4/22/2005

Someone Paid MONEY For This?

Uncle AndrewUncle Andrew
Filed under: @ 8:42 am

If you’re a hopeless mediapath like myself, you may have seen the latest spot in Universal Studios Orlando’s “A Vacation From The Ordinary” television ad campaign. It intersperses scenes of hard-toiling office drudges with over-the-top vignettes of people enjoying their brains out amongst the many attractions available at said resort. Flickering through these various scenes are the phrases:

“Attention Workaholics:

“It’s Time To Fall Off The Wagon.”

For those of you non-native English speakers who may be unfamiliar with this phrase, a brief primer: the term “On The Wagon” is used to describe an alcoholic who has stopped drinking. Conversely, if this same person begins to drink again, (s)he is said to have “fallen off the wagon”. This term has in later years come to refer to any sort of addictive behavior, though it is primarily used in reference to substance abuse, rather than process addictions such as eating disorders.

Hmm. Okay, so, let me see if I have this right. A “workaholic” would be, one can only assume, someone who is addicted to work. And “falling off the wagon” means, essentially, reverting to one’s addictive behavior.

Therefore, the phrase, “Workaholics: It’s Time To Fall Off The Wagon” means, “Workaholics: It’s Time To Return To Your Pattern Of Self-Abusive Overworking.”

From this, one can infer one of two things. The first is that Universal Studios wants you to stay away, to fail to interrupt your unhealthy toil with a nice vacation (perhaps someone in the upper strata of their management was once assaulted by a workaholic). The alternate inference would be that Universal Studios is a terrible place to relax, suitable only to those with a pathological desire for stress.

Actually, there’s a third thing one might glean from this television spot: that the advertising agency in charge of the Universal Studios contract doesn’t pay much attention to detail. Whatever the true answer, I think I’ll hedge my bets by staying away from Universal Studios Orlando. If I traveled all the way to Florida it wouldn’t be to have Frankenstein give me a pedicure (see commercial) anyway; it would be to see a shuttle launch. 😉

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