So, Dominoes Pizza and Sky have been reprimanded by Ofcom for their broadcast sponsorship of the Simpsons? Well, well, well. When this story landed in Monday’s newspapers, it was almost as amusing as the show itself.
Now, with British children looking more and more weeble-like each year, it is inevitable that the Dominoes / Simpsons alliance would be questioned. For a number of years now, there has been great concern at fast-food adverts being indiscriminately muddled between children’s television programmes and here we all are, welcoming this dysfunctional American family into our living rooms at the same time every evening, with pizza adverts in tow.
But, and this is a big fact but, what must be remembered is the context of the sponsorship. Whilst concerns are raised about the pizzas our children are potentially salivating over in the advert buffers, are we forgetting about the more pressing issues? Perhaps we fail to recognise that our kids are also being taught how make a deep fried bacon sandwich using blocks of butter as bread by a morbidly obese man who has had no less that 3 triple heart by-passes in his 40 years!?
Or are we perhaps overlooking the fact that this father-figure, Homer J. Simpson, spends his free-time (and most of his working-day) vegetating in his Y-fronts drinking endless amounts of Duff Beer until he is well and truly sozzled? Either way, in comparison, the cheese and tomato toppings on Dominoes pizza become somewhat less threatening and start to resemble a good source of calcium and vitamin C… perhaps.
This ludicrous ruling against Dominoes and Sky is marketing-correctness gone mad. Ofcom need to realise that if they do find themselves watching a programme about a lazy, American, blue-collar, working-class family who like to wolf their dinners down in front of the TV with minimal conversation, they can’t expect to be targeted for the Government’s Change4Life campaign.
Right, we’re all off to buy a pizza, The Simpsons starts in 5 minutes…
