They sure don’t make public service announcements like they used to.  Even though my kids don’t regularly watch television (not due to any anti-tv sancti-momminess on my part–it’s in Danish….), when we visit the U.S., they more than make up for their yearly tv consumption.  But long gone seem to be the melodic, animated messages I grew up with.  The ones reminding you that those were not candy, they were pills!  The ones that featured strange puppets reminding you to conserve energy.  C3PO catching R2D2 with a forbidden cancer stick.  Even Nancy Reagan’s legacy of  “Just say no to drugs” doesn’t exist anymore.  American forty-somethings like myself will surely remember the many catch phrases that danced across the small screen in between Roadrunner and Papa Smurf on Saturday mornings.  Raise your hand if any of the below sound familiar.  Extra points if you can remember who said it.

“I hanker for a hunk o cheese!”

“Always count your change!!!”**

“Give a hoot, don’t pollute!”

“Only You can prevent forest fires”

“This is your brain.  This is your brain on drugs.”

“You are what you eat, from your head down to your feet!”

The brilliant, hippie, folk song/Motown mashup that was SchoolHouse Rock is deserving of its own post, so I won’t delve too deeply into such fantastically memorable gems as Conjunction Junction and I’m Just a Bill.  But I will say my husband, a product of the British educational system, seems to have skipped school the year they taught the parts of speech.  When he sheepishly asks what an adjective is, for the umpteenth time, I often break into song:  “It was a hairy bear….it was a scary bear…”  He still never remembers.  Mad Libs is an exercise in frustration in our house.

But advertisers and nutrition boards and parent groups stopped using Saturday mornings as a spring-board for lessons in morals, ethics, history, personal hygiene and nutrition.  Perhaps because children’s television became more readily available, on demand, pausae-ble.  Lost were the captive audiences singing about Lolly and his adverbs while they waited patiently for Captain Caveman.  No more kids hankering for a hunk ‘o cheese in the small hours between homework and dinner.

Until last year when a PSA came out of Melbourne.  The award-winning ad, created to reinforce awareness and safety around trains, quickly went viral, and the world was presented with a myriad of Dumb Ways to Die.

My kids LOVE this ad.  They watch it over and over.  They sing along, know the words, re-enact the cutely morbid Six Feet Under death scenarios again and again.  Granted, they can now confidently go forth into the world knowing that you shouldn’t do your own electrical work, poke a stick at a grizzly bear or heaven forbid, use your private parts as piranha bait.  I must admit, I find it surprisingly entertaining to hear my five year old going about his day singing “sell your kidneys on the internet” under his breath.  (Oh, and just in case you would like to use this post as a PSA, that’s one of the things you AREN”T supposed to do.  The Australian advertising board seems to realize that under estimating the stupidity of the general public is, in itself, a dumb way to die. Who am I to argue?)

Though the ad manages to squeeze in a commendable number of dumb ways to die, they obviously couldn’t put everything in there.  For years now, my husband and I have kept a running list of things we (half) jokingly swear never to do because said events seem to have a black cloud of death hanging over them.  Like going to an air show.  It seems not a summer month goes by without some sort of air show incident.  Going to an air show, in my mind, is like playing catastrophe bingo.  So in the spirit of the PSA, I’ve come up with my own anti-bucket list.

(More) Dumb Ways to Die.

(To the tune of Dumb Ways to Die)

Step blind in the cycling lane, get flattened by a speeding Dane

Take an Indonesian fer-ry, end up at the bottom of the sea

Attend a barbecue

in a state where you

can carry a gun….Uh huh, have fun.

(More) Dumb ways to die, so many more ways to die…..(More) dumb ways to di-i-i, so many more ways to die.

Take a bus ride in Nepal, off a cliff you’ll tumble and fall

Go hiking too close to Iran, might not go according to plan

Have a backyard Fourth of July, say good-bye to an arm and an eye

Like a Kennedy

play football on a ski

Hey!  Watch out for that tree!

(More) Dumb Ways to Di-i-i….

For a little more nostalgia:

Give a hoot, don’t pollute!

This is your brain on drugs

Only you can prevent forest fires

I hanker for a hunk o cheese!

You are what you eat, from your head down to your feet!

**Despite my best efforts, I can’t find the PSA which explains the importance of always counting your change.  But my sister remembers it too.  And she was a Saturday morning television regular, so I know my brain wasn’t on drugs when I tell you it existed.