable suppositions of Reynolds American's marketin' department, there will be more cigarette truck hijackins if tobacco taxes go up. No indication of how much they'll go up, fer example the ratio of holdups per ten cent increase. But, over the years, tobacco company have shown their honesty and I think we can all just take 'em at their word.

Number 8 on the list is basically the same as number 3 - hey cut 'em some slack, it ain't easy comin' up with 10 whole reasons. That one basically says the higher the tobacco taxes ya got the more organized crime ya got.

Taxes make cigarettes more valuable and criminals will want to sell more of them, earnin' them more money. Earnin' more money makes it easier fer them to kill people and steal your car.

Well it doesn't actually say that last part but ya'll can fill in the blanks the same as I can. And again, there's no actual stats listed linkin' crime increases to tobacco taxes but really, who ever heard of a dishonest tobacco company? Joe Camel don't lie.

Ya see people, cigarettes don't kill people. Tobacco taxes do. Why on earth would the government would come out in favor of truck robberies, the mafia, along with the Bloods and the Crypts is beyond me. Haven't these folks seen Goodfellas, or Colors, or Breakin' 2 the Electronic Boogaloo? Crime is bad and it ain't the Government's job to be promotin' it through tobacco taxes. Where's Homeland Security when ya'll need 'em?

One final note. Fortunately, I ain't the only one who musta read Reynolds top 10 list. President Bush has seen the light and accorin' to today's Times will veto the tobacco tax bill. Well thank goodness fer small miracles. Hang tough George, hang tough. And take comfort in knowin' the bigtobaccoblog is 100% behin' ya'll.

Golden Oldie: Make Room Fer The American Tobacco Company

Back in the good old days mom, dad and the youngins could gather round the tele with their frozen TV dinners and settle in fer an evenin' of clean family fun. Clean family fun made possible by the generosity of the good folks at the American Tobacco Company and the like.

That was the old openin' fer Make Room Fer Daddy, a highly popular family comedy from the early days of television...when "marketin' to children" was just an innocent concept on one of our internal memos...not the action line of one of them anti-smokin' PSAs. Ah...a simpler age...and I really miss it.

People seem to like these old cigarette ads. I know I do. They're a great nostalgic stroll down memory lane with a long missed old buddy. A buddy who's been forced from the marketplace by a bunch of pinko commie health nuts.

Of course Danny Thomas went on to be the founder of St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. I get nervous whenever somebody get involved with big health but I guess that's okay. Smoked cigars which ain't as good as cigarettes (because we don't make cigars at Liardare, only smooth rich Carolina leaf 100s). Got a picture of him with a stogie here so that's somethin' in his favor. Passed away from a heart attack in 1991.

In a quirky twist of misery, Danny's wife in this clip, Jean Hagen. You might also remember her as the ditsy movie star in Singin' in the Rain. She passed away from throat cancer in 1977.

Of course this where the health goofs will tell ya' that both throat cancer and heart attacks are associated with smokin'. Stupid health jerks with their tragic ironies.