Charlie, the suicidal Tuna.

treeguy64

treeguy64

Hari Om, y'all!
Location
Austin, TX.
As a child, I was puzzled, to my core, by Charlie the Tuna, a fish who not only wanted to be caught and killed by fishermen/fisheries, knowing, I'm sure, that he'd be eaten, eventually, but actually went wayyyyyy out of his way, to bring about his own ghastly end. Time and again, he'd try to grab a hook in the water, to fulfill his death wish, only to be told "Sorry, Charlie, only the best tuna get to be Star-Kist!"

This bothered me on another level: How did the people fishing for tuna have any idea how Charlie would taste? How could they tell his degree of flavorful fish flesh, when he was, at times, down three-thousand feet below the surface?

Charlie seemed very cool: He spoke with a hipster's dialect, he wore shades, at times, he even dressed sharp. That, of course, set up the animated TV ad line: "Star-Kist doesn't want tunas with good taste, they want tunas that taste good!" Again, how could surface dwellers ascertain this death-wish tuna's flavor, while he was submerged?

Yeah, I was a sensitive kid. Maybe I thought too much!

Did any TV commercials trouble you, as a child?

 

I was very sensitive to a few pimples I was getting back in the late 50s and early 60s. When I saw those Clearasil commercials I thought my prayers had been answered. The blemishes were suppose to just disappear.
I convinced my mom to get me some.
By the time I finished dabbing it on it dried to a dark pink almost orange color. I looked like I had been infected with small pox. I was so upset that I cried.
 
Well I admit to being a sensitive soul but when I saw commercials like that and the ones meant to dug at our heart strings it just made me mad. I wondered why so many commercials tried to trick us.

Many commercials are purposely to make us feel incomplete unless we had item x,y or z cause without these items, society would surely reject us.

As far as feeling sorry for Charlie cause he didn’t want to live , I didn’t even consider it. Of course I felt sorry for Charlie because he was constantly being rejected but so is everyone else.

I overthought everything and at times went to the dark side which was scary. Commercials were strange back and are still just as strange now. They are, after all used to try and manipulate us one way or another to purchase their products.

Some commercials I like though. There’s one on now that has a chunky oldish man at a worksite and he suddenly starts dancing and he’s actually really good. It puts a smile on my face every time.

Then there are those with catchy jingles that you hate yet keep singing throughout the day. I could live without tv. My husband couldn’t.
 
fmdog if they had followed those ads with one of a person hooked up to oxygen I doubt that would've been so cool.
 
Charlie Tuna's death wish (now that I think about it.) didn't bother me. I guess it had the same effect on me as Elmer Fudd's & Wile E Coyote's relationship with their counterparts, Bugs Bunny n' The Road Runner.

The commercial I had a hard time understanding back in the day was the one about PF Flyers.
PF Flyers' sneakers with the "Magic Wedge" in the heel so you could run your fastest, jump your highest.
Magic Wedge, in the heel? I don't run or jump with my heels, I use the front portion of my foot, with my toes.
I think that's where things started getting hazy for me.. :unsure:
 
I always wondered the same thing about Charlie Tuna, @treeguy64.

Another one was the anthropomorphized M & Ms taking a dip in the hard-candy-coating pool, then sunning themselves on lounge chairs so they'd dry off and eventually "melt in your mouth not in your hands." These cute little guys - plain and peanut - were getting ready to be eaten!

And why wouldn't those selfish kids share their Trix with that silly rabbit?
 
I can't think of a specific ad at the moment but has anyone else noticed that the adverts of today don't clearly advertise the product? In the past I think one knew what the advert was about but now I sit there thinking I wonder what this advert is for and usually my guess is wrong. It's a good game if you're bored and waiting for your programme to come back 🤣 Also, some of the adverts are so very very stupid. I just try and imagine how anyone could come up with such an 'idea' and more importantly get paid for it!
 
Now that you mention it, treeguy64, I did wonder that Charlie's greatest wish was to be in a tin can on a store shelf in Des Moines. That's kind of a weird wish for a fish. But I have to admit that you took it to another level in how did fishermen know of Charlies' inner tuna goodness, Yeah, it was a TV ad that stretched the imagination.
Reading some of the replies, it seems that sitting in front of the boob tube wasn't as mind numbing as we thought. They were actually stimulating thought- OK, pretty weird stuff, but still, thought.
 
It's apparent that Charlie's parents did not teach him about self-respect and esteem. And, along with teaching him to 'stop, look, and listen', they did not teach him to stay away from fish nets. Not toward them, not jumping into them, and not trying to talk his way into them.😱 I certainly hope that he taught his little offspring better.
 
Davey Do said:
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Ah, but you see, as I wrote, previously, there was no way, zero, that he could be judged on any level, even to the point of acceptance, when he was beneath the waves, and his would-be captors/killers were floating above him. Even as a small child, I grasped this concept.

As for his death wish, yeah, he tried, always, to bite the large, menacing hook. No way he could have failed to know that was not the way to go, if he wanted to live a long, happy life, at least, as I saw it.
 
Sunny said:
And then there was Charlie Brown, who always believed that this time, Lucy would not snatch away the football. Some people (and some fish) are just naturally self-destructive.
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Now, we get to yet another character by whom I was perplexed. I never understood why Peanuts was so popular. I could not identify with its main protagonist, Charlie Brown. My Mom really liked the strip, always read it to me, and I thought, in my child brain, "Meh...., this guy is a loser......"

I did have a blanket that I loved, as a very little child, one with satin binding, so my Mom always pointed out what Linus was up to, in the strip.

A true story, and one that illustrates that young children can think very deep thoughts, even immediately after surgery:

I had my tonsils removed at four years of age. My Mom wanted to have a comfort item ready for me when I woke up, in my hospital bed. She knew I loved "Blankie" (as above), but she didn't want to bring the whole blanket to the hospital. She performed her own radical surgery, reducing Blankie to the size of a wash cloth!!!!

When I woke up, and tried to pull Blankie up, i was amazed: I thought, "Wow! That surgery turned me into a giant!!!! I remember, with great clarity, that day. I also remember that immediately after pondering my new, enormous self, I promptly puked all over the place, from the damn ether anesthesia. Blankie kind of moved into a dark corner of my mind, soon afterwards.

It wasn't until I was about twelve years old that my Mom explained what she had done to Blankie. Up to that point, I always had odd feelings when I recalled that day in the hospital. Things never made sense.

Still, as above, I learned not to sell young children short. Explain to them what you're doing, why you're doing it, etc. They are smarter than you think, more aware, too......
 
There's a tuna brand referred to as, "Chicken of the Sea." In a memorable Seinfeld comedy routine, he points out with mock indignation, "There are no chickens in the sea!"

Perhaps Charlie's death wish was caused by mercury poisoning of the oceans, or other forms of aquatic pollution... 🤔

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