Month: December 2004

I thought the most poorly named product in recent history was the brand of Peter Pan peanut butter that was called “Peter Pan Whipped.” It implied everything from sadomasochism in Neverland to the notion that Peter doesn’t get to leave the house unless Wendy gives him the okay.

But that pales in comparison to the ad I saw tonight for Jack-In-The-Box. Get this:

Buy a Value Meal, and you get a Reindeer ball.

Oh. My God.

Let us be generous enough to assume they’re not talking about sexual congress with a reindeer. Let us, instead, go with the obvious. For those of you who want to know what it is like to eat a Reindeer ball, I refer you to Darlene Randle of “Fear Factor” who had to eat that very thing. According to Ms. Randle:

“They had a casing that was so hard to digest and chew. They exploded in your mouth when you put them in there and it was all warm and just totally gross. Just chewing the outer part was the hardest for me to get down. I had to chew it up as much as possible and then swallow.”

I mean, it’s not as if the term “Jack in the Box” doesn’t have its own bit of sexual innuendo. So you think they’d be alert. You’d think perhaps they might have said you could get a free Reindeer Christmas Ornament. But no. Eat at JITB, get a Reindeer ball.

What next? Elf balls?

PAD

I’m always amazed by people who refuse to support the CBLDF because they perceive the organization as solely interested in protecting the publication of adult-only comics. Since such nay-sayers find such comics in poor taste, they don’t understand why the CBLDF would fight for the rights of any adult to purchase them. And when it’s pointed out that other material may well be targeted, they dismiss such claims out of hand.

I wonder what they would say to what’s currently going on in South Carolina, where the U.S. government seized a comic book because–get ready–it featured a parody of George W. Bush.

Not that that’s what they admit to, of course. From the intro to the case at www.cbldf.org:

“On October 27, U.S. Customs sent a letter to Top Shelf Productions notifying them that copies of the anthology Stripburger had been seized, charging that the stories “Richie Bush” by Peter Kuper and “Moj Stub” (translated, “My Pole”) by Bojan Red

The Seattle Times: Nation & World: Foreign dissidents facing U.S. hurdles to publishing

In an apparent reversal of decades of U.S. practice, recent federal Office of Foreign Assets Control regulations bar American companies from publishing works by dissident writers in countries under sanction unless they first obtain U.S. government approval.

The restriction, condemned by critics as a violation of the First Amendment, means that books and other works banned by some totalitarian regimes cannot be published freely in the United States.

Way to export our values, guys– by not importing other values.

Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner, has joined the lawsuit, arguing that the rules preclude American publishers from helping craft her memoirs of surviving Iran’s Islamic revolution and her efforts to defend human rights in Iranian courts.

Does anyone know if a documentary about bowling, “A League of Ordinary Gentlemen,” is available on tape or DVD or on cable or any frelling place? I’d love to see it, particularly since it features some bowlers that I’ve actually bowled with in the Pro-Am.

By the way, is anyone planning to bowl in the February Pro-Am in Babylon, NY? If we can match up a time, maybe we can get a group together.

PAD

Chappy Chanukah.

PAD

So a writer who shall go nameless (because, y’know, why afford him or her the publicity) announced on a radio program that my run on HULK will absolutely end after the current six issues to make way for a “new creative team.”

I’ve spoken with Tom Brevoort because this was news to me. Tom had previously been contacted by other netfolks and had been judicious in his answers because it was news to him as well and he wanted to do just what I was doing: Check with his higher ups to see if it was true.

Long story short: Absolutely nothing has changed from what I told you months ago. I’m on the series for six issues. We’re going to see what the numbers are like. We’re going to see how all parties feel about my staying on board after that.

I can tell you this: Both Marvel and I are looking for a clear signal from the fans. If the numbers are there, that’s one signal. If they’re not, that’s another. So in large measure, it remains up to you.

PAD

Since the last censorship thread has gotten so much traffic, I’d like to point out this article from Mediaweek about those who’d like the FCC to clamp down on what you can see and hear on TV and radio…

Activists Dominate Content Complaints

In an appearance before Congress in February, when the controversy over Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl moment was at its height, Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Powell laid some startling statistics on U.S. senators.

The number of indecency complaints had soared dramatically to more than 240,000 in the previous year, Powell said. The figure was up from roughly 14,000 in 2002, and from fewer than 350 in each of the two previous years. There was, Powell said, “a dramatic rise in public concern and outrage about what is being broadcast into their homes.”

What Powell did not reveal — apparently because he was unaware — was the source of the complaints. According to a new FCC estimate obtained by Mediaweek, nearly all indecency complaints in 2003 — 99.8 percent — were filed by the Parents Television Council, an activist group.

This year, the trend has continued, and perhaps intensified.

Through early October, 99.9 percent of indecency complaints — aside from those concerning the Janet Jackson “wardrobe malfunction” during the Super Bowl halftime show broadcast on CBS — were brought by the PTC, according to the FCC analysis dated Oct. 1. (The agency last week estimated it had received 1,068,767 complaints about broadcast indecency so far this year; the Super Bowl broadcast accounted for over 540,000, according to commissioners’ statements.)

The prominent role played by the PTC has raised concerns among critics of the FCC’s crackdown on indecency. “It means that really a tiny minority with a very focused political agenda is trying to censor American television and radio,” said Jonathan Rintels, president and executive director of the Center for Creative Voices in Media, an artists’ advocacy group.

The article goes on to highlight how a $1.2 million fine was levied by complaints from less than one in a million viewers of a given show.