Main article: Marlboro Man
Not gunna lie, as a wee child I smoked candy cigarettes. Yea, I’ll admit it. I would go buy them at the convenience store for like a quarter or some amount of coinage that no longer has any value, and then go out to the corner of the field and pretend to smoke them with a buddy or two. Apparently, being able to see my breath on those frosty winter mornings helped complete the strange role-play (oddly enough, no recess-monitoring adults ever seemed to care that we were a bunch of grade schoolers who appeared to be smoking cigarettes, leading me to believe that we must have been really bad at pulling it off. Oh, that and the fact that we inevitably ATE them. That might have also tipped them off…)
We used to trade them for commisary and shanks too
Now, were you to ask any concerned adult about our behavior, I’m sure they would almost guarantee that we were all destined to become haggard, chain-smoking adults. We young impressionable children, the appeal would have obviously been to great for any of us to fight. But the anti-smoking crusaders never counted on one important fact: Cigarettes smell (and likely taste) like ass. If cigarettes WERE like candy cigarettes, I’d have as many holes in my lungs as I do teeth (thank you dental insurance!). :D
Me on the far left, circa 1935
At any rate, a couple decades have gone by and now papabear nostalgically wants himself some candy cigarettes. Why? BECAUSE I CAN’T FIND THEM ANYMORE. Now, I know they are still out there; I could buy them off the internet if I REALLY wanted too. But I don’t. I want them in convenience stores again for no apparent reason. I’m not even sure they tasted very good, but I want to be able to buy them.This brings up an interesting question though. What the hell happened to smoking culture anyway? I can only speak for a few limited parts of the US, but it would seem that much of western culture has tried to rid itself of every mention of cigarettes. Pondering on this, I couldn’t help but wonder what happened to the one rugged, lonesome ranger, who represented all things smoking: the Kool-Aid Man…er, I mean the Marlboro Man. For no one embodies smoking as well as he. (Ok, maybe Joe Camel).
How much more frighteningly effective would cigarette advertising be with this guy?
So what ever happened to the Marlboro man anyway? I bet you think he died, don’t you? Don’t lie! Well you’re dead wrong. He died multiple times, as Marlboro Man was akin to TV’s Lassie, who was played by a succession of collies. You see, each time your child’s Marlboro Man dies, you can appearently just go down to the cowboy pound and let them pick out a new one. (Unlike cats and dogs, where the young ones get adopted and the old ones just get euthanized, old, leathery cowboys are actually preferable to young hot ones, unless you happen to have a teenage cowgirl, but in that case you’ll want to make sure you get your Marlboro man neutered). This should also answer for you the annoying question as to where have all the cowboys have gone.
Don't EVER try to get an old Marlboro Man to quit smoking...
Now, admittedly, maybe actually smoking really is a bad thing, and these days the only people I know who smoke are miscellaneous hipsters and a few old crusty broads that work in my office, but importantly, smoking once told you who was a badass in popular culture. It made it easier for writers to show you who could be cool, hard, and edgy without having to put in scenes that are unrelated to the plot, and just show annoying character development.
What we really need is more smoking. Not necessarily in life, but in media. Will this make some very impressionable people start smoking? Maybe, but those people are just as likely to die in an okie noodlin event as anything else. We need those cigarettes to help us instantly determine the character of fictional characters. Otherwise we're going to have to rely on toothpicks! :O
Seriously?
