Pinchin' an inch since the age of 5!

Ooweep!

I burst out laughing when I finally found this old commersh on YouPube! That's because it's based on such an idiotic premise that you just can't help being entertained by it.

It's an ad for Kellogg's Special K cereal from 1979. The gimmick of this commersh is the "Special K pinch." If you could "pinch more than an inch" of belly fat, you were considered by this ad to be pretty much at death's door:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9lTRfh0gcU

Of course, I had to try the "Special K pinch" myself back when this series of ads aired.

I was only in kindergarten, yet I could easily pinch an inch. Because of the commercial, kids at school kept going around pinching each other, and they could all pinch an inch too! The only person I knew who couldn't was the family dog.

Some have said that the "Special K pinch" is only a valid test for adult females. Thus, because I am male, and because I was not an adult in 1979, these observers believe it shouldn't apply to me. But the ad doesn't say that. In fact, both of the skinny adults in that ad use this test - including the man who bears a slight resemblance to Gomer Pyle.

Nonetheless, the fact that the lanky characters in that ad get so bent out of shape over pinching an inch, and the fact that a skinny 5-year-old (as I was at the time) could easily pinch an inch, proves only one thing. By using the "Special K pinch" to define almost EVERYONE as too plump, Kellogg's was exaggerating everybody's weight just to induce them to buy gobs of Special K. Which of course is the whole point of advertising, I guess.

This commersh actually encouraged people to drink skim milk? Who in 1979 drank skim milk? Nowadays, that's all schools will serve, but back in 1979, America was the world's envy, as skim milk gathered dust on grocery shelves.

Ooweep!