|
It's not nice to fool Mother Nature
By the early '70s, Americans were beginning to clue in that stuffing large gobs of butter down their pie holes might be having a deleterious effect on their health. Certainly it was making them way fat. Makers of margarine stepped up to the plate and offered consumers a healthier choice. But, I mean, it just wasn't butter.
Chiffon Margarine launched an ad campaign in 1971 to convince the health-yet-taste conscious it had a margarine that tasted just like butter. No, really. In a series of commercials that presaged the Folgers "we switched his regular freshly brewed coffee with watery instant crap" ad campaign, Chiffon featured a fellow at tea party hosted by none other than Mother Nature herself.
Without Mother Nature's knowing, this sly margarine pusher substitutes the rich sweet butter on her crumpets with Chiffon Margarine. Likely high on the oxygen rich air found in this arboreal paradise and not thinking straight, he saucily reveals to her he made the switch. As unfolding events inform us, this was a mistake. We want to shout at him "get out of there now with your doggy bag of crumpets and honey and live! LIVE! " but alas. Nature indeed takes its course.
Upon this revelation, Mother Nature is at first incredulous. Fuck me this is not butter! By the earnest look on his face and possibly some limited form of omniscience granted this demi-goddess, she can see he's not jacking her. Her disbelief is soon replaced by an odd form of benevolent scorn never before, and never since, seen on the small screen. She lectures the man "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature". Her rebuke is followed by a clap of thunder on a Wagnerian scale. We can only presume the man, off camera, has been reduced to a cinder. That will learn him.
Cut to a product shot. We hear a woman with a voice like a woodland nymph sing "If you think it's butter, but it's not, it's Chiffon!"
-- Karl Mamer
|