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101Comments

  3. 3.

    Incertus

    Oh yeah. And I remember being vaguely scandalized when I found out that the actor was Italian or something. I didn’t have Santa when I was a kid, so I had to substitute something else.

  6. 6.

    Rob in Denver

    When I was a little kid, it was the sad signal that Saturday morning cartoons were over. Later, when I was older, it was the happy signal that college football was an hour or so away.

  8. 8.

    Linkmeister

    That one was memorable. The other one that sticks in my mind, and a lot of other people’s, is the image of the egg dropping into the frying pan with the voiceover "This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?"

  9. 9.

    Keith

    And I remember being vaguely scandalized when I found out that the actor was Italian or something.

    As well as immortalized by Joey Pants on an ep of The Sopranos (IIRC the ep was called "Christopher")

    I much more distinctly remember "YOU, ALRIGHT! I learned it by watching YOU!", as the littering one was a little before my time and only pertinent to me via movie parodies such as Kingpin.

  11. 11.

    The Moar You Know

    Thanks for reminding me of how old I am, John. But I learned my lessons well from that PSA spot; I still throw shit at Indians every time I see them on the side of the road!

    Those cars at the end would now be valuable antiques.

  12. 12.

    JD Rhoades

    I remember being vaguely scandalized when I found out that the actor was Italian or something.

    Actually, it’s kind of a weird story….

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Eyes_Cody

    Cody was born Espera de Corti, a son of Antonio de Corti and his wife Francesca Salpietra, immigrants from Sicily. In some of his earliest acting credits Cody was listed as Tony de Corti. He would soon change his name and claim to be part Cherokee and part Cree.
    In 1996, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported his Sicilian heritage, but Cody denied it at the time because he was "ashamed"[citation needed]of his Italian heritage. Cody and his wife Bertha adopted several children, all Native Americans.

  13. 13.

    John S.

    Oh yes, I remember that PSA. Fat load of good it did.

    Speaking of PSAs…I was ranting to a co-worker how pointless and idiotic the current crop of anti-drug commercials are. For some moronic reason, they are still hopelessly obsessed with marijuana.

    Where is the fucking anti-drug commercial for METH? Or how about one for CHEESE (a new heroin-based drug marketed towards pre-teens)?

    I hope the incoming Obama administration starts putting PSA dollars to better use.

    EDIT: More like this, please.

    This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?

  15. 15.

    Tonal Crow

    @John S.:

    Where are the anti-drug PSAs for GOP? And for DWS (Drug Warrior Syndrome)? The U.S. has wasted more human potential — and more money — on the War on Drugs than on anything else I can name.

  19. 19.

    Jackie

    I am definitely old. That was impactful at the time. The brain on drugs is a classic. The only recent psa I can even recall was the colon polyp dragnet spoof. I admire the kind of creativity that represented. Get the polyp, get the cure. It isn’t easy to make people want a colonoscopy.

  20. 20.

    John S.

    @Tonal Crow:

    Listen, I am a long-time pot smoker, so you’re preaching to the choir. However, there is a world of difference between something that naturally grows in the ground and something chemically synthesized in a lab.

    As a habitual visitor to Amsterdam, I happen to think their overall policies are the best. Decriminalize things like marijuana and mushrooms (although this is about to change), but keep hard drugs like cocaine, ecstasy and heroin illegal. Only difference is instead of locking hard drug users up in jail, send them to mandatory treatment programs.

    The War on Drugs is a colossal waste of money for the most part, but I don’t think there is anything wrong with getting the word out there that kids should not be doing thinks like crystal meth or heroin.

    @ The Moar You Know:

    That’s funny. I always have to be reminded that things like alcohol, caffeine, sugar and nicotine aren’t really "drugs".

  21. 21.

    ricky

    Yeah, if he had stumbled on to the path of the white man a mere century before he would have had a fifty fifty chance of coming away with his scalp.

  23. 23.

    Incertus

    @John S.:

    The War on Drugs is a colossal waste of money for the most part, but I don’t think there is anything wrong with getting the word out there that kids should not be doing thinks like crystal meth or heroin.

    A couple of weeks ago I got roped into appearing on a panel for a local high school that dealt with the DARE program and drug use in general. I think my student–a college-student who subs at the school and does volunteer work–was just desperate for a body, but that’s the point I tried to get across, much to the dismay of the other panelists. Teenagers may be inexperienced, but they’re not as stupid as we may think they are, and when we equate weed with meth, they know we’re full of shit and won’t listen to us.

  24. 24.

    Egypt Steve

    Yeah, and it still chokes me up, to this day. When I go to Egypt, and lament how filthy so much of it is, I often think about how the US up until recently did not give much of a crap about polution or litter, and how important great public messages like this were in turning public attitudes around. Just convincing people not to throw trash around is cheap and incredibly effective!

  25. 25.

    DrDave

    As vividly as I remember the silly air raid drills at school where they had us crawl under our desks to prevent being hit by falling debris.

  26. 26.

    Lee in NC

    I’m kinda old(ish) so yeah, I remember it. There was a funny "homage" to this on the Simpsons once. I don’t remember the whole bit, but basically someone drops a piece of trash in front of the Native American and he sheds a single tear. Lisa then says, if that bothers you, don’t turn around. Then the camera pans to the degraded filthy ruins of Springfield behind him. It was kinda funny.

  27. 27.

    Alan

    @John S.:

    Would crystal meth exist if the old diet pills used as speed weren’t put under huge restrictions due to the war on drugs? Did the war on drugs make things worse?

  28. 28.

    JD Rhoades

    Bill Hicks takes on the Egg Ad:

    Now, where’s my commercial? Why don’t I get a commercial? Why is it always that other guy that gets the commercial? " I knew we were in trouble with that damn egg commercial, that guy. I knew that was the government’s take on drugs, we’re fucked, you know. "Here’s your brain." I’ve seen a lot of weird shit on drugs, I have never ever ever ever ever looked at an egg and thought it was a fucking brain, not once, all right? I have seen UFO’s split the sky like a sheet, but I have never ever ever looked at an egg and thought it was a fucking brain, not once. I have had seven balls of light come off of a UFO, lead me onto their ship, explain to me telepathically that we are all one and there is no such thing as death, but I have never ever ever ever ever looked at an egg, and thought it was a fucking brain. Now. Maybe I wasn’t getting good shit. I admit it, I see that commercial, I feel cheated. Hey, where’s the stuff that makes eggs look like brains? That sounds neat. Did I quit too soon?

  29. 29.

    John S.

    Teenagers may be inexperienced, but they’re not as stupid as we may think they are, and when we equate weed with meth, they know we’re full of shit and won’t listen to us.

    Ain’t it the truth, Brian?

    I always thought that if you’re straight with the kids and tell them the truth, they will know it and respect you for treating them with respect. These fucking idiotic anti-marijuana PSAs all imply that teenagers are fucking morons that have never actually smoked pot or know anyone who has.

    My kids are all too young for "the talk", but I got some warm-up with my 16 year old nephew. I told him the truth (well, I redacted some bits about his uncle’s own experiences), which is that in my opinion he was too young to be altering his brain seeing as how it was still developing. I did not tell him pot was evil and would lead to other things, although I did warn him of some of those other things.

    Basically, taking the pot won’t kill you but you have to be responsible enough to use it without abusing it – which is no small feat and certainly not best handled by a teenager. The fact that he came back to me a few weeks later to tell me a funny story about a friend of his who went to school high seems to indicate that I didn’t break my trust with him, and hopefully as long as I’m straight with him, he’ll respond in kind.

  31. 31.

    Ben

    I was a bit to young to really remember the commercial… but I know I’ve seen it a thousand times…. plus the Simpson’s also used it. :-)

  32. 32.

    Punchy

    I still throw shit at Indians every time I see them on the side of the road!

    You must be Pakistani.

  34. 34.

    Nylund

    It was the Simpsons episode where Homer becomes mayor and to finance all his election propositions he sells the space under springfield as a landfill to neighboring cities. Eventually the ground literally explodes with trash and they have to move the whole town.

    Speaking of PSA’s, I am desperate to see the old "Bits ‘n’ Pieces" PSA’s from SF in the 80’s (maybe 70’s too).

    Anyone who grew up there back then knows the phrase, "Glue, I need glue!

    "Borrowing without asking, 1000 and two stupid things to do".

    my friends and I have been trying for years to get a copy of those. Please help me if you can.

  35. 35.

    Kevin K.

    That was one of Steven Seagal’s most gut-wrenching scenes. I wish you had the rest where he chased down the car, punched through the windshield and snapped the guy’s neck w/ his bare hands.

  37. 37.

    Thom

    I watched about 2 seconds and know that there will be an Indian with a tear coming from his eye at the end.

    Now I’ll go see if that’s right, since I have such a shitty memory.

  39. 39.

    ET

    Oh yeah I remember that – left an impression on me and a lot of others (seeing how many here remember).

  40. 40.

    jnfr

    It’s hard to remember how much litter people used to just throw along the highways. You still see it in places, but nothing like it used to be.

    Yes, I remember that one.

  41. 41.

    John S.

    @ Alan:

    Wow, that’s a loaded question.

    I don’t know if you can prove causation there, although I have no doubt there is some correlation.

    My personal opinion is that the War on Drugs has caused proliferation of crystal meth, but not necessarily in the way you propose. I’m just stating an opinion here – lacking hard evidence – but given that meth usage is the biggest problem in places like the midwest and Alaska, I actually think the lack of access to marijuana (which is increasingly difficult to deliver to these parts of the country) has created a drug vacuum that has been filled by something people can cook up in their bathtub out of household cleaning products and OTC medicines.

  42. 42.

    2th&nayle

    Yeah, I remember the egg on drugs, PSA. It had a rather dynamic effect on me. After seeing that ad, I refused to eat fried eggs anymore. I wanted mine, "Scrambled with cheese, please."

  43. 43.

    Dungheap

    I remember one PSA that ended with "nobody ever says ‘I want to be a junkie when I grow up" which prompted my brother immediately to say "Mom, I want to be a junkie when I grow up."

  44. 44.

    John S.

    @ flavortext:

    Thanks for bringing those to my attention. Most of them are really quite powerful and effective.

    They should put those on a national rotation. Along with this ‘Celebrity Faces of Meth’ video.

    The truth is powerful, and the only thing people can believe.

  45. 45.

    Keith

    That was one of Steven Seagal’s most gut-wrenching scenes. I wish you had the rest where he chased down the car

    Now, you really don’t want to watch a video of Steven Seagal trying to catch someone on foot, do you?

  46. 46.

    Chasm

    That question could be rephrased, "Who is 35 or older?" because every sentient American from that time remembers that commercial (that, and the one where the nice businessman makes friends with the little boy in the airport. Is that one creepy now?). I was nine or so, and remember wondering if Nixon and the nasty big-business Republicans were seeing the same commercial and what they thought of it.
    That ad was the beginning of my environmental awareness, and it appeared at the one moment that it could have made a real difference, could have turned things around.
    But then everyone decided to ignore the DFH’s, Indians and children and instead deregulate Wall St, and hire a couple of sociopaths to run the country, and here we are (F#@*ed).

  47. 47.

    Tonal Crow

    @John S.:

    As a habitual visitor to Amsterdam, I happen to think their overall policies are the best. Decriminalize things like marijuana and mushrooms (although this is about to change), but keep hard drugs like cocaine, ecstasy and heroin illegal. Only difference is instead of locking hard drug users up in jail, send them to mandatory treatment programs.

    I think we should legalize it all, and make it subject to the same purity requirements as other OTC pharmaceuticals. We should also fund *truthful* PSAs on the potential risks (and potential benefits) of using, and provide treatment-on-demand for addicts. However, "treatment" for non-addicts is merely re-education by another name, and fosters obedience to a tyrannical government.

  48. 48.

    uila

    @John S.: The decline of the dollar did more to dry up reefer imports to the US than any half-assed effort of the Drug War. This is especially true of the Canadian crop. What was once quite profitable stopped being worth the border-crossing risk. Though it looks like the global economic collapse is dragging everyone else’s currency down to previous levels, so maybe things will pick back up again for respectable potheads.

    To get back on topic, there was a terrible AIDS ad that featured a dude telling me I could prevent HIV by putting on a sock. That confused the shit out of me, and I was of humping age. Only later did it dawn on me that his foot was my penis and the sock a rubber.

    For fuck sake, just tell us to use a condom!!

  49. 49.

    DFH no.6

    Sure I remember it. Earth Day ’71. Fairly effective ad, I think. There were only 3 TV channels at the time (not counting local public broadcasting and UHF) so everyone in the country saw it. Part of the whole emerging environmental/anti-pollution awareness of the time. Damn hippies!

    I also remember everything being grimy, gritty, and grainy, just like the ad. ‘Course I lived in Cleveland at the time, so that could explain it.

    Iron Eyes Cody. Italian (well, Sicilian) dude playing the part of a Native American. That became controversial, but it was not unusual for the time. It was pretty standard for the "Indians" in the old Western movies (John Wayne, et al) to be played by Italians. Same for old Western TV shows. It wasn’t until the 70’s that actual Native Americans began regularly portraying Native Americans in movies and on TV.

  50. 50.

    uila

    @Tonal Crow: I agree that truthfulness is important. I’m not giving kids any special credit to know when and where we’re lying to them – the average American kid is DUMB. Once he realizes that pot is not harmful and in fact quite delightful, then it’s not a stretch to try meth and crack and whatever the hell else they’re cooking up these days when the opportunity arises. There needs to be a bright red line drawn between the different classes of recreational drugs, with pot and booze and one side and everything else on the other (generally speaking, no offense to my old friend psilocybin)

  52. 52.

    Zifnab

    I guess I’m just from "The More You Know" *rainbow* *music* generation. Crying Indian was a little before my time. I do remember the big don’t do drugs movie with Care Bears and Ninja Turtles. That movie was awesome.

  53. 53.

    Mazacote Yorquest

    I don’t remember these ads very well…but I’m drinking milk, and as I grow older (pause) I’m sure the calcium will help me remember every fucking thing I ever did.

  56. 56.

    Keith

    It was pretty standard for the "Indians" in the old Western movies (John Wayne, et al) to be played by Italians.

    Kinda reminds me how about so many Hispanics in "Scarface" were played by Italians (LOGGIA!)

  57. 57.

    Tonal Crow

    Re: War on Drugs.

    Liberty should be our guiding principle. Governments have become our parents, not our servants, and "There ought’a be a law" has very nearly become the new U.S. national anthem. Government has no natural right to tell me what I can and cannot put into my own body. It has only the right to prevent me from harming others without their consent.

    Once we lose sight of this principle, anything and everything goes in the law, whether the War on Drugs, torture, lying us into Iraq, or the Surveillance State.

  58. 58.

    KRK

    I remember that PSA. I remember that people used to blithely throw their garbage everywhere. (So we’ve made some progress.) And I swear I remember that voice from a lot of ’70s cop shows.

  59. 59.

    Gus

    I remember it well. I kind of laugh when I consider the comparatively piddling environmental problems we had then.

  60. 60.

    carrie

    Yeah, i remember that too…on saturday mornings.
    After the count chocula and nestle quick sugar rush wore off.

  61. 61.

    Zifnab

    Liberty should be our guiding principle. Governments have become our parents, not our servants, and "There ought’a be a law" has very nearly become the new U.S. national anthem. Government has no natural right to tell me what I can and cannot put into my own body. It has only the right to prevent me from harming others without their consent.

    There is a limit. Back during the 70s and 80s drug use quickly spiraled into rising crime rates. Large swaths of people became unemployable as they destroyed themselves with crack and heroine. Emergency rooms were getting jammed with OD victims. Shit was bad.

    What is a government supposed to do when what you do to your body could be directly correlated with what you proceeded to do to your next door neighbor’s wallet? Guy smokes crack, losses job, gets desperate, starts mugging everyone on his block. Should the government take the naive approach and only arrest him after he starts attacking people or should it be proactive and attack the root of the problem?

  63. 63.

    That One - Cain

    @DFH no.6:

    I also remember everything being grimy, gritty, and grainy, just like the ad. ‘Course I lived in Cleveland at the time, so that could explain it.

    I remember Chicago it was dirty ass city. I hated traveling there with crap all over the place. Afros and loud shirts included. Our little town in Indiana was pretty decent. I don’t remember much garbage there.

    cain

  64. 64.

    Tonal Crow

    @Zifnab: Cocaine (and thus its derivatives, e.g., crack) and marijuana were criminalized in the 1920s or 1930s. I believe that heroin was criminalized before 1970. Did that protect us from "rising crime rates" and "large swaths" of the "unemployable"? Oh, wait…

    On the theoretical question: to protect Liberty, government’s power of pre-emption should be strictly limited, carefully supervised, and supported by good science. Drug prohibition is none of these things.

    On umemployability, a felony criminal record — such as one obtained on conviction for possessing an illegal drug — almost guarantees one’s inability to get a good job, and greatly reduces one’s ability to get any job.

  65. 65.

    Roger Moore

    @Incertus:

    Teenagers may be inexperienced, but they’re not as stupid as we may think they are, and when we equate weed with meth, they know we’re full of shit and won’t listen to us.

    DARE and the like seem to have drawn a completely different conclusion from the same information. Their idea seems to be that teenagers are insufficiently impressionable, so we must lower the age of indoctrination. Unfortunately, this misses the part where kids get older and turn into teenagers who like to challenge the indoctrination they received when they were younger. Apart from that tiny hitch, it’s a wonderful plan.

  66. 66.

    Xenos

    Another aging Xer here, remembering this ad from 1971, when I was 5 and still free to watch 90 minutes of bugs bunny, followed by the Land of the Lost and so on on Saturday mornings. Around the same time as "Cherokee People" on the am dial, with "Kung Fu Fighting" being another classic multicultural experience.

    I was too young for the Mod Squad and Room 222, so I did not get much exposure to African American culture for a few years after that.

  68. 68.

    Xanthippas

    The actual lesson of that PSA is that when you let whites take over your country they’ll throw their shit everywhere, but strangely that message has been lost on most non-Native viewers.

  69. 69.

    srv

    Land of the Lost

    Sleestaks!

    Followed by Sigmund the Seamonster.

    Confusing.

    I remember Mod and Rm 222, so maybe my parents were more progressive.

  70. 70.

    YellowJournalism

    I quite enjoyed the PSA’s at the end of cartoons in the 80’s. "And knowing is half the battle!" It was always fun getting safety tips from GI Joe or Jem and the Holograms. My favorite was a kid who wakes up complaining that he’s got a bad taste in his mouth. Suddenly, Batman is standing in his room, telling him that he needed to brush his teeth. It was surreal and creepy all at the same time.

    If you really want to be creeped out, though, check out the Canadian workplace safety PSA’s.

  71. 71.

    HeartlandLiberal

    We lived in Nashville and Hendersonville Tennessee for about 12 years from 1973 to 1985. During that time the state produced what many considered one of the greatest anti-littering ad campaigns ever, ‘Tennessee Trash’.

    Note the car being driven. A Corvair.

    http://www.tennesseetrash.org/

    The original ad is in the upper right main page, "Tennessee Trash PSA from 1976: Above is the greatest anti-litter public service announcement ever produced. It is the original Tennessee Trash PSA from 1976"

  73. 73.

    Keith

    For some reason, I knew exactly what PSA it would be before the video image even loaded.

    I thought it was this one until the first frame, where it hit me that JCole’s a gen up on me.
    My favorite part about this one is how the WASP-y kid’s dad looks like Edward James Olmos’ older brother.

    And for the person who mentioned GI Joe, here’s some PSAs for you:
    One
    Two
    Three

  74. 74.

    ed

    Of course even superficial look at anthropology shows that the vast majority of Native Americans just threw their trash out in front of their living quarters. But hell, never let facts interfere with a good story (or PSA).

  75. 75.

    Church Lady

    Although I think many of them are silly (brain on drugs/eggs), those PSAs beat some of the information the kids get in school. When my oldest was in second grade, she came home from school one day and started crying. She had been told by her teacher that smoking cigarettes was a form of "doing drugs" and my very impressionable daughter now thought her mom and dad were "using drugs". Talk about pissed off – I was seething. Is smoking bad? Absolutely. Is it legal? Yes, for adults. Should it be equated with illegal drug use? Um, given that the government taxes it, I don’t think so.

    With two kids (21 and 17), we’ve spent a lot of time over the years talking about not smoking – don’t want them hooked like us (successful so far), waiting until 21 to drink (not so successful with the oldest in college), and avoiding drugs, including marijuana. To help hammer the smoking/marijuana home, we offered a $1,000 payout at 21 if absolutely nothing had ever been smoked. On October 18, we made the payout to our daughter. On October 31, she tried pot for the first (and hopefully last) time, which she promptly told me about. I wasn’t happy, but she stuck to her end of the bargain. The only good thing was that she said she didn’t like it. I just hope that sticks.

  76. 76.

    Church Lady

    Heartland – thanks for the link to Tennessee Trash. That was definitely a blast from the past. I can’t count how many times I saw that commercial during my teens. They should play it today. Memphis, once known as one of America’s cleanest cities, now has to be one of the most litter strewn.

  77. 77.

    DRD 1812

    Of course even superficial look at anthropology shows that the vast majority of Native Americans just threw their trash out in front of their living quarters.

    Their "trash" consisted of animal bones and broken pottery, not fast-food packaging and beer cans.
     
    There was a time when littering was normal. Something almost everyone did while picnicking or hiking or driving down the road. There was a great scene in recent Mad Men showing this. Then PSAs and a general rise in consciousness regarding all things environmental turned the tide. To those of us old enough to remember when litter was everywhere you looked, dumped in great torrents down hillsides and filling every gutter, great progress has been made.

  78. 78.

    Duke of Earl

    @uila:

    There needs to be a bright red line drawn between the different classes of recreational drugs, with pot and booze and one side and everything else on the other (generally speaking, no offense to my old friend psilocybin)

    I know it’s futile to point this out because the fact that alcohol is legal while other drugs are not clouds people’s perceptions, but: Pot and booze aren’t even in the same ballpark when it comes to being dangerous.

    It is completely impossible to bong yourself to death, the LD50 of cannabis is ridiculously high, it’s not particularly difficult to drink yourself to death in a single sitting. Even if you don’t die from the CNS depressant qualities of the alcohol itself, there’s a good chance you will drown in your own puke because you are too drunk to roll over (I nearly did this myself once when I was young and even dumber than I am now).

    You can die from alcohol withdrawal (grand mal seizures among other things), withdrawal from pot might make you grumpy for a few days.

    Alcohol is well known to cause many people to become violent, the proof of this is in our language itself; mean drunk, barroom brawl, don’t listen to him it’s the liquor talking, ten feet tall and bulletproof. Pot on the other hand is almost universally recognized to mellow out most people who consume it (some people do become paranoid but very rarely violent and they mostly don’t smoke any more).

    Not to mention that booze is also the cause of the single largest group of preventable birth defects, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (1.9 per 1000 live births in the USA).

    All you have to do is look at the original Woodstock festival and the repeat in 1999 to see how alcohol effects crowds of people.. First Woodstock, lots of pot and hallucinogenics, very little alcohol, no reported violence. Woodstock 1999, lots of alcohol, not so much other drugs, ended in a drunken riot.

    And then there is this little rant from Jesse Ventura:

    JESSE VENTURA, HOST: Imagine an alien suddenly dropped into the 21st century America. He goes to a Monday night football game and witnesses thousands of people guzzling a liquid refreshment as fast as vendors can supply it.
    (…)
    Observing the spectacle of the game itself, the alien is constantly distracted by fans whose behavior seems to become more and more bizarre. He watches as fights
    break out between half-naked fans with painted bodies.
    (…)
    By the end of the contest, on the playing field, he notes that most of the people around him seem to have lost their ability to walk and for some reason, their speech has changed. Words are less audible. They seem to be talking in slow motion. Once the game is over, he watches the fans stumbling toward their cars, cursing and threatening other fans.
    (…)
    Clearly, the alien observes, something has caused these fans to have a mind-altering experience. But whatever is going on, it seems to be acceptable behavior for this society, because all the while, many police officers observe the behavior, but remain at a distance and don’t interfere.
    (…)
    The next day, the alien attends a lecture on a college campus. After the lecture, he’s invited by some students to a party. At the party, students are sitting around drawing smoke from a bottle-like structure with water in it. The
    smoke is inhaled into their bodies, the conversation is friendly, calm and respectful, and music is playing in the background. But all of a sudden, many police officers arrive with guns, grab the water-filled bottle, put handcuffs on
    everyone in the room, and take them off to jail. The alien is totally confused.
    (…)
    Welcome to the United States of America, the land of hypocrisy.

    And yeah, I remember that PSA vividly.

  80. 80.

    Tonal Crow

    @slag:

    I sometimes miss the sunny optimism that permeated television in the 70s.

    Here’s a blast from that past. There was an even-better ad using the same tune, in which the guy flew with arms extended, but I can’t locate the video.

  82. 82.

    ed

    Their "trash" consisted of animal bones and broken pottery, not fast-food packaging and beer cans.

    "Trash" is anything you don’t want and is not usable. Did you have a point relevant to the one I was making? (The "noble savage" notion is an invented idea-throwing trash out the front door does not fit the modern environmental effort, regardless of what the trash was. And it’s still there, just like plastic.)

  83. 83.

    Andy K

    I remember Chicago it was dirty ass city. I hated traveling there with crap all over the place. Afros and loud shirts included. Our little town in Indiana was pretty decent. I don’t remember much garbage there.

    Shortly after Michigan passed the bottle deposit law, a trip through Indiana (because, really, who makes a trip to Indiana?) was like taking a drive through the local dump. Kudos to Indiana cleaning it up in the last fifteen years or so.

    I could say the same for Ohio, but without those kudos. Nice job extinguishing the rivers, though.

  84. 84.

    binzinerator

    Rm 222

    Shit. Just had a Bernie memory flashback. God I hated Bernie. I don’t know why. I was maybe 8 or 10. Maybe it was because even then I just couldn’t stand white guy afros. White guy afros just look frizzy, slovenly and ratty. Especially when it’s a white guy who has red hair, like Bernie.

    I remember too the young woman who played Alice Johnson and feeling some vague and strange sense of… was it interest? Not exactly yearning, but what? In a few short years the dim awareness of that odd distant feeling would develop into an immediate and instantly recognizable total awareness of a full-blown urge to fuck a female’s brains out. But at age 10 I often changed the channel even before the theme song finished.

    Alas, by the mid seventies I had seen Joey Heatherton in some movie or TV special, who promptly became the object of a 13-year-old’s terrible crush, and cute Alice Johnson was callously forgotten.

    Heh, heh. Getting old when that kind of mind traveling happens when someone drops the title of a long-forgotten TV show.

    Oh, and heck yeah I remember that Indian commercial with the trash tossed on the Indian’s feet and the tear running down his eye. Since then I have learned he is a Native Americans, not Indian. And it’s not an ad, but a public service announcement, aka PSA. And that the Native American in the PSA was not even a real Native American. Oh well. The spirit of it was right.

    But damn Alice Johnson in Room 222 did look pretty cute then.

  85. 85.

    mrsmarks

    Ah yes, I remember it well. I was a kid when this came out.

    What strikes me after review is the lack of smoke-stack industry and people throwing out bags of crap from their cars.

    As to the shore-line dump, I don’t know. I grew up in a land-locked area of Illinois. But I vividly remember vacationing in Michigan in the late 60s and seeing the shore line of Lake Michigan heaped with fish that died from pollution.

  87. 87.

    Gus

    On October 31, she tried pot for the first (and hopefully last) time, which she promptly told me about. I wasn’t happy

    What’s wrong with a little pot? Jesus people get uptight over the dumbest shit.

  88. 88.

    DRD 1812

    The "noble savage" notion is an invented idea

    Agreed. I’d even recommend a book on my shelf, "The Ecological Indian," which debunks the well-worn myth that this continent’s earliest inhabitants possessed some profound reverence and respect for nature rather than being merely self-interested, opportunity-exploiting humans like any others. My intent was only to point out the difference between nature-based and wholly synthetic forms of waste. The former doesn’t kill wildlife and screw up ecosystems.

  89. 89.

    Steve The Other Plumber

    Teenagers may be inexperienced, but they’re not as stupid as we may think they are, and when we equate weed with meth, they know we’re full of shit and won’t listen to us.

    Oddly enough these very same teens are stupid enough to believe drugs are actually good for you.

  90. 90.

    LiberalTarian

    Hell yeah. Worse, I became a pissed off child in response.

    That and the Last Alaskan Curlew on After School Specials. I may not always be a liberal (well, of course I will), but I will always hate people who are careless with the environment.

  91. 91.

    Francis

    Oh fnck, a psa that actually raises a topic I know something about.

    So, you see, the Clean Water Act prohibited point source discharges. (That covers the psa with all the nasty stuff coming out of pipes.) But it turns out that a tremendous amount of pollution comes from non-point sources (ie, dog poop, trash, pesticides from lawns, etc.)

    [everyone’s given up reading by now, i assume. but since i have a first class case of insomnia, i’ll keep going.]

    So the Clean Water Act was amended to create a program to catch non-point source contaminants. Now, municipalities need to obtain "municipal separate storm sewer system" (or MS4, for short) permits from the EPA or the state delegated agency. (In California, that’s the Regional Water Quality Control Boards.) Under the MS4 permits, cities and towns have to develop programs to reduce non-point source pollution. This includes school out-reach programs, street sweeping, catch basins at the mouth of street drains, and the like.

    End result? Rivers and beaches around the US are much cleaner than they were 30 years ago, and there’s still more to do.

    It’s funny to see a PSA that predates an environmental regulatory program that I now work in.

  92. 92.

    ChrisB

    @binzinerator: Karen Valentine is now 61 years old. Wow.

    I’ll always remember her as being in her 20’s thanks to Room 222.

    And of course I remember that ad. Knew it before I even started to play it.

  93. 93.

    cynic

    Interesting coincidence – this month’s Orion magazine just happens to have an eye-opening piece on that ad. Not exactly what we thought it was …

  94. 94.

    harlana pepper

    Are you shitting me? I was raised on this stuff. Don’t be a litterbug, conserve energy, blah, blah, blah. These were the Carter Years. What a crazy asshole he was, huh.

  96. 96.

    jprice vincenz

    That was a nice shout-out by Rachel Maddow last night for Balloon-juice. I wonder if traffic picked up afterwards.

  97. 97.

    hoi polloi

    I remember it. I also recall just a flash from another PSA from my youth. I bottle or can of some sort being wrapped in brown paper in close-up. Vivid sound of the paper folding. Then maybe a hippy? Anyone recall that and what the heck it was about?

  99. 99.

    3D

    More importantly, where did all the announcers go who sound like that guy? It seems like every PSA and most of the ads of the 1970s and 1980s were read by that guy with the gravelly voice.

  100. 100.

    Andy K

    But I vividly remember vacationing in Michigan in the late 60s and seeing the shore line of Lake Michigan heaped with fish that died from pollution.

    Probably the big alewife die-off of ’67 or ’68. Hate to kill your buzz, but it’s a natural occurrence. The alewife isn’t native to the Great Lakes, and when it got in through the Welland Canal its population grew wildly out of control because there was no natural predator. The alewife population became to large to be supported by its food source, and die-offs followed. Malthusian, without the extinction bit.

    Due to the introduction of other non-native fish that prey on alewives, you don’t see alewife die-offs like you did back then.

    (full disclosure: my family is from Muskegon, and we lived in Grand Haven in ’67-’68, and people of a certain age refer to that die-off in legendary terms…I was very young but I remember going to the beach and having to skip over the dead fish in the period to which you refer )

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