There could be no better gift for a child this holiday season than to make sure he sees "Buy Me That 3!," which debuts tonight 8:30 on HBO.
Billed as "a kid's guide to food advertising," the cheeky little special sells youngsters not on products, but on themselves. This jam-packed 30 minutes, produced by Consumer Reports Television, may be the most subversive half-hour on television.Fighting fire with fire, "Buy Me That!" is as bright, playful, zippy and kid-filled as commercials themselves - well, almost - and with no less serious underlying purpose: to provide a behind-the-scenes look at advertising to enable kids to better question product claims, spot misleading commercials, and cut through the bull.
"Food commercials can make anything look delicious or sound really healthy," says Jim Fyfe, the chipper host, "and they can also make you think their product is the best." As evidence, he pits two advertising titans, Coke and Pepsi, against one another.
"When we covered up the labels," Fyfe sums up, "most of the kids we tested couldn't tell these colas apart. So when you're loyal to a brand and you think only that brand is best - think again."
Moving swiftly along, "Buy Me That!" slyly brands two more products, Gushers and Fruit Roll-ups, as "fruit wannabes . . . brazenly attempting to impersonate real fruit." Fyfe offers self-incriminating excerpts from their commercials, then announces that one strawberry-flavor Fruit Roll-up has the nutritional value of one-seventh of a single real strawberry.
How likely are you to win the $1 million Cookie-Crisp Cereal sweepstakes? "There's a better chance that your teacher will be struck by lightning before final exams," figures Fyfe.
Then, reminiscent of "Frankenstein," a daunting formula of chemicals is stirred up into a mystery concoction.
"Is it rocket fuel? Anti-foot-fungus medicine?" poses Fyfe, now posing as a mad scientist. No, he cackles, it's a Hostess Twinkie!
Maybe the most eye-opening sequence reveals the sorcery of a food stylist as she prepares a hamburger, shake and fries for a commercial shoot.
The patty, she confides, is kept almost raw to prevent shrinkage, then painted with food dye. The bun is gussied up with glued-on sesame seeds. The milkshake? Powdered sugar and shortening.
A bounty of good sense, "Buy Me That 3!" carries on the mission of its two forerunners, which examined toy advertising and blew the whistle on kid-targeted 900 phone numbers and profiteering fan clubs.
Like the earlier editions, the new show avoids a deadly this-is-good-for-you approach. Instead, it offers strategies for the very thing kids live for: outsmarting adults.