On late night television, you might expect to find ads for chat lines and other "adult" products from time to time, but boy, did I have an eye-opening surprise while viewing an old "Newhart" re-run the other night on the "AmericanLife Network".
The cable channel has been my guilty pleasure ever since discovering it last year. Airing classic programs like "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "Hill Street Blues", it has been the source of great nostalgia for me and a reminder of how just how good television writing was back in the '70's and '80's. (Take that, you crummy reality shows).
Belly laughs aside, I wasn't chuckling when I witnessed a troubling commercial aired during "Newhart" advertising a company that manufactures rifles. Yes, it was a gun commercial. (Of course, I'm not going to mention the name of the company).
What was particularly troubling to me about the ad was how they referred to the gun model as an "American classic" and a part of American history.
With the TV network's corporate headquarters located in Dallas - a city which offers multiple rifle ranges just minutes from the airport alone - perhaps the airing of gun commercials shouldn't come as such a shock.
However, during a week which saw 3 horrible shootings - in Oakland, Binghamton and Pittsburgh - the network still ought to have known better than to air a commercial glorifying the use of guns.
What's even scarier to me is the thought of who might be watching these commercials and what they might be inspired to do with the guns.
I can only hope we've seen the last of these rifle commercials and that the "AmericanLife Network" sticks to more safer infomercials. Give me a Snuggie or Mighty Putty anyday.
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