Don’t you hate it when TV ads and TV programs are not realistic. For example, an actor opens a book, such as a dictionary, and the actor lands on the page instantly. What about car ads: when will they stop revealing new cars by removing bed sheets. What about the spray-and-wipe ads showing amazing results in seconds? Jonar speaks with Bruce and Phil about these and many more observations. To listen to an excerpt from the radio broadcast, click on the green arrow below.
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Here is a transcript of the audio file.
Host: Jonar Nader good evening and what are your observations this week.
Jonar Nader: Remember the good old days when remotes for television sets came in, you would say to someone why don’t you use your remote control, oh its too hard, and they would walk up to the TV. Now it is the other way around. They are next to the TV but they still need a remote control they don’t know how to use the TV anymore.
Host: Have you ever checked into a hotel and tried to turn on the television set. IMPOSSIBLE!
Jonar Nader: The batteries are usually flat in the remote.
Host: Yes, and then you ring up to say I can’t turn on the television and she says see the on, off red switch at the base, yes, well turn if on!
She would get about 100 calls an hour about that wouldn’t she?
Jonar Nader: Speaking of TV and movies isn’t it painful when actors do things fake like they pretend to flick a light switch and you know it’s not right they are not doing it or they want to drink coffee and they are not really drinking it and sometimes the cup is empty, isn’t that obvious or they pick up some baggage at the train station and you think how could you have travelled all this distance and your baggage is so light.
Host: That is exactly right, and they will swig a cup of coffee and only take one sip out of it.
Jonar Nader: Yes I was watching ‘Faulty Towers’ for example and he snatched the cup out and you could tell it was empty and I thought how hard is it to put something in there.
Host: Also in movies, all grocery shopping bags seem to come with French bread and one bunch of carrots with leafy tops
Jonar Nader: That’s true there is always the French bread or the people who say I’ll just put the candles on, and you watch the studio lights dim slowly or when he says here I’ll find it and he’s reading a dictionary and he lands on the word in the dictionary in an instant. See I find that a little bit fake.
Host: Also it is very easy to land a plane provided there is someone in the control tower to talk you down.
Jonar Nader: What about in news rooms now when they say, ‘This is the 5 o’clock new break’ and I am more interested in the staff in the background, staff members who are supposedly on the phone.
Host: Yes I saw on channel 10 a tram go through Jennifer Hanson’s ear.
Jonar Nader: Oh really but I wonder if those people in the background are warned Don’t throw things at each other we are going to air, or if they are just extras who don’t know what they are doing.
Host: Remember in early television when a footballer was interviewed there were always the kids in the crowd at the back jumping up and down waving to home.
Jonar Nader: Yes well they do that now in the US, they have on CNN and others, maybe the morning show
Host: NBC today show they broadcast from on the street.
Jonar Nader: Yes and car ads, when will they stop revealing a car with a bedsheet
Host: Yes, it gets pulled away
Jonar Nader: How about ‘Voilà’, is there no other way of doing that?
What about the ads? First they tell you this diamond ring was $4000 now it’s $1200 and you think ‘my goodness how can anything be dropped by so much, who is losing all this money?’ then they say ‘no reasonable offer refused’. Well judging by that what would be ‘reasonable’ thereafter. Or what about the spray and wipe ads, they spray it and they wipe it and it’s pristine.
Host: and sparkles come off it.
Jonar Nader: Yes but just one easy application, no scrubbing
Host: and the rest of the surface is as dull as dishwater, but that one sweep, it is glorious all done with magic. Do you remember the chase in the movie the French Connection. There was a train crash in the French Connection, the Gene Hackman movie of 30 yrs ago and it looked very realistic until you find out from the director that they actually ran the film backwards in other words the trains were parting when they filmed it and then ran the film in reverse to make it look like a crash
Jonar Nader: What about the car ads where they say things like an amazing 29, 9, 90 or the incredible 24, 9, 90 or the unbelievable 32, 9, 90 or the unbeatable price. How can something be unbeatable when you flick the channel and you hear them say no offer will be refused and we will give you 10% off the difference.
Host: and don’t you hate things that are $1.99 wouldn’t you rather they were $2.
Jonar Nader: When will they give that up? How about you have ‘a full seven days’ to pay. What is a half seven days to pay?
How about ‘I saw it with my own eyes’, who else’s eyes could you have seen it with?
And finally at the petrol pumps, I am confused. We should have a standard colour code. I fill unleaded so when I go into a Shell it is yellow but when I go into a Mobil the pump is red.
Host: You really have to think twice before you pump your car. You have to read if it is leaded or unleaded, LRG or diesel.
Host: Jonar Nader is the author of ‘How to Lose Friends and Infuriate Your Boss’.
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