Wednesday, July 2, 2008

The Good, The Bad, The WTF

This week we will continue to plow the fertile ground of South American football, looking to dig up little gems of wonderfulness for you to peruse. While this week's entry will not be a good as last week's, I think it may raise a chuckle or two out of some of you.

You see, there's some stealing going on here. There is the appropriation of an image I have not seen in 20 years, but which I used to see all the time as a kid, on the weekly grocery store runs I used to take with my mom. It took some google searching, but I have resolved the image on the shirt with where I remember it from, and it is one odd pairing, to be sure.


So there's the shirt. Nothing too oddball about it, considering that one of the club's nicknames is Los Diablos Rojos, or the red devils. But I knew I had seen that particular image of the devil before, but I could not place it.

So I searched. Let me just tell you, doing google image searches for things like "Devil Meat" with the safe search off is not the best way to spend a morning. Thank goodness my wife never looked over my shoulder while I perused page after page of girls with horns and cocks shoved in mouths.

I refined the search, after a short break, and found what I was looking for. The very same little devil which had stared back at me from the shelves of the Bi-Lo was on this shirt.


I remember once, probably when I was about seven or so, I begged my mom to buy some because it had to be good. It wasn't. I can remember the toxic aftertaste even now.

Here's the rub. It's not like the product is unknown in South America. On this page, you'll see that General Mills claims that the product is found in 9 out of 10 Venezuelan homes. So, this Independiente shirt not only steals a corporate image, but it also does so for a product that is well known in the region.

3 comments:

The Fan's Attic said...

That's quite a marketing Mephistopheles.

Now that you mention stupid food choices by young children, I was reminded of the time I told my step-mom that I wanted the GI Joe cereal and that I knew it would be good. I got it and it wasn't, which led to a standoff of epic proportions requiring me to eat the bowl of cereal I poured and not so vague threats of throwing the bowl at my step-mother.

needless to say, i lost that battle to GI Joe and the step-monster.

Email us at said...

but, TFA, at least now you know.

And isn't that half the battle?

The Fan's Attic said...

yes. yes it is.