Thursday, August 14, 2003
PUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURE!: Longtime online comrades might remember this ad image haunting my days and nights last summer. It's an 1899 issue of The Century magazine, and if you're too chicken to follow, it's an old Quaker Oats ad with a reflection of the Quaker man himself holding a box of the oats and a piece of paper with the word "PURE". There are a few things that set me off about this image; first, if they tried to make the Quaker look kindly, they failed miserably (at least from my vantage point). The eyes are dead, maybe even open a bit too wide for comfort, and the face is heavy on the shadows, giving it a malevolent look The whole design, in fact, is loaded with darker spaces than you usually see in a modern food ad, giving the illustration a claustrophobic feel. The other thing that bugs me is a bit more of an ad convention, but since it's all creepy to me anyway, it just helps seal the deal; to get everything to show up the right way as a reflection, the print on the oats can and the paper would have to be printed backwards.
I think I have a better explanation than that. The Quaker is trapped inside the mirror, wraithlike and waiting to leap out and attack those who would violate the PURITY.
That's where imagination takes over. I can picture a whole movie scenario based on the Quaker in the mirror. A group of teenagers are holding a party in an old abandoned Victorian-era house on the edge of town...one with LOTS of mirrors. One by one, or more often two by two, the spirit of the Quaker shows up to destroy those who break the purity of HIS house. He could be buried in the foundation or he could've been murdered by greedy land developers during the Civil War. Either one would work in this context.
Just like the Friday the 13th movies, several times the Quaker would wait until a couple were making the beast with two backs, then he makes his presence known, swirling out of his hellish phantom zone, screaming "PUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURE!", then falling on them with unspeakable brutality, a man driven insane by an era he never had a hand in. They are discovered strangled, raw oats crammed down their throats until they choke to death.
As is tradition, there is a "good girl" who survives most of the movie. She almost snuffs it when she fixes herself a steaming bowl of apple-cinnamon oatmeal, while the Quaker's preferred recipe is butter, salt, and maybe a bit of maple syrup (for your wild days). However, she recognizes the sadness in his soul. The company he was once the singular representative of has become a conglomerate without him, and the whole Quisp vs. Quake situation really ragged him out once he got word. A seance is the only solution, obviously.
What the result is I will leave up to the reader for now. Hopefully, though, you can see my point of view, and why those "Rugrats" kids are scared of the oatmeal guy.
I think I have a better explanation than that. The Quaker is trapped inside the mirror, wraithlike and waiting to leap out and attack those who would violate the PURITY.
That's where imagination takes over. I can picture a whole movie scenario based on the Quaker in the mirror. A group of teenagers are holding a party in an old abandoned Victorian-era house on the edge of town...one with LOTS of mirrors. One by one, or more often two by two, the spirit of the Quaker shows up to destroy those who break the purity of HIS house. He could be buried in the foundation or he could've been murdered by greedy land developers during the Civil War. Either one would work in this context.
Just like the Friday the 13th movies, several times the Quaker would wait until a couple were making the beast with two backs, then he makes his presence known, swirling out of his hellish phantom zone, screaming "PUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURE!", then falling on them with unspeakable brutality, a man driven insane by an era he never had a hand in. They are discovered strangled, raw oats crammed down their throats until they choke to death.
As is tradition, there is a "good girl" who survives most of the movie. She almost snuffs it when she fixes herself a steaming bowl of apple-cinnamon oatmeal, while the Quaker's preferred recipe is butter, salt, and maybe a bit of maple syrup (for your wild days). However, she recognizes the sadness in his soul. The company he was once the singular representative of has become a conglomerate without him, and the whole Quisp vs. Quake situation really ragged him out once he got word. A seance is the only solution, obviously.
What the result is I will leave up to the reader for now. Hopefully, though, you can see my point of view, and why those "Rugrats" kids are scared of the oatmeal guy.
|| Eric 2:01 AM#
