Critic Dissects TV Ads With Flair
.c The Associated Press

By LYNN ELBER

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Talk about a pitch man. John Forde can seduce you into paying attention to television commercials and then, get this, thinking about them.

That's because Forde, a charmingly loose cannon who has fixed his aim on the American way of selling, knows how to entertain as he encourages us to avoid being patsies with credit cards.

"Mental Engineering" is his vehicle, a new half-hour series that is making its way to an increasing number of PBS stations. The premise is simple: Forde and his guests, including professors, comics and writers, view and critique TV ads.

The result isn't exactly argument television a la "Politically Incorrect" or "The McLaughlin Group," but there is lively discussion as panelists zing the manipulative tricks shamelessly employed by advertisers.

Setting the tone is Forde, who comes across like Jim Carrey with a master's degree. His approach can verge on the scholarly (he was, after all, a philosophy major) and the conversation occasionally sounds like a self-conscious dorm session.

But Forde, with a toothy, manic grin that gives him away, prods his guests to lighten the mood with smart-minded quips.

In discussing a commercial touting a paper towel's germ-fighting abilities, he asks why the bathroom in the ad is shot out of focus. So you can't see the overflowing landfill outside the window, panelist Kristin Tillotson suggests.

Comedian Tim Mitchell's ire is stoked by a commercial for an economy car that plays on class differences by asking whether rich people are "more entitled to brake safely on a rainy day."

"I don't think people are going to fall for this ad, that somehow Buick is against the rich. Yeah, 'Buy the new Buick Commie-mobile," quips Mitchell.

"Mental Engineering' has its roots in cable access television and retains some production minimalism: simple graphics and a spare set, and editing that could use a bit more spark.

"We knew going into it we needed to make awkward look somewhat cool," says Forde (pronounced Ford-dee), speaking from St. Paul, Minn., where he lives and where the show is taped.

But the show's heart and head are in the right place, as Forde sees it. "Mental Engineering" tries to amuse while ensuring that advertising, which he considers the dominant propaganda of our time, gets the scrutiny it should.

"The head of one of the biggest advertising firms said the purpose of advertising is to get the consumer to live vicariously through the brand. ... That's saying, 'This is how we want to get people to spend their lives,"'

Forde said. "That's got a lot of gravity."

He turns to a text, "How Advertising Works," published by Sage Publications, to make another point.

"It's well documented that the function of advertising is to increase your satisfaction with the brand you're already using. It's about deepening your rut," Forde says.

He himself is definitely anti-rut.

Forde, 41, passed on a career as a psychologist after deciding media would be a better fit. He was encouraged by the press secretary to U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., who advised Forde he could be "the liberal Rush Limbaugh."

After a brief stint as an on-air intern with a Twin Cities radio talk show - "All hostile, all the time," jokes Forde - he signed up in 1997 for a class in public access TV. In short order, he produced 18 episodes of "Mental Engineering" on a shoestring.

Encouraged by the response, Forde gambled his life savings (with his wife's blessing) to make 13 new, slicker episodes. The series is airing on PBS stations in cities including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit, Buffalo, N.Y., Seattle, Washington D.C., Denver, Omaha, Neb., Indianapolis and New Orleans.

He's searching for funding to do more shows - warning, however, that even underwriters may find their ads under the microscope. (Network options beyond noncommercial PBS, of course, would be slim and none.)

Ultimately, Forde hopes that "Mental Engineering" will encourage viewers to think critically about the world in general, beyond advertising.

"Our mission is to model the art and the habit of asking good questions, and to do this through this tangible, vivid thing (advertising)," he said.

My, my. Who could have guessed TV commercials would be the subject of rigorous intellectual analysis?

"By whom?" Forde responds, chortling. A salesman to the very end.

AP-NY-09-02-99 0106EDT