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The Green Cross Code man.
Jun. 21st, 2011 11:14 amBack when I was little, some genius in the Department of Transport came up with the idea that the best way to encourage children to listen to road safety messages was to create a superhero whose power was to teach people to look both ways before stepping in front of a truck on a busy highway. As superpowers go this one is pretty lame (about on a par with Cyclops, I'd say), but a lot of money was put into an advertising campaign in TV and Comics with the Green Cross Code man played by Darth Vader himself, David Prowse, in a natty green and white lycra ensemble.
They even ran a tour where the Green Cross code man showed up at primary schools and gave talks and sang songs and stuff, and during this tour he actually came to my school. We were all very excited as the big day approached - not because it was the Green Cross Code man, but because it was Darth Vader coming to our school. Come the day itself we all trooped into the hall in a frenczy of excitement, some carrying Star Wars toys we'd smuggled in - only to discover that it wasn't Dave Prowse, but some other, rather cheaper (and significantly less muscley) actor. We stared at him in silent dismay whilst he tried to teach us the benefits of not blithely wandering in front of hurtling busses, and even got us to join him in a song which I remember to this day:
The Green Cross Code
Look to the left
Look to the right
Everyone's doing the new revolution
Now!
There was even a dance (uncannily like The Timewarp, now I think about it). Which I can still do. But as I'm a gentleman I don't.
The upshot of this exercise was that it demonstrated two things. Firstly it is a phsyical impossibility to write a catchy pop number about acting sensibly. The entire history of popular music has been centred around songs about doing really stupid stuff like going out, drinking heavily, taking drugs and then going to bed with inappropriate people. The Rolling Stones didn't become the biggest band ever by writing songs about eating their greens and having an nice early night, and if they didn't think they couldn't make the Highway Code entertaining or sexy then - trust me on this one, everyone at the Highways Agency - nor can you. Describing looking both ways before crossing the road as a 'new revolution' in an attempt to make it cool isn't just unimaginative, it's downright pathetic and even at the age of eight we realised that.
Secondly, it demonstrates the way that adults think children are stupid. All you have to do to engage with kids, thinks patronising adult, is create a superhero who acts in the way you think the kids should adopt. Children - being stupid, remember - will see the superhero and instantly aspire to being just like them.
There's only one problem with this line of thought. It's complete bollocks.
The reason children like superheroes is because they're aspirational to the stuff children want to do, like grow up to have huge muscles and punch bullies. It's rather secondary who the bully is at that point; the punching is the important bit. And if your do-gooder educational superhero is of the non-punching variety - lets say he wanted to help people across the road rather than punch people - then you've already lost. After the fake Green Cross Code man left we all went outside for break time and tried to make up entertaining rude versions of his song. As the rhyming structure of his song wasn't very inspirational this mostly revolved around singing The Green Cross Toad, but occasionally a more imaginative playground ragamuffin would sing The Green Cross Poo and a wave of prepubescent hilarity would ensure.
To this day I have never, not once, looked to the left, looked to the right, and done the 'new revolution'. In your face, phoney Dave Prowse impersonator.
Anyway, that whole preamble brings me onto Captain Euro. The Captain was created in 1998 in a vain and utterly doomed attempt to create a pro-EU brand which would be adopted by children and the creators would have made a fat sum out of when the EU licensed him as a character. Plainly this didn't happen but he's been back in the press lately as he's been unearthed in a spirit of jolly mockery at a frankly pathetic attempt to make the EU cool as it unravels around us. On the licensing page of the website there are optimistic pictures of what Captain Euro merchandise like canned drinks and CDs might look like, should, you know, kids take to the character and the EU stump up the cash. There's even an almost pleading note to the effect that Captain Euro can endorse your products/company and can be used in your advertising campaigns. Become the official water, toothpaste, bank, telecoms company or other used by Europe's super-hero. On the 'Captain Euro in the News' section they maintain a running total of the value of media coverage received by the Cap and his team wich currently stands at about £1.2m. It sounds a lot, but when you consider a primetime advert on ITV will set you back sixty grand for 30 seconds, that works out as a grand total of 20 minutes of media coverage in the last 13 years.
It's clear where Captain Euro went wrong. It's right in his origin story: Captain Euro has taken a difficult vow: "To use, wherever possible, intellect, culture and logic - not violence - to take control of difficult criminal situations."
Translation: HE DOESN'T PUNCH ANYONE.
Not punching is the kiss of death for a superhero. Superman punches General Zod through the moon on a regular basis. Batman socks The Joker on the nose monthly. Captain America belts people with his shield. Wolverine stabs people, and that's even cooler. Not punching is like, er, Kryptonite. If the creators of Captain Euro wanted to make the Cap popular, he should have been a good, old fashioned punching sort of hero, flying round Europe smacking villains firmly in the face. All they'd've needed then would be a good non-European villain to punch. The sort of evil folk who'd never crop up in Europe. Like Nazis.
Oh, hang on.
Erm. Communists then.
Oh, wait.
They even ran a tour where the Green Cross code man showed up at primary schools and gave talks and sang songs and stuff, and during this tour he actually came to my school. We were all very excited as the big day approached - not because it was the Green Cross Code man, but because it was Darth Vader coming to our school. Come the day itself we all trooped into the hall in a frenczy of excitement, some carrying Star Wars toys we'd smuggled in - only to discover that it wasn't Dave Prowse, but some other, rather cheaper (and significantly less muscley) actor. We stared at him in silent dismay whilst he tried to teach us the benefits of not blithely wandering in front of hurtling busses, and even got us to join him in a song which I remember to this day:
The Green Cross Code
Look to the left
Look to the right
Everyone's doing the new revolution
Now!
There was even a dance (uncannily like The Timewarp, now I think about it). Which I can still do. But as I'm a gentleman I don't.
The upshot of this exercise was that it demonstrated two things. Firstly it is a phsyical impossibility to write a catchy pop number about acting sensibly. The entire history of popular music has been centred around songs about doing really stupid stuff like going out, drinking heavily, taking drugs and then going to bed with inappropriate people. The Rolling Stones didn't become the biggest band ever by writing songs about eating their greens and having an nice early night, and if they didn't think they couldn't make the Highway Code entertaining or sexy then - trust me on this one, everyone at the Highways Agency - nor can you. Describing looking both ways before crossing the road as a 'new revolution' in an attempt to make it cool isn't just unimaginative, it's downright pathetic and even at the age of eight we realised that.
Secondly, it demonstrates the way that adults think children are stupid. All you have to do to engage with kids, thinks patronising adult, is create a superhero who acts in the way you think the kids should adopt. Children - being stupid, remember - will see the superhero and instantly aspire to being just like them.
There's only one problem with this line of thought. It's complete bollocks.
The reason children like superheroes is because they're aspirational to the stuff children want to do, like grow up to have huge muscles and punch bullies. It's rather secondary who the bully is at that point; the punching is the important bit. And if your do-gooder educational superhero is of the non-punching variety - lets say he wanted to help people across the road rather than punch people - then you've already lost. After the fake Green Cross Code man left we all went outside for break time and tried to make up entertaining rude versions of his song. As the rhyming structure of his song wasn't very inspirational this mostly revolved around singing The Green Cross Toad, but occasionally a more imaginative playground ragamuffin would sing The Green Cross Poo and a wave of prepubescent hilarity would ensure.
To this day I have never, not once, looked to the left, looked to the right, and done the 'new revolution'. In your face, phoney Dave Prowse impersonator.
Anyway, that whole preamble brings me onto Captain Euro. The Captain was created in 1998 in a vain and utterly doomed attempt to create a pro-EU brand which would be adopted by children and the creators would have made a fat sum out of when the EU licensed him as a character. Plainly this didn't happen but he's been back in the press lately as he's been unearthed in a spirit of jolly mockery at a frankly pathetic attempt to make the EU cool as it unravels around us. On the licensing page of the website there are optimistic pictures of what Captain Euro merchandise like canned drinks and CDs might look like, should, you know, kids take to the character and the EU stump up the cash. There's even an almost pleading note to the effect that Captain Euro can endorse your products/company and can be used in your advertising campaigns. Become the official water, toothpaste, bank, telecoms company or other used by Europe's super-hero. On the 'Captain Euro in the News' section they maintain a running total of the value of media coverage received by the Cap and his team wich currently stands at about £1.2m. It sounds a lot, but when you consider a primetime advert on ITV will set you back sixty grand for 30 seconds, that works out as a grand total of 20 minutes of media coverage in the last 13 years.
It's clear where Captain Euro went wrong. It's right in his origin story: Captain Euro has taken a difficult vow: "To use, wherever possible, intellect, culture and logic - not violence - to take control of difficult criminal situations."
Translation: HE DOESN'T PUNCH ANYONE.
Not punching is the kiss of death for a superhero. Superman punches General Zod through the moon on a regular basis. Batman socks The Joker on the nose monthly. Captain America belts people with his shield. Wolverine stabs people, and that's even cooler. Not punching is like, er, Kryptonite. If the creators of Captain Euro wanted to make the Cap popular, he should have been a good, old fashioned punching sort of hero, flying round Europe smacking villains firmly in the face. All they'd've needed then would be a good non-European villain to punch. The sort of evil folk who'd never crop up in Europe. Like Nazis.
Oh, hang on.
Erm. Communists then.
Oh, wait.
