Excellence in Advertising: Kenner Screen-a-Show

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      Before God invented Netflix and PVRs, you had to sit through a battery of commercials every time you turned on the idiot box. Most of them made you wonder why the hell Philo Taylor Farnsworth didn’t also invent something to block out commercials. Like Netflix or PVRs.

      But occasionally, a television ad struck gold to where you’d sit through a seven-hour Cannon marathon to see it again. And now, thanks to the magic of YouTube (which we can thank God for inventing) you can relive the magic at the touch of a mouse. Here’s today’s nomination for Excellence in Advertising.

      Here’s something fun to try: the next time you're on a road trip, plane ride, or walk around the block with kids, tell them there’s more to life than an iPod with every edition of Angry Birds loaded on it. While you’re at it, take the batteries out of their Nintendo DS, and pull the power chord out of the back of the PlayStation.

      Then sit them down with Kenner’s Screen-a-Show. Who needs fancy graphics and nonstop ADHD-triggering video action when you’ve got an amazing, take-it-anywhere projector?

      Screen-a-Show makes a great case that things really were better back in the ’70s. The portable plastic projector delivered not one, not two, but instead SEVEN colour shows featuring such lovable cartoon characters as Sabrina and Archie.

      All a kid had to do was slip in a cassette and then marvel at the OVER 100 scenes. Who cares if none of those scenes moved, making them the equivalent of a Sunday funnies comic strip? The important thing was that you could see them from “both sides” of the screen. And after you’d seen them, you could watch them again, and again, and again, and again. On road trips, plane rides, and walks to the corner store.

      Founded in 1947, and famous for such toys as the Easy-Bake Oven and Spirograph, Kenner was shut down in 2000 after being acquired by Hasbro.

      The tragedy there, of course, was that kids would have to learn to amuse themselves with things like Nintendo DS devices and the five million apps available at the iTunes store. Neither of which, it should be noted, are viewable from either side of the screen. Things really were better in the olden days.

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