I have long been fascinated by satirical marketing for children. Shel Silverstein and Dr. Seuss were both masters of it in print - I can't pass by a lame kitchen gadget display at Bed Bath and Beyond without mentally referencing Geisel's "Zans for cans," one of the many advertising parodies in Seuss' deeply irreverent One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish. ("At our house, we open cans / We have to open MANY cans / and that is why we have a Zans" - a giant hoofed animal with horns used to cut can lids, requiring a ladder and most of the kitchen's square footage). Saturday Night Live made some great interstitial fake commercials in the 1990s that dealt with the intense marketing of junk towards kids via their parents (as well as a bazillion other brilliant fake commercials - here's a list, good luck finding any to watch online).

But no one mastered the particular vernacular of 1960s television advertising towards kids quite like Jon Kricfalusi, the creator of "Ren and Stimpy."



- Jeremiah