Second Childhood with Hoveround Commercial

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

Kickin' It at the Kit-Kat Club

(Flash!... Flash, flash!)

I peered over my computer monitor into the yard diagonal from mine.

One cat. (Flash!) Two cats. (Flash, flash!) Three cats. (Flash!) Five.

The flickering illumination revealed the truth of the matter. Backyard motion sensor + city's entire cat populace = kickin' disco strobe light effect and the hottest feline nightclub Pittsburgh has seen in decades.

The neighbors-- and more to the point, the neighbors' large dog-- haven't been home because their house is being renovated. Windows are ripped out. French doors sit waiting. And a deck is being built onto the back...

(Flash, flash!... "Pump up the jam, pump it up...")

...So the Kit-Kat Club All-Nite Rave Party's moved in.

It's a building site theme, natch. Lots of posts and planks for the go-go girls to perch on and shake their tails. And plenty of nooks and crannies for swingin' singles to cat around in.
Far as I can tell, the big yellow tomcat acts as bouncer. Yessir, the fur really flies if you can't pay the cover charge-- and at two mice a pop, he's raking it in.

Plus, they've got some pretty diverse musical acts going on there. Some rising star a cappella boy bands... Some three-part-harmony girl groups...

And then there's the grey-and-white wannabe out there in the zoot suit singing "Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby?" along with bass accompaniment. No one's told him the neo-Swing movement died out in the 90s. But hey, he's persistent. Who knows-- maybe with his help, it'll have nine lives, too.

But I could swear I heard him out there practicing Brian Setzer's "Stray Cat Strut."

So now I'm wondering what's going to happen when the construction is done and the neighbors and their dog move back in.

These folks are going to come back to find rancid cartons of kahlua and cream... hairballs swaying gently in the breeze... and catnip bongs under the hedge. They're going to want to use their deck, but every time they barbeque there's going to be this vague scent of urine, upchucked Friskies and stale mice.

And what of the the Kit-Kat Club's patrons? Well, with Fido back in town, they'll have to relocate. Yes, somewhere in the city, alone in the moonlight, they'll smile at the old days; it was beautiful then.

Well, maybe they'll can find themselves a nice junkyard, low on rent, and high on acoustics where they can give the Kit-Kat Club some new life.

And if not... hey... at least they'll have memories.

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Humorbloggers