TV: Local
cable show draws a bead on bad TV ads
Noel Holston / Star
Tribune (3-10-99)
''Mental Engineering''
is the freshest TV-show idea to come out of theTwin
Cities since "Mystery Science Theater 3000."
It's not perfected yet, but its mischievous little heart
is in the right place.
"Mental Engineering"
critiques TV commercials on TV. Think about it.
What a radical notion.
The average child growing
up in the United States sees more than half a million
commercials by adulthood. A four-hour daily dose of
TV includes about 100 ads. But how often do TV's powers-that-be
even acknowledge the medium's commercial component,
let alone allow someone to dissect it?
Unless you count the
annual Super Bowl postmortems, in which news or quasi-news
programs evaluate the latest antics of the Budweiser
frogs and the Taco Bell Chihuahua, or the occasional
"favorite commercials" special, the answer
is: never. If you care to see some thoughtful analysis
of commercials, you have to read a trade magazine, such
as Advertising Age or Ad Week, or the Village Voice,
probably the only general-interest publication with
an advertising columnist.
"Commercials, even
more than print ads, just beg to be pulled apart and
analyzed," said the Voice's Leslie Savan. "Their
creators will often protest -- 'we don't mean all those
things that you're reading into it!" -- but it
doesn't matter. We, the public, are allowed and even
enticed to read all sorts of things into commercials,
because they're like little 30-second dreams."
But while books, movies
and even TV shows get reviewed on TV, commercials get
away unscathed. As Savan noted, reviewing art or entertainment
"doesn't threaten the system that supports them
financially."
Enter "Mental Engineering,"
a low-budget cable-access show produced in St. Paul.
It dares to sling stones at commercial Goliaths and
stick out its tongue, as well.
The show is the brainchild
of John Forde (pronounced Fore-DEE), who has a master's
degree in psychology from Macalester College and who
has been wary of commercials since he was 4 and got
a toy airplane that didn't live up to its TV hype.
My whole life I've had
three broad themes," Forde said. "I've been
fascinated by humor, by lies and by the linguistics
of questions. With 'Mental Engineering,' I found a way
to put all three together."
Forde launched "Mental
Engineering" in December 1997 on the St. Paul Neighborhood
Network (SPNN), the public access arm of the city's
MediaOne cable system. The show's format, reminiscent
of ABC's "Politically Incorrect," is simple.
In a given half-hour, Forde screens three or four commercials,
each of which is summarily sliced and diced by him and
four guest analysts. The latter might be anything from
comedians to cognitive theorists. Forde invites actors,
writers, psychologists, even advertising types.
Bill Hillsman, who created
the legendary Paul Wellstone and Jesse Ventura campaign
commercials, has been a guest. He said he had no qualms
about participating: "There's a lot of bad advertising
out there."
But the point of "Mental
Engineering" is not merely to grade commercials
on the basis of whether they "work." Forde
and company pay attention to the psychology behind the
ads -- what buttons are the creators attempting to push?
-- and to the social benefit, or lack thereof, of the
products being hawked. Always, they try to be amusing
rather than didactic.
Once, Forde screened
a commercial for potato chips fried in the new cooking
oil Olean. Set against a postcard-perfect backdrop,
a robust farm woman who talked earnestly about her decision
to buy this healthy snack for her family.
She was the ideal Olean
spokesperson, commented panelist Greg Fideler, because
she was "wearing knee-high rubber boots."
After viewing a spot
in which scores of lifeless crash-test dummies arise
at the sight of a new Audi and begin singing Beethoven's
"Ode to Joy" in German, comic Tim Mitchell
quipped that it looked like "a weird cross between
'Triumph of the Will' and 'Dawn of the Dead.' "
In search of an audience
"Mental Engineering"
assumes a fairly high degree of cultural literacy, perhaps
to its detriment. Nobody stops to explain references
to Carl Jung's theories or Neil Young's songs. Some
viewers may find the show a little clubby and smug,
which sometimes it is. Forde believes his program should
appeal to the same people who watch Dennis Miller, "The
Daily Show," "Talk Soup" and "Face
the Nation," and he's determined not to talk down
to viewers.
His show isn't getting
much of that audience now because it's on public-access
cable, not a national network or cable channel. But
it's starting to attract national attention. Swing,
a hip magazine aimed at consumers in their 20s, recently
praised its "often hilarious roundtable discussion."
And its visibility is
increasing. In addition to Minneapolis and St. Paul,
the show is on cable-access channels in a dozen other
cities, including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and
Philadelphia. "It's very good," said Katherine
Cole, program director of Citizens Television, an access
arm of Comcast Cable in New Haven, Conn. "We're
using it as part of our media literacy training with
some high schools."
Forde would love to
find a permanent home for the show in public broadcasting.
Starting Saturday, he and producer Carol Critchley will
make "Mental Engineering" available to public
TV stations via the Central Educational Network, one
of three satellite uplinks operated by PBS to distribute
regionally produced programs. Forde considers the uplink
fee -- $120 per episode -- a bargain. His next step
will be to call stations and lobby them to pick up his
show.
There are 380 public
TV stations nationwide, but Forde is focusing on only
a select few -- secondary stations in the 20 largest
markets and the 60 stations that are university licensees.
He suspects that PBS proper might be too beholden to
commercial interests these days to schedule a show that
reveals and ridicules the manipulative mechanics of
ads.
With corporate funding
unlikely -- and hypocritical even if it weren't -- what
Forde needs soon is foundation support. He needs a socially
conscious nonprofit to bankroll a show that truly needs
to maintain its independence. "Mental Engineering"
is being produced for a pittance, even by public TV
standards, but Forde's pockets are only so deep.
If there's any justice,
someone will come to the show's rescue. Forde says he
wants to teach and entertain. He wants to help people
"own themselves," which is not a bad goal
for a show that exists in a medium overwhelmingly dedicated
to selling.
To quote the show's
prospectus, its vision is "an America where commercial
speech and the techniques of media persuasion are balanced
by public awareness; where every citizen has both the
ability and inclination to ask good questions about
the media messages aimed at us. Education makes people
difficult to drive but easy to lead, and media literacy
is a new essential in our society
Host - johnforde@mentalengineering.com
Producer - Producer@MentalEngineering.com
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