Cartoon Network is no stranger to PSAs. However, that brief period of time where they tried to tell kids to eat healthy didn't exactly have the best results...
Legit a year late but it's in this compilation at about 26:14 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-T-z_PCm0d0E.html&ab_channel=Khalil%2FRetro
yeah the irwin one is the one I remember not being bad just a tiny bit preachy and the chowder ones being really rough but memorable (which if their goal was to make it memorable they succeeded since I was the ideal age range at the time it came out).
“Yo, what’s up diggity dogs,. I just made a mess in the other room. High five. Don’t be hatin’ ”(Mung Daal) Given that Chowder made fun of old people trying way to hard to look cool, these PSAs must have been from out of touch executives
I genuinely thought i dreamed this up, saw it as a kid while spending the night at a family member's house, and just chalked it up as "weird dream memory" for years. Turns out a lot of memories I thought were bullshit turned out to be real, like Nickelodeon's The X's.
As terribly dated as Spot the Block was, at least it wasn't the unforgivable pain that was the Speak Up Against Bullying PSAs they did right around the time they decided Teen Titans Go was the basket they wanted all their entertainment eggs in. O.K. Hold it. Chowder and Mung rapping...ugh, make it stop already!
It’s a shame they didn’t think to use the end credits Chowder puppets to send this message. They have the whole cast, and it probably would have been more memorable
Chowder is probably the worst show you could use for the Spot the Block commercials. A character whose main drive is eating unhealthy junk food and tons of it can not represent the message of eating healthy food and limiting yourself to the food’s serving size without acting completely out of character. You might as well have Mr. Krabs do a PSA on tipping at restaurants.
Or Totally Spies do a PSA on Sexual harassments. Or Barnyard PSA about Dick Tits. Or Teens Titans go PSA about Bullin-Wait a minute that already happened.
As heavy handed as these PSA's are, at least it's not the unforgivable bullying Disney XD put into shoehorning healthy habits into cartoon programming, most of it wasn't even produced for them. Sure, I can overlook Japanese snacks being turned into apple slices in Doraemon. It's an American dub of a Japanese kids' show, of course someone's going to screw something up because we can't say a Japanese program is FROM Japan. But what they did with Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures (regardless of what you think of the show) was executive meddling at its absolute worst. I could see them making it so Pac-Man eats more fruits, as that's what he did in the video games. What they did was obnoxious and high cringe. Any time a food item was mentioned, they'd have to at length discuss how healthy the food was. Burgers would ALWAYS have to be mentioned that they've been turned into "healthy turkey burgers" for example. Oh, and did I mention this was something forced on them second season? As in, they were perfectly fine with a character famous for eating stuff eat stuff for the entire first season, but decided to turn the series into an anti-obesity PSA, again with a character that's famous for eating stuff? I actually liked that show, but I just couldn't bring myself to watch it after two episodes into the second season. They didn't even produce the series.
Maybe I'm out of touch, but I don't really cringe when I see this stuff. I mean I don't know if the campaign was particularly effective, but I don't have memories of it at all and I was definitely watching Cartoon Network at the time. So these must have just been very forgetable for me, not something that annoyed me to the extent that I'd have to change the channel when they came on(and there were plenty of commercials like that for me back in the day).
Ok in my opinion when I was a kid I like the spot the block commercials, I didn't really understand them at the time but looking back now as an adult I think it's still funny a good, and yeah it has its "hElLo FeLlOw KiD" but you be honest it's way better then the ones I've seen nowadays
My theory on why it turned out bad or just off-putting is due to the length being kinda long and the bizarre choice to get the message across in a song. I think the FDA had big pockets and some lofty promises that couldn't be ignored but the stipulations were steep and constricting which resulted in a animation network making a song using voice actors not known for their singing ability. I think the FDA could've done better by not focusing on network bumper songs but instead paid the network to kindly suggest studios make a television special on healthy eating. Or just slam their iron fist down and demand the studios put out a episode or 2 in their show about healthy living. Then have the bumpers explain the specials and a quick blurb about what it's about.
I do remember watching these ads when I was really young. I thought the songs were catchy but the message didn’t stick with me until my teens. I think the reason why this campaign didn’t work for me was because the message sounded like math to me. And I didn’t want to do math, I just wanted to eat snacks!
I remember one add where Coco (from Fosters) was singing, and the camera was on her shaking butt showing that her sweatpants had sequins on her rear end that spelt Spot the Block (I don’t know if this was a Fosters-specific ad or a crossover between multiple shows)
You know, I remember Disney and Nickelodeon doing something similar long before CN. Disney had Captain Carlos or whatever it was named , and Nick had that song about breakfast. The difference with the three is that Disney and Nick didnt feel that cringy if at all.
Holy crap, I DO remember seeing these ads growing up! Honestly I got what the commercials were trying to encourage, even as a kid. But looking back now as an adult, jesus these ads were cringy. And they most certainly didn't work. LOL. XD
today i learned there were more than just the irwin psa 🤭 using the chowder characters makes a lot more sense and even if they aren't the best, i wish i had those in between so i wasn't bombarded with "SPOT THE BLOCK, YO (ooooh~)"
That little speil at the beginning could be given by Mandy (Grim adventures) Sith an "or else" at the end and it would fit her perfectly. it would be just like her little black out gags at the start of every episode. And kids would probably pay attention because Mandy is the most sensible character in the show.
Ngl, this video kinda misses the point of these ads. The point of these ads isn't to be "good" perse, its just trying to get the message "Check the nutritional block on your food" with the sweet and snappy "Spot the block" tagline, and the easiest way to do that is with a catchy, dumb little song to get in kids heads. I remember as a kid checking the nutritional facts on my food because I had the Irwin spot the block song in my head, and I still frequently check it, and this goofy little campaign helped with that, so it did its job for me at least. Not sure about everyone else but I think it was decently good
I’m guessing you haven’t watched Billy and Mandy. Irwin just talks with that, like saying “Yo”. And I don’t think they were trying to be with the times by using a disco song.
Look I agree with what they were trying to do here but cmon kids don't care whats in their food, for godsake they eat things like spaghetti Os and school cafeteria food
Watching this video when I've been fasting for 32 hours and that mushroom around 6:06 is actually making me feel hungry, and I hate mushrooms. The green onions at 7:22 look even better!
Between CN Kraft alien disaster, CN Cereal contest Cisaster, and CN PSA on healthy eating Disorder, Its seem that the only things these things together is that CN is terrible at doing Product placement and PSA's.
This feels less like an FDA campaign and more of a writer having a very strange fixation for a nutrient block. They show something as mundane as it so much it’s unsettling to me
The way Cartoon Network made the Spot the Block ads like these is like how GrubHub made their ad be so trendy for the sake of being trendy. And it's obnoxious because instead of taking it to a level of being educational, let's force in all the funky music or Gazpacho going like fucking Lady Gaga in one ad to make a good ad campaign. This is not Cartoon Network right here. I can only expect this obnoxious trend of being hip and cool with the kids from Nickelodeon, rarely ever Cartoon Network. I didn't even know how bad these were, even for their time. Okay, maybe I have been too critique with CN on this one. I think the FDA could be to blame because of how cringeworthy these ads turned out.
Gazpacho is parodying Lady Gaga and Poler Face so..yes. It clearly was cringy on purpose. It was using satirical comedy to sell the point. Gazpacho was likly used because it was parodying lady gaga. It makes direct fun of her because he is a giant nerdy mammoth and it fits in his character to act overconfident and flamboyant to hide insecurities..something she was often accused for by her critics. Gazpacho is all talk and flash but little real show when it comes down to it. I think he was really just chosen for the commercial based on this rather than the logic of his character supporting portion control. They wanted to make as silly a parody video as possible to get the kids attention while cramming a lesson over their head that they won't even notice.
I also remember seeing a My Gym Partners a Monkey commercial, which had the McDonald's ad that was also used for the funding in Sesame Street somewhere on RU-vid.
I was around for spot the block and I remember this campaign=, not gonna lie, iyt was cringe at times. BUT, to this day, I actually take nutritional acts seriously as well as serving size and whatnot. Point is, I actually do pay attention to the block. Also for the foster's home thing. I think they had a legitimate episode, but for the spot the block, they edited the clips and re-dubbed them to fit the campaign for its commercials
The first problem might have been the insistence of calling the nutritional facts part of the label “The Block”. If I had heard that term, I would’ve thought of where the food was grown or processed before I would have thought of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients. I guess we should be lucky neither the FDA or Cartoon Network used “Block Rockin’ Beats” during this campaign.
I remember this its just cringe, all this made me want to do is want to shove more cheeseburgers down my throat just to spite them. XD (BTW I wouldn't do that I would puke my brains out.) (Also gazpacho, of all people telling you to eat healthy is ironic cause the same voice actor played shake from athf, in which there was a episode where shake got cancer from eating nothing but doritos. because he wanted to win a contest for the super bowl tickets XD.)
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