TV: Local cable show draws a bead on bad TV ads
Noel Holston / Star Tribune (3-10-99)

''Mental Engineering'' is the freshest TV-show idea to come out of theTwin Cities since "Mystery Science Theater 3000." It's not perfected yet, but its mischievous little heart is in the right place.

"Mental Engineering" critiques TV commercials on TV. Think about it.

What a radical notion.

The average child growing up in the United States sees more than half a million commercials by adulthood. A four-hour daily dose of TV includes about 100 ads. But how often do TV's powers-that-be even acknowledge the medium's commercial component, let alone allow someone to dissect it?

Unless you count the annual Super Bowl postmortems, in which news or quasi-news programs evaluate the latest antics of the Budweiser frogs and the Taco Bell Chihuahua, or the occasional "favorite commercials" special, the answer is: never. If you care to see some thoughtful analysis of commercials, you have to read a trade magazine, such as Advertising Age or Ad Week, or the Village Voice, probably the only general-interest publication with an advertising columnist.

"Commercials, even more than print ads, just beg to be pulled apart and analyzed," said the Voice's Leslie Savan. "Their creators will often protest -- 'we don't mean all those things that you're reading into it!" -- but it doesn't matter. We, the public, are allowed and even enticed to read all sorts of things into commercials, because they're like little 30-second dreams."

But while books, movies and even TV shows get reviewed on TV, commercials get away unscathed. As Savan noted, reviewing art or entertainment "doesn't threaten the system that supports them financially."

Enter "Mental Engineering," a low-budget cable-access show produced in St. Paul. It dares to sling stones at commercial Goliaths and stick out its tongue, as well.

The show is the brainchild of John Forde (pronounced Fore-DEE), who has a master's degree in psychology from Macalester College and who has been wary of commercials since he was 4 and got a toy airplane that didn't live up to its TV hype.

My whole life I've had three broad themes," Forde said. "I've been fascinated by humor, by lies and by the linguistics of questions. With 'Mental Engineering,' I found a way to put all three together."

Forde launched "Mental Engineering" in December 1997 on the St. Paul Neighborhood Network (SPNN), the public access arm of the city's MediaOne cable system. The show's format, reminiscent of ABC's "Politically Incorrect," is simple. In a given half-hour, Forde screens three or four commercials, each of which is summarily sliced and diced by him and four guest analysts. The latter might be anything from comedians to cognitive theorists. Forde invites actors, writers, psychologists, even advertising types.

Bill Hillsman, who created the legendary Paul Wellstone and Jesse Ventura campaign commercials, has been a guest. He said he had no qualms about participating: "There's a lot of bad advertising out there."

But the point of "Mental Engineering" is not merely to grade commercials on the basis of whether they "work." Forde and company pay attention to the psychology behind the ads -- what buttons are the creators attempting to push? -- and to the social benefit, or lack thereof, of the products being hawked. Always, they try to be amusing rather than didactic.

Once, Forde screened a commercial for potato chips fried in the new cooking oil Olean. Set against a postcard-perfect backdrop, a robust farm woman who talked earnestly about her decision to buy this healthy snack for her family.

She was the ideal Olean spokesperson, commented panelist Greg Fideler, because she was "wearing knee-high rubber boots."

After viewing a spot in which scores of lifeless crash-test dummies arise at the sight of a new Audi and begin singing Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" in German, comic Tim Mitchell quipped that it looked like "a weird cross between 'Triumph of the Will' and 'Dawn of the Dead.' "

In search of an audience

"Mental Engineering" assumes a fairly high degree of cultural literacy, perhaps to its detriment. Nobody stops to explain references to Carl Jung's theories or Neil Young's songs. Some viewers may find the show a little clubby and smug, which sometimes it is. Forde believes his program should appeal to the same people who watch Dennis Miller, "The Daily Show," "Talk Soup" and "Face the Nation," and he's determined not to talk down to viewers.

His show isn't getting much of that audience now because it's on public-access cable, not a national network or cable channel. But it's starting to attract national attention. Swing, a hip magazine aimed at consumers in their 20s, recently praised its "often hilarious roundtable discussion."

And its visibility is increasing. In addition to Minneapolis and St. Paul, the show is on cable-access channels in a dozen other cities, including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. "It's very good," said Katherine Cole, program director of Citizens Television, an access arm of Comcast Cable in New Haven, Conn. "We're using it as part of our media literacy training with some high schools."

Forde would love to find a permanent home for the show in public broadcasting. Starting Saturday, he and producer Carol Critchley will make "Mental Engineering" available to public TV stations via the Central Educational Network, one of three satellite uplinks operated by PBS to distribute regionally produced programs. Forde considers the uplink fee -- $120 per episode -- a bargain. His next step will be to call stations and lobby them to pick up his show.

There are 380 public TV stations nationwide, but Forde is focusing on only a select few -- secondary stations in the 20 largest markets and the 60 stations that are university licensees. He suspects that PBS proper might be too beholden to commercial interests these days to schedule a show that reveals and ridicules the manipulative mechanics of ads.

With corporate funding unlikely -- and hypocritical even if it weren't -- what Forde needs soon is foundation support. He needs a socially conscious nonprofit to bankroll a show that truly needs to maintain its independence. "Mental Engineering" is being produced for a pittance, even by public TV standards, but Forde's pockets are only so deep.

If there's any justice, someone will come to the show's rescue. Forde says he wants to teach and entertain. He wants to help people "own themselves," which is not a bad goal for a show that exists in a medium overwhelmingly dedicated to selling.

To quote the show's prospectus, its vision is "an America where commercial speech and the techniques of media persuasion are balanced by public awareness; where every citizen has both the ability and inclination to ask good questions about the media messages aimed at us. Education makes people difficult to drive but easy to lead, and media literacy is a new essential in our society."