Comments on: Hyundai Restless Toddlers in New Zealand

By: Father James

Father James — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 04:42:59 +0000

If this ad had been about an 18 year old lad driving to the beach, picking up an 18 year old hitch hiker and then surfing… nobody would have watched it…

Some ads (the wind up woman) tell you that one drug is not enough… take another… some merely insult our intelligence (“I’m not a doctor… but I play one on TV…”)

Don’t let your kids watch superheroes on TV because they will put on a towel and leap out the 30th story window…

This has all become silliness on stilts… Back in the late ’60s *some* children’s programming was far over the line… (cartoon… the Thing laughing as Red Chinese city nuked…)

But then they started hacking up Warner Brother’s cartoons… and by the ’90s childrens’ After School special… showed couple of kids in surf… pushed off their feet by mild wave… got up and laughed… cut because scene might “alarm children and give them nightmares…”

And last, but not least… toddlers in diapers not going to drive off into the sunset… The Australian government needs to combat some real abuses… like the exploitation of elf labor by Santa…

It is a wonderful “sense of life” commercial with a haunting song… Made this 60 year old feel young again.

JFO
USMC 0311 1968-70

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By: Chris Zizzo

Chris Zizzo — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 03:58:30 +0000

And I thought we Americans were prudes coming from Puritan stock. Didn’t you Aussies start out as outcast felons? What’s with all the excessive moral outrage?

This ad is, for my money, the single best ad I’ve seen on television (ok, Internet) in oh. ten years.

First, the product is burned into my brain. I don’t know the mechanism for this, but other clever commercials are funny and I want to see them again. I just don’t remember what the product was. I first saw this 2 years ago and I still remembered Hyundai Santa Fe was the product when I went searching for it this time.

Second, while I don’t own this particular car (I considered it when I shopped), I do own a new sports performance vehicle. When I drive it, I feel like that kid. Everything is new and fresh again. The innocent joy on the faces of those two is so heartening and uplifting, I watch the ad over and over again.

Those of you with your minds in the gutter, stop it. We know all about the creeps out there who view children sexually. There is NO sexual content in this ad. Isn’t that nice? An ad that doesn’t use sex to sell us something; what will they think of next?

Those of you who are concerned about the safety regulations, are you going to ban all driving scenes in cartoons? Will you edit out any car scenes from old movies and TV shows? Nobody is using any child seats or seatbelts in those.

When you take your car out on the highway, observe the safety laws. When you are watching television, you can observe a looser code. Nobody is looking at this spot and saying, “Hey, I guess it’s OK to let the baby drive! I saw it on TeeVee!”

Get serious and lighten up, people.

By: Anne

Anne — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 21:32:46 +0000

Edward worries me.. he protests too much!! Corporate Paedophilia,…… wow now what sort of person would even think of that watching this innocent advert?? ..apart from….. well I will leave that to the imagination

By: michelle somerville

michelle somerville — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 22:28:49 +0000

hyundai car tv comercial with the beautiful chidren is the most wonderful add i have ever seen.

every time it comes on my tv where ever I am in the house I rush so I do not miss it!
I AM IN THE STATES VISITING MY FAMILY SO DISAPOINTED I COULD NOT SHOW THEM THE ADD.

MICHELLE SOMERVILLE.

By: James

James — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 18:48:07 +0000

I’m a US resident, Atlanta Ga, and what I know is that this is the most adorable commercial I have ever seen with the 2 cutest kids filmed to highlight them at their most precious. I just found this site, doing a search so I could watch it again – it had been months and I just wanted to warm my heart seeing it again. It is not an instructional video or a “how to” for kids, it is a fantasy as is “Harry Potter” or any other fantastic commercial or show involving kids. Kids have to be watched by their parents lest they get into trouble by wandering to a pool, an open car, an exposed outlet or whatever the source of danger.

By: Graham

Graham — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 09:23:58 +0000

i think the ad is pretty stupid and agree with aust decision to ban. its a bit sus but also kind of lame too. children should not be portrayed doing things that it could be dangerous for them to do. just in case a kid tries to copy the action.

By: M

Wed, 02 May 2007 10:10:37 +0000

i can’t beleive your debating this ad when there are sexist ads just screaming to be pulled of the air, look at the burger king one with all the women in bikinis. Exactly what i want to see when i’m watching tv with my parents! yes i agree that the amount of children dying in car inncedents which involve being locked in is terrible, but this ad isn’t the cause of that and i hate to sound like a broke record for lack of a better term but that is more of the parents or guardians fault than the makers of the ad. Please! You people are sad who think that pulling the ad off the air will do anything, it will just make more people talk about it and look it up online. Oh and by the way, i thought the ad was pretty crap anyway.

By: Anton Lang

Anton Lang — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 22:56:56 +0000

Margaret.
I’m with you
Here in Australia, this ad has garnered an awful lot of comment, and has even been mentioned on some ‘blogs’ in the US.
The Sydney Morning Herald Newspaper article concerning the banning of the ad is at this following link.

Here’s Not Looking At You Kid Car Ad Skittled

It was seemingly banned on numerous fronts, possibly so that if one reason was pooh poohed, then there was the fallback of ‘well there was this also’

It seems the reasons are the already mentioned copycat thing, the fantasising sequence, and I don’t see the reasoning behind that either, as how many ads depict someone fantasising about something.
There is also the fact that children up to a certain age here in Australia have to be correctly restrained in cars, and this breached that law.
The last is that Hyundai have a quirk with their vehicles. To actually get the car to start, or to move, (I can’t remember which) you need to jam down on the brake pedal first, a form of safety measure, and an 18 month old child, sitting on numerous cushions on the drivers seat, illegaly restrained, and in a fantasy sequence, jammed up tight against the steering wheel so that he can hold it with one hand while his other elbow rests outside the open window, can patently not reach the pedal with his feet, and that’s only the little boy. The wowsers obviously had other things to say about the little girl.
Personally, I think these people are way too precious, and if children of that age (in a fantasy setting, mind you) viewed the advertisement, and then sat down, analysed it, and discussed the ramifications of the ad, they’d be laughing out loud at us.

Tony.

By: margaret

margaret — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 08:04:16 +0000

THanks Matt. I’m with you. The ad’s appeal lies in the fact that it’s ironic. It’s an adult concept Ed. But irony is at the heart of most adult humour.
Small children do hold hands and, sin of sins put their arms around other small children and they don’t need prompting by advertising material. It’s normal, and I won’t have any psych grad telling me otherwise.
Thanks for the suggested reading material. THe ads to which the article refers were explicitly sexualising children by posing them in suggestive and adult scenarios. Of course this goes beyond the bounds of social acceptability.
Do we know why the ad was pulled? Was it because it may have implanted the desire for 2yr olds to jump in the truck and head to the beach or was it because of the implications which you have suggested Ed? Either way it’s absurd.
Ultimately we will interpret the ad as our backgrounds and experiences direct. ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ and likewise child pornography and depravity unfortunately.
p.s. go easy on the grandma stuff Ed