Every time I watch the Hoveround ad-- where seniors in power chairs ride around in formation to pseudo-Beach Boys music-- it takes me back.Back, y'know, to when I was an octogenarian with a hip fracture, and the only way to keep myself in pudding cups and hair bluing was to hit the highways on my mean, lean, geriatric machine.
(I'm like Merlin, you see. I live life backwards. I should be thin, pert, and getting my braces off in just a couple of decades.)
.....
.....
Okay, so... no.
But it does take me back! Back to my childhood in the 7os...
I see the Hoveround commercial, and it's like the smell of fresh Play-Doh suddenly gets ground into my ol-factory senses, instead of the carpeting where it belongs...
And in the back of my mind--
--The only place unaffected by the fumes of those plastic rainbow-colored bubbles we used to squeeze from a tube and blow into shapes with a straw (remember those? the chemicals from that stuff could peel your Kool-Aid mustache clean off)--
In the back of that fume-addled mind, I find myself recalling ads for Big Wheels... Power Wheels... and Sit 'n' Spins.
I can't track it down online to verify, but I swear the Sit 'n' Spin jingle sounded a lot like the Hoveround song:
"Some kids go when they Sit 'n' Spin..."
"I go, go, go on my Hoveround..."
As the word "go" in these examples can indicate both "speed" or "incontinence" equally well for either demographic, I think there might just be something to the comparison.
Something subliminal... Something saying, "Buy this for the senior you love and maybe he'll let you borrow it for some sweet jumps."
Of course, it could just be those fumes again.
So before I leave you today, I treat you to two little blasts from the past-- a 70s Big Wheel ad, and a commercial for the fun... the fumey... Super & Elastic Bubble Plastic:
PS-- If the next Hoveround ads show Grandma, Grandpa and Great-Uncle Pete doing spin-outs, popping wheelies, and jumping ramps in the bingo parlor parking lot, just remember-- you heard about it here first, folks!
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Humorbloggers
14 comments:
You're just trying to depress me, right?
You said, "Back to my childhood in the 70s" ... I entered university in 1972.
And thanks for the reminder that I'm much closer to my Hoveround years than to my Play-Doh and Big Wheel years.
Ho hum. Excuse me, but I need to get ready to spend the rest of the day depressed. Not that that's a huge change from most of my days in these, my pre-elderly days. (Please, no cracks about the "pre.")
Joel- Oh, come on, Joel-- you LIVE for this sort of depression! I think it's because you lived with a dearth of Play-Doh. You should go invest in a nice pack of assorted colors. It will remind you of the psychedelic colors of your 70s college experience mebbe. :(
I have to commend you for this observation.
Thanks !
And do they ever show ads with active children any more ?
Jaffer- Do you get these Hoveround ads in Canada?
I don't know about active children, but notice how these kids on the Big Wheels are wearing absolutely no safety gear. Nowadays they'd be wearing safety helmets and elbow and knee pads, I bet!
Oh Safety Gear - err... hahaha.
I don't remember seeing any scooter related ads here.
I am at their website - http://www.hoveround.com/ check out the homepage - what a joke ! (You will need adobe flash )
Jaffer- What, you didn't like the little anthropomorphic Hoveround chair which waves an arm at us? :)
Oh. My. God.
FLASHBACK!!!
I never had a Sit and Spin or Big Wheel, but Super Elastic Bubble Plastic??? I LOVED that stuff. I can actually smell it, right now. Yes, it was fun. Yes, it made big bubbles. (Yes, it stank.) But I'm sorry, Wham-O, those bubbles did NOT last and last.
Thanks for taking me back. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to burn some incense or something.
JD- YAY!!! I was hoping someone would read the piece and remember that stuff!! Yes, that smell is hard to forget. I remember batting those Super-Elastic Bubble Plastic bubbles around the livingroom.... at least until they'd get all wrinkly and deflate.
Good times... good times.
I had a FIERCE Big Wheel when I was a kid. It even had switch on it that I could press that would press a plastic cable against the front wheel to make that rat-a-tat-tat sound.
By the way, remember Slime that came in a green plastic mini garbage can? I can still remember the smell of it. A cross between Aqua Velva and salt.
Corey- Oh, wow! You had to have been the Big Wheel king of your neighborhood with that! :)
And yes, indeed, I do remember that slime came in a green garbage can, now that you mention it! It was so disgusting we NATURALLY had to touch it a whole lot.
The 70s and 80s were great for weird novelty toys.
All this talk about playdoh and slimy green stuff makes me think of silly putty. That stuff was cool. I like getting pictures from the newspaper on it.
I miss my big wheel and sit n' spin. I wore down the wheel on my big wheel until it had a hole and went flat. I would then put it upside on it's handles and spin the wheel like it was some old spinning wheel.
They still have sit n' spin now it has lights and 4 different songs. But the plastic is cheap and won't spin well if your kid weighs more than 20 lbs. At least my oldest likes the music and dances to it. But it is rather big to be used as a music player.
Anonymous- SillyPutty was a ton of fun. And when you were done picking comics from the newspapers up with it, you could roll it into a bouncy ball.
I didn't know you could give the Big Wheel a flat tire! At least you found another use for it. :)
I only got to ride one of my friends' brothers Big Wheels once or twice. And someone else had the Sit n Spin I'd played with. I recall spinning until the room went wonky. :)
I wanna Big Wheels! Or failing that, a Hoveround. Yeah, I'm much closer to the Hoveround, I think, but it'll do! LOL!
I never saw a Hoveround commercial--and where I come from (Michigan) they're sold as Amigos. In Florida during the winter, I always feel for those making their way under a hot sun, hoping their batteries don't die on them, etc. Whatever they're called, one thing's for sure: the tiller-operated machines are great for morale. A good friend underwent a kind of transformation when he was able to leave his wheelchair parked in favor of an Amigo. In some sense, he stopped being "handicapped," and just "mobile."
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