Okay, it's no secret that our lives are filled with cartoon characters telling us what to do. Jovny the Stork tells us to eat pickles. Tony the Tiger tells us Frosted Flakes are great.
Snuggles the bear only wants our clothes to be as soft as he is, the Kaboom clown wants our breakfast to be a circus and Serta sheep fret about making us sleep on a better mattress.
By far the masters of strange, yet enticing cartoon marketing animals are the folks who make store-brand cereals. Who knew that octopus' and sloths could make me want to buy their cereal?
And you know, I'm fine with all these characters, except for one small family of bears. Those Charmin Bears. These things make me unbearably (ha) uncomfortable.
Now don't get me wrong, they are nicely drawn, they are presented in water colors and the animation in the commercials is lovely. However, none of this disguises the fact that they exist for the soul purpose of wiping their ass. And oh God, their so cuddly about it! They rub their faces all over the toilet paper and frolic with it. Why did they have to pick something large and hairy to promote a clean-cheeks lifestyle? And the little bear doesn't seem to know any better and is running around the woods, presumably with little cling-ons like an actual bear would have and the parent bears just giggle and tell him to wipe his ass. (shudder) That's a little too real for me.
And you know, they aren't the only animals doing it. Often times I see toilet paper that is being marketed as super soft with the addition of a bunny, which of course I find disturbing and hilarious because all I can think about is a commercial that has some out-of-luck appalachian trail hiker who s out of TP and so he just picks up a fluffy bunny who had the back luck to come sniffing around at that moment, wipes his but with it and tosses it aside.
I'm not saying that they should have tootsie rolls selling me TP, the rolls that mimick my grandmothers quilts or the ones with leaves, flowers and little English provential cottages are fine, becasue it's nice but not weird (Except the cottage, but whatever), the point is that we have relationships with animals, or they represent us, and having them reprrsent something to dab dookie with is not right. Like the book says; everybody poops, even bears and rabbits, but don't make it something we want to cuddle.
What other cartoon animals do you think are out of line to sell you products?