PARTY IN THE PSA, PART ONE: Doing it with crack isn't just wrong, it could be dead wrong.

Hello again, my dear readers.

Growing up, we were taught that drugs were bad. It seems like back in the 80's and early 90's, you couldn't watch TV without seeing some sort of PSA about drugs. A lot of them weren't very convincing, and had no real effect on us. There are some, though, that just stick to your soul. This is one of them.



I grew up watching Pee Wee's Playhouse. It was a strange show, and Pee Wee Herman was a strange, strange man. He was loud, and his attention span on the show seemed almost non-existent. Let's play with toys! Let's find out the word of the day! Let's watch a cartoon! Oh boy, a talking chair!

The contrast between his Pee Wee's Playhouse persona and the tone of this PSA is what makes this PSA so powerful. He's no longer a man-child with ADD. He's speaking as an adult who genuinely cares about our well-being. It was pretty powerful stuff, back in the day.

I'm not sure, though, that this PSA holds up anymore. In fact, have you noticed you don't see drug PSA's on television these days? I should do some poking around to see some statistics on how effective they were.

In the next little while, I'm going to review some other PSA's from back in the day. There are some real gems out there, so keep your eyes peeled for more PSA entries!