Friday, July 15, 2011

Booty: Cartoon Pirates and Responsibility

Long before Triple P was even imagined, I read this article over at the always worthwhile Cracked website: The 9 Most Meaningless Corporate Slogans. As usual, the folks at Cracked hit the nail on the head while still maintaining a humor level refreshingly well above the middle school lunchroom. In the case of this piece, writer Conrad Schikedanz (Bon Dieu, I hope that is his real name) skewers corporate slogans. And what a fine job he does indeed.


The reason I’m pointing this out to you at all – aside from the fact that it’s hilarious – is the #2 item on the list: Captain Morgan Rum’s “Drink Responsibly; Captain’s Orders”. As Mr. Schikedanz points out:

If you're taking orders from a cartoon pirate on a bottle of rum, you've probably already missed the boat to the land of responsible drinking, making this slogan rather moot (assuming you're sober enough to read it). This one is just barely worse than the Captain's other slogan, "Got a little Captain in You?"

He goes on but I’ll let you enjoy the splendor of it all for yourself. Click over when you’ve got a minute; you won’t be disappointed.

With that, I’ve got little to add aside from what I’ve said here before about a major liquor bottler co-opting an infamously brutal buccaneer and turning him into a cartoon stereotype to sell their booze. But I guess that’s their privilege. To paraphrase the great Eddie Izzard: It's the American dream!

Header: The Captain in his natural habitat

2 comments:

Timmy! said...

Ahoy, Pauline! I thought Eddie Izzard said the American dream was babies on pikes? I could be wrong about that, though...

Regardless, it's hard to argue with the stupidity of any of those slogans (and so may more) but truly, the Captain Morgan slogans are mind bottlingly bad...

Sorry, I'll stop now. Happy Friday after Bastille Day!

Pauline said...

Well, yes, in context, Mr. Izzard mentioned "babies on spikes"... But in context!

Hey, just continue to exist, OK?