I think a new threshold for being politically incorrect was just established by the company that produces both animal crackers and Camel cigarettes. Joe! Get out of the
cookie box, ya bum!When you consider how much heat the tobacco companies are under for fiddling with the amount of nicotine in cigarettes and actively trying to get kids to start smoking, what RJR Nabisco has done took more guts than contained in your average-sized sperm whale.
I'm not saying it was smart. I'm just saying it took guts. Like the kind of guts it takes to jump off a high bridge with a bungee cord that's just a little longer than it should be.
What RJR Nabisco did was slip a Joe Camel look-a-like onto boxes of animal crackers.
For those of you not up to speed on the tobacco wars, Joe Camel is a cartoon-type character uses to advertise Camel cigarettes. For years, the Camel company got along on the advertising phrase, "I'd Walk a Mile for a Camel." But that apparently
didn't appeal to potential younger smokers, whom the tobacco companies see as their future in the United States. Instead of trying to come up with something too obvious, like, "I'd Walk to the Mall for a Camel," the cigarette company opted to make the cool, hip, smoking dromedary its symbol.
If you think that drove the anti-smoking people nuts, wait until they see the animal crackers box. In the old days, the animals were poorly drawn lions and tigers and bears in cages. The box was supposed to look like a railroad car carrying animals to the circus. Now the animals have all been redrawn in a more modern, air-brushed style and a camel that has the same facial features of Joe Camel is on the train. The type under the animals also appears to be the same font as that used on the Camel cigarette pack.
Well, it doesn't take Barnum & Bailey to tell you that the cigarette company is apparently trying to plant the image of Joe Camel in the young, sponge-like minds of our nation's kids. The outrage! Let the cookie wars begin!
I'm not generally affected by such subliminal advertising. But I have to admit, the camel on the cookie box got to me. I pawed through the box to dig out the actual camel and found it kind of crumbly and hard to light. I suppose this is just the beginning of this kind of cross-over advertising. Will it be long before Marlboro cigarette packs contain a picture of the Keebler elves? Would tobacco companies be so brazen as to try to get adult smokers hooked on Double Elf Fudgies?
We all know kids should not smoke. And, in all seriousness, this kind of cross-over advertising is tasteless at best. Especially when you consider that the People for the Ethical Treatment of Cookies That Look Like Animals weren't too keen on kids munching on endangered animal snacks anyway.
Kids who smoke turn into adults who smoke. And smoking kills. Just ask former Chinese Premier Deng Xiaoping. Smoking killed him. Finally. He was either 92 or 93 years old (depending on whether you use metrics). He chain-smoked some strange, custom-designed cigarettes that were half filter. Only the upper-echelon Chinese got those kind.
What's interesting is the brand name of the cigarettes. And I'm not making this up. They were called Pandas.
I've never seen a pack of Pandas. I don't know if they have a cartoon picture of a character named "Petey The Panda" on them or not. And I don't know if "Petey The Panda" also ended up on boxes of won ton cookies.
All I know is that cigarettes should not be named after cute animals. It sends the wrong message to kids. Instead of smoking, they should be getting exercise. As in, "I'd Walk a Mile for a Bacon Double Cheeseburger."
