Since my last blog, Super Bowl Sunday, we've been to the movies in Altoona a couple times, most recently to see Eastwood's latest, Gran Torino. More about the movie later ---for now I want to write about the Troy Polamalu Coke commercial which ran during the previews. You know, the 2009 version of the Mean Joe Greene ad from the 1970s. The theatre was filled about 75% capacity, and even though everyone who isn't living under a rock has already seen this ad a few times, my fellow matinee patrons laughed and cheered as though they were watching the ad for the first time!It felt kind of odd to me not to laugh with them, but frankly, the ad bores me. I liked the original with Mean Joe much better. Sure, the first time I saw the Polamalu ad, I enjoyed it as much as the next guy. I liked when he tackled the guy in the business suit. I laughed some, but not that much, because it wasn't that funny. (Now, if you want to know a commercial that makes me laugh, just watch the facial expressions of that kid whose mom is stingy about old cell phone minutes---that kid is a genius and deserves an Oscar! He doesn't say much, but he cracks me up everytime.)
At any rate, like the young people say, it's all good. The joy over the Steelers 6th Super Bowl win is still palpable. The movie patrons got me to thinking about what a winning professional sports team can do for a community. The financial benefits to the economy are obvious. By my own count, roughly one out of every four kids in the elementary schools were I work wore a Steelers jersey to school during the weeks before and after the Super Bowl. Elmira had also wanted a Polamalu jersey, but when she saw the $58 dollar price tag, she knew that was a ridiculous amount of money for a jersey with someone else's name on it. Later, I bought her a low priced pink T-shirt with a Steelers Logo on front and the slogan "Got Six?" and on the back "The Burgh Does".
Still, plenty of people shell out big money to wear this stuff. Perhaps this is what they mean by trickle down economics. I am not a betting man, so I can't honestly say that the Steelers success has fattened my pocketbook a single dime. But when the Steelers win, people feel better,even those of us more than 100 miles away from Pittsburgh. And when people feel better, the theatre houses fill up with patrons so giddy that when Polamalu comes on, they howl like a lot of Parisians at a Jerry Lewis film fest. Since winning the Super Bowl, Troy could sell us anything. He could even pack them in for this forgotton and rarely seen classic: Lewis' ill-conceived holocaust picture, The Day the Clown Cried.
Now for the Coke ads that you should jeer, but won't because doing so might make you look like a mysogynist. Even worse, you could be mistaken for someone who gets his water not from a bottle, but from a tap. Maybe you're one of those who blindly eat vegetables other than high fructose corn syrup, and you consume fruits that aren't Cherry Coke. God forbid you believe the myth that Coke products aren't actually good for your heart. If soda pop consumption is a major contributor to the obesity epidemic, and obesity significantly increases the risk heart disease, then why would the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute team up with Coke and Heidi Klum in an ad campaign to increase awareness of women's health issues? Is it of no consequence that she makes a fortune starring in McDonald's ads in Europe? Does Heidi McHottie really know something we don't? Do french fries reduce the risk of stroke? Should I believe those who've told me that cigarrette smoking helps them reduce stress and keep weight off? Is David Letterman being straight with us when he claims asbestos is a valuable source of calcium?
Evidently Evidently, advertisers know that Heidi in a red dress, like Troy Polamalu in Pennsylvania or Jerry Lewis in France, could sell us anything. I'd like to invite Heidi to McDonald's and a Jerry Lewis movie just to pick her brain and find out. She could wear her red dress and we'd gorge ourselves on french fries, healthy coke products and Big Macs until we got our fills. Then at the theatre, we'd laugh with everyone else at that hilarious Troy Polamalu commercial, enjoy the feature presentation, making out through the holocaust scenes, until our hearts exploded all over our hot buttered popcorn.
