home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- <text id=89TT0698>
- <title>
- Mar. 13, 1989: Business Notes:Advertising
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- Mar. 13, 1989 Between Two Worlds:Middle-Class Blacks
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- BUSINESS, Page 49
- Business Notes
- ADVERTISING
- Too Bawdy At the Bundys'
- </hdr><body>
- <p> Every Sunday evening some 11 million U.S. households watch
- the Fox network's raunchy hit, Married . . . With Children. But a
- letter-writing campaign by just one shocked viewer in suburban
- Detroit has prompted several national advertisers to yank their
- commercials from the blue-collar sitcom.
- </p>
- <p> The crusade began in January, when Terry Rakolta, a mother
- of four, first tuned in to Married . . . With Children because
- the title seemed to promise wholesome family entertainment.
- Instead, Rakolta discovered the raucous and sometimes raw
- adventures of the Bundy family. Horrified by the sexual and
- scatological humor, Rakolta became an avid monitor of the
- program and began sending its advertisers hundreds of protest
- letters.
- </p>
- <p> The one-woman crusade has had dramatic results.
- Kimberly-Clark, McDonald's and Tambrands have asked their ad
- agencies to pull their commercials from Married. Coca-Cola has
- promised to screen future episodes. Says Rakolta: "It restores
- my faith in the big American product companies."
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-