Monday, November 19, 2007

Humor is the best medicine - okay, not for children with lead poisoning, but I'm sure it's helpful for other stuff

If readers will forgive a humorous but important off-topic post here entering the holiday season, I wanted to share with y'all a really cool web video and political action project on toxic imported toys, produced by the lovely and talented Kathy Mitchell (a.k.a., Mrs. Grits), who happens to run the national internet advocacy campaigns for Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports magazine.

Click here to see their Christmas song and video about the lonely toy inspector and his befuddled staff awash in a sea of Asian imports. The song was written and performed by the Austin Lounge Lizards, while the hysterical animation was created by Austin-based PowerHouse Animation. Enjoy, and share. The video parody is part of a Consumers Union netroots campaign to help convince Congress to improve health and safety regulations for imported toys.

I think the video is hilarious and I'm real proud of Kathy for putting together such a creative way to get people's attention in the all-too-distracting holiday season. You'll want to listen to this one a couple or three times, or at least I did, to catch all the jokes.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Kathy did a great job, the song is really funny but gets the message across. The Elmer smelling the glue is a great parody. All my kids are grown up but the concern now is for the grandkids. Thanks for getting this out.

Anonymous said...

It was a pleasure to join Kathy on the bitter cold streets of Chicago this morning. She's doing this country a great service by spreading the word on the lead toy problem.

Amy
chicagomomsblog.com
mumsthewurd.com