Warning – Channel One routinelyadvertises very offensive movies to schoolchildren. In order to explain what Channel One is doing, we have to relate offensive content to the public. This page contains very offensive material. Please be warned. If you are offended by what Channel One is doing, please email Dr. Paul Folkemer, Channel One VP, who gives final approval to all commercials shown on Channel One News
December 18, 2000
Second email sent to Channel One and PRIMEDIA executives.
Dear Mr. Ritts, Mr.Rogers, Ballabon and Dr. Folkemer:
No one has replied to my email last week concerning the drug/sex movie HEAVILY advertised on Channel One. Since I wrote it, I have seen one of the commercials Channel One ran in actual classrooms.
How could any of you have seen the ad and said the ad was acceptable? much less the movie itself? Mr. Rogers, you have to be held ultimately responsible for the sleaze Channel One has been dumping into children’s lives, ESPECIALLY over the past year.
Since the Baptist resolution in June 1999, Channel One seems dedicated to pushing the limits of decency. You gentlemen thought it was a great idea to urge children to see the violent “The World is Not Enough” and the terrifying “Bats.” Showing the commercial for “Supernova” was nothing less than a kick in the stomach to the young audience you have under contract. You showed a man being gutted on the screen in children’s classrooms. Luckily, the commercial was made of quick cuts of various violent scenes so it was difficult for children to lock on any one image. It took a lot of nerve for Dr. Folkemer to approve that commercial. I have to admit, I’m not man enough to do what you gentlemen do for a living.
This summer you kept slugging our kids by promoting the age-inappropriate “Loser” movie on your children’s web site. That movie glorified abusing drugs and alcohol. You went overboard by running a contest to drum up interest in the movie.
Then you took a two-by-four and slammed the kids by running a contest for Eddie Murphy’s absolutely filthy “The Klumps.” All of these decisions made by you gentlemen made you money. Probably, a lot of money. It’s easy making money doing this to kids, isn’t it? What’s the sport in taking advantage of children, Mr. Ballabon? Mr. Ritts? Dr. Folkemer? Mr. Rogers?
Of course, all these could have been, you know, “mistakes.” “Mistakes” are what Channel One is famous for. You are Masters of Mistakes. You can do anything – ANYTHING – and have no repercussions if you simply say it was a “mistake.” Playing Marilyn Manson for a captive audience of children down to age 11 was a “mistake.” Posting pictures of children on the Internet was a “mistake.” Operating a chat room where you allowed children to go into private rooms with anonymous Internet users was a “mistake.” Writing an article telling children how to cheat on a book report by watching the movies you listed was a … yeah, right. On and on. “Mistake” after “mistake” and you pile up the cash.
Then this fall, you gentlemen, go completely mad. I have only seen a few weeks of your programs this school year, but in the small sample I have, you advertised “Charlie’s Angels” PG13 to high school students down to age 13 and also to younger children. This movie was extremely violent and was filled with inappropriate sexual content. What were you men thinking about?
Now “Dude, Where’s My Car?” is your latest assault on children. I would say you gentlemen can’t get lower, but I have learned to never underestimate Channel One. You are bludgeoning our precious children with your apparent insatiable desire for more and more revenue.
I end with a short description of the commercial for your drug movie “Dude…” that ran on December 8. The voice over says that Jesse and Chester had such a wild time (pot party) that they can’t remember “What they did.” The characters then open their refrigerator to see it stocked with pudding. (This is drug humor. Smoking marijuana causes the “munchies” This SAME joke was in “Never Been Kissed” another PG13 Channel One advertised in classrooms. Oh, the awful movies I have to see to be an “expert” on Channel One.) Anyway, the commercial then shows a beautiful woman walking toward the camera and the voice over says “Or who they did it to.” Didn’t that cause any of you Channel One executives the slightest concern? Didn’t it make one of you a little uncomfortable?
Is 2001 going to be another buffo year of very profitable “mistakes”? You have ended the year by dragging children through the gutter. I think a response from one of you is in order.
Sincerely,
Jim Metrock
PS I have asked Dr. Folkemer for over two years for a list of all the movies and TV shows Channel One has advertised since 1995, the year PRIMEDIA (K-III Communications) bought the company. He has never responded. This list plus a list of all music played on Channel One would be invaluable for the public to have. I ask you, Mr. Rogers, to instruct Dr. Folkemer to publish this list so parents can know what was advertised to their children.
Where’s My Car?
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HEIGHT=”53″ ALIGN=”BOTTOM” BORDER=”0″ NATURALSIZEFLAG=”3″><FONTCOLOR=”#ffffff” FACE=”Arial”>Advertised
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FACE=”Cooper Black”>Dude, Where’s My Car?
PG13 for Drug “Humor” Channel One-Approved for your child. Heavily advertised in schools that still have Channel One.
When they partied too hard with their drugs, our likable lead characters discover that they not only spent the night with strippers and a transsexual at the Kitty Kat Klub but they also got tattoos.
Jim Metrock said, “I would like to pull, by the ear, each Channel One employee to the nearest movie theater to force them to sit through this filth. What Channel One is doing to students is deplorable.”
Original email to Channel One and PRIMEDIA executives.
December 15, 2000
Sent via email to Jim Ritts, president Channel One; Jeff Ballabon, VP Govt. Affairs PRIMEDIA (Channel One parent company); Dr. Paul Folkemer, VP Education Channel One (approves commercials for Channel One) and Tom Rogers, CEO of PRIMEDIA)
Dear Mr. Ritts and other PRIMEDIA and Channelone executives:
Well, today I saw the movie you advertised to children for the last few weeks. Did any of you executives take the time from your luxurious Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue offices to see it?
I never heard back from any of you, so I have no idea if you took me up on my suggestion to refrain from advertising this movie in classrooms today Friday, December 15.
I understand that this past Wednesday you ran a different commercial for “Dude, Where’s My Car?”
Having seen it, I feel like taking an hour-long shower.
The rot you gentlemen dump into our children’s lives makes me angry. I feel helpless to do anything about your Channel One company. My voice and others gets drown out by the powerful screech of your money. Your well-heeled connections are used to mislead people into believing you are a totally different company than what you are.
This movie was your Christmas present to America’s children.
20th Century Fox paid you big money and you ran the commercials.
Did any of you care about the CONTENT? Or did you just shrug your shoulders and say “What the hell, we ain’t walking away from a sweet deal like this”?
Mr. Ballabon, you came to Alabama and met with Alabama legislators and proclaimed that you were the “Moral Filter” for Channel One, you must have met with Dr. Richard Land of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and convinced him to publish praise for Channel One’s responsibility to children. You mislead him as you have others. While Channel One was meeting with Dr. Land, you were advertising one of Eddie Murphy’s dirtiest movies on your web site. The same week the Southern Baptist Press article came out, you were advertising in the classroom the new Charlie’s Angels movie filled with violence and sex jokes. I guess you thought the joke was on Dr. Land for believing you.
Well, I don’t like to even use the word “hell” in an email, but I am now forced to go far beyond that. I am going to relate the content of this Channel One-promoted movie. I am only going to give you part of the movie since the offensive parts filled up 8 large index cards, front and back. This is the reality of what you people do to kids. This is not a fluke. This has been going on since at least 1996, when I first started watching your TV show. This is your “tradition.”
Warning – You can trust me that the movie you urged children to see is filthy. No one has to read further. I hope people who may read this will not blame me for writing it, but instead will look to Rogers, Ritts, Ballabon, and Folkemer.
The two lead characters, Jesse and Chester, wake up and realized that they were “so wasted” last night they can’t remember what they did. Mention is made that the two girls they are dating, “the twins,” were going to give them “special treats.” Jesse has to inform Chester that “special treats” means having sex.
They can’t remember where their car is so they begin walking. They see an older lady they know driving toward them and Chester stands in the road to get her to help them.
Her car hits Chester and throws him very realistically over the car. It is a shocking scene. Children viewers then see the nice looking older woman in the car saying, “F****** stoners!”
They then go to a friend who is also a heavy pot smoker and there is a joke about his dog being so wasted on pot that he appears dead. He comes to life only when a marijuana pipe is held up. Children see the dog pulling on this “pot pipe” and he snarls at anyone who comes near his pot.
(The whole movie normalizes marijuana usage.)
(Note: I never smoked marijuana. I never smoked even a cigarette. I say that not to say I am better than any one, but there are some drug-related humor that goes over my head a bit. Maybe some of you sophisticated PRIMEDIA and Channel One executives who are more “with it” can appreciate some of the drug humor that fills this movie.)
The stoned dog puts his paws up over his ears when a wind chime barely makes a sound. When you are high on pot, does your hearing become more sensitive? There are several jokes about having a huge appetite after getting wasted. (The morning after their big drug binge, they find they have a refrigerator full of pudding cups. The children in the movie theater (Channel One students?) were laughing at that. (Some schools are out for the holidays.)
There’s a scene of a beautiful woman walking toward our zoned out heroes. A worker using a jackhammer gives us the impression of masturbation and then a water main erupts beside him to complete the ejaculation image.
She tells Jesse that last night he paid her $500 to see her breasts. She then takes his hand and puts his hand on her breast. He asks her if she has seen his car. She says that she only saw the backseat.
The girl’s boyfriend drives up and says it’s “stoner-bashing time.”
They then go to the Kitty Kat Klub strip joint. Here Jesse is taken into the back room to have an even better lap dance than last night – he couldn’t remember the first one, but is told he had on and a great time with the strippers. Chester meanwhile is treated to seven young ladies who pour a pitcher of beer over their breasts.
In the back, the beautiful woman who was to do the lap dance, lifts up her short skirt to show her panties bulging with an obvious penis in them. This shot is duplicated several times as Jesse tries to turn away in disgust only to see her/his male genitalia bulging in the woman’s underwear.
Dr. Folkemer, should I stop here? Mr. Tom “The Buck Stops With Me” Rogers, is this too much for you? (Let’s remember that PRIMEDIA is charging full forward with its merger with About.com which will bring PRIMEDIA into the hardcore pornography business.)
Every time these two “pot heads” say something about being “so wasted” on drugs, they are smiling and the impression is they are the coolest people on the planet although they are also the dumbest.
Once Jesse suggests that things are so messed up that they might need to cut back on the amount of marijuana they are smoking. Chester instantly slaps him and Jesse agrees that wasn’t a good idea.
There is a scene by a pool surrounded by many women in skimpy bikinis. (It would take too much time to explain how these scenes make sense in this dumb movie.) The camera is directly about Jesse lying down with almost nude women around him and as they move we see Jesse holding two mustard squeeze bottles at his crotch. He squeezes them and mustard shoots upward – again another ejaculation joke.
Jesse and Chester kiss passionately while in a car. (Later, two women kiss passionately.)
The two main characters argue over which one has the right to use “Johnny Pot Smoker” as their alter ego name.
Hey, Jim Ritts, is that funny or what?
If that isn’t humorous, then you will laugh out loud at the scene at the “St. Margaret’s School for Blind Boys.” This was low. This made me, a 50 year-old man, want to cry. Several “funny” scenes centered around prat fall-type of action. A young blind boy hits an adult helper in the crotch and the helper later has another blind boy slide into his still hurting crotch. A 12-yr-old looking blind boy is approached by five alien women who announce they are “hot chicks with large breasts.” The boy asks if he can feel their faces and of course he fondles the breasts of the leader of the “large breasted” women.
Now I don’t know if the jokes about blind children are worse than the outrageous AIDS joke in the Channel One advertised drug movie, Loser (July, August 2000). Mr. Ritts, president of Channel One, and Tom Rogers, president of PRIMEDIA, can you blame me for thinking you are heartless people?
These five alien women (who are very attractive) offer to supply “oral pleasure” to our lead characters if they tell them where a missing space object is.
We are shown at least two scenes where Chester is asleep dreaming he is receiving oral sex by one of these women only to wake up to find something else is happening. One time he wakes up and instead of a women’s head between his legs, there is an ostrich head. (He had just been knocked out by an ostrich in a zoo.)
A woman, after promising “oral pleasure” is shown taking a long phallic shaped popsicle and putting it completely in her mouth. This gets Jesse’s attention.
I am going to stop now. I haven’t gotten to the last third of the movie.
Am I wrong in calling this a dirty movie? Rogers, Ritts, Ballabon, Folkemer, you brutalized children by advertising this filth to this captive audience of children. These children are precious to their parents and to others who care deeply about their welfare. Parents want their children to grow up with strong values and a firm faith. They don’t want their children to be simply the bulls eye of your target advertising.
In the middle of writing this email, I called a person who has a child of middle school age and who attends a school that still has Channel One. (They are required to watch your show in order to keep their TV sets.) I asked you gentlemen yesterday to at least, AT LEAST, not advertise this movie today, the day of the premiere.
I felt like throwing up when I was told Channel One ran TWO commercials for this movie today.
No adult should do this to children, whether they are in middle school or high school. No adult should profit from promoting this vulgarity to other people’s children. I feel sorry for the children you have harmed. I also feel sorry for each of you. One day you will look back at what you have done for so long to these children and it will be you, not me, that cries.
Sincerely,
Jim Metrock
President of Obligation, Inc.
From Variety review of “Dude, Where’s My Car? December 15, 2000
by JOE LEYDON
” ‘Dude, Where’s My Car?’ is a slapdash slacker/stoner comedy that appears to have been made by the proudest underachievers this side of Bart Simpson.
…
The good news: The guys obviously had a wild and crazy time with Christie Boner (Kristy Swanson), a sultry stunner who normally wouldn’t give either dude the time of day, and almost all the dancers at a kitty-cat-themed strip joint. The bad news: One of the strippers is a tough-talking, transsexual lap dancer who wants to know where the guys hid a briefcase stuffed with stolen money.
… Best of all, Jesse gets to place his hand on Christie’s ample bosom, causing him to giggle like someone auditioning for a lead in the touring company of “Beavis and Butthead on Ice.”
Latter scene is typical of pic’s sniggeringly juvenile approach to sex. Acres of cleavage are displayed, and the jumpsuited hotties offer unfulfilled promises of “oral pleasure,” yet no one ever gets — well, you know, naked. Even so, “Dude” often pushes as hard at the boundaries of the PG-13 rating as “Scary Movie” shoved at the constraints of R-rated respectability.
…
Pic’s funniest bit is borderline subversive: While stopped at a traffic light, Jesse and Chester engage in nonverbal one-upmanship with a couple in another car. Like a similar gag in “BASEketball,” the joke is all the funnier for the way it indirectly acknowledges the not-so-subtle gay subtext of these wacky male-bonding misadventures.”
From Yahoo!’s movie page:
“Release Date: December 15, 2000 Nationwide
Synopsis
IN THEATRES: DECEMBER 15, 2000
The morning after a wild night of partying, two pot-smoking teenage dudes find that they cannot remember anything that happened the night before. They also realize that they don’t know where they parked their car. The dudes are played by Ashton Kutcher, who is best known for his role in the Fox Network television sitcom, THAT ’70S SHOW; and Seann William Scott, who appeared in AMERICAN PIE and ROAD TRIP. DUDE, WHERE’S MY CAR? is a light and comic teenage adventure movie. “
