Stop paying for those commercials

Some years ago, when Disney took over operation of the California

Angels from Gene and Jackie Autry, the marketing minds that had made

Disneyland a tourist icon were asked to produce the same results at

Anaheim Stadium. So for about three months, those of us who came to

watch baseball were inundated in Disneyisms that had nothing to do

with the game.

There were oompah bands playing on the infield grass between

innings, a corps of dancing girls performing on top of the dugouts,

spectators bobbing in a tank for baseballs, races for kids in the

aisles and a dozen similar activities that I’ve been able to blot

from my memory. Because there was no escape from the incessant,

relentless noise for the sake of noise, it was impossible for the

fans to second-guess the team manager.

It apparently never occurred to these overpaid marketeers that the

only entertainment that would attract more paying customers -- as so

magnificently illustrated last season -- was a winning team.

The response from the people who came to see baseball and got

Mickey Mouse was instant, outraged and uncompromising: floods of

angry letters to the newspapers covering the Angels, scores of phone

calls to Disney and the Angels’ front office, reactions ranging from

disinterest to contempt at the ballpark.

And the most important reaction of all: tepid attendance. So

Disney got the word. All of the cute stuff stopped. Slowly, the

energy and money devoted to window dressing were redirected to the

product on the field. It took a few years, but tickets were being

scalped for $1,000 or more at Edison Field in October. For baseball.

I bring up this bit of history now because my wife and I broke our

pattern and went to a movie over the weekend, the overpraised

throwback to the 1930s and ‘40s called “Far From Heaven.”

Because there was a long line at the box office, it was clear that

we needed to get a seat while we could. That meant we were part of a

captive audience force-fed 20 minutes of hard-sell commercials before

the previews came on.

So I went into the movie full of anger at the people who subjected

me to this. I don’t think that is the mental climate in which the

creators of this film would like it to be seen. I also don’t think

that is of the slightest interest to the flacks pushing these

commercials.

My wife and are movie buffs. On average, we probably see a

half-dozen movies a month throughout the year -- and more when our

son is home. We are accustomed to and mostly welcome previews,

although lately they have been too long, too repetitive and revealed

too much.

The only other pre-feature activity visible for many years was the

earnest, institutional promo of the Los Angeles Times, which we

passed off as an odd anachronism.

Then Regal Theaters -- the largest theater chain in the world,

they tell us -- bought the grandfatherly and bankrupt Edwards

Theaters, and the hard-driving, hard-marketing Regal cowboys took

over and began using us to make big advertising bucks.

They didn’t ease into this. They plunged -- and now I hear the

same talk in theater lobbies that I once heard at Anaheim Stadium.

The Times has been hearing it, too. Reporter Lynn Smith did a

piece for last Sunday’s Calendar section about the “attack of the

40-foot ads.”

She quoted Kurt Hall, chief executive of Regal Cinemedia: “Our

primary goal is to just provide a good entertainment experience for

our customers and a good marketing platform to advertise brands and

products.”

This, of course, is baloney, but since he apparently said it with

a straight face, maybe he really doesn’t understand that the two

parts of this sentence are totally incompatible.

So he can be quite clear on this matter, let me say: Mr. Hall,

your commercials, however you serve them up, are not a good

entertainment experience for your customers, never have been and

never will be, and we deeply resent paying our money to see a movie

and then being used by you and your flacks.

Mr. Hall will, of course, brush this aside as petulance. He’s a

lot tougher than the Walt Disney Co., which wants to be loved as well

as make money. I have the feeling that being loved is not high on

Regal’s wish list. So if we are to make our point with Regal, it must

be done with the only muscle they understand: money. And because this

is a tough time for consumers, it will have to be done individually.

Consumers are the only identifiable group in this country with

little or no representation in the halls of power. It has been ever

thus, but it is even more so now, with an administration in

Washington pandering to the needs and desires of big business. So

what can folks who are angry about paying inflated movie prices only

to be exploited by Regal commercials do about it?

Well, for starters, we can quit going to the movies. My wife and I

figured out that for the price of two movies a month, we could buy

the gold-plated, gilt-edged, high-option cable TV package and wait

for most of the theatrical movies to show up there -- without

commercials -- while we gaining the increasing high-quality crop of

cable TV originals.

When a movie simply must be seen on a big screen in a theater, or

we can’t wait until it gets to cable, we’ll try to go at odd hours so

we can slip in after the commercials. So far -- except for “Far From

Heaven” -- this has been working fine. It’s likely that Regal won’t

notice our defection on their profit-and-loss statement, but if

enough of us do the same thing, they might.

There is also the time-honored way of boycotting products

advertised on theater screens and letting the companies involved know

you are doing it and why. Or writing the movie producer to tell him

his film was badly showcased. Or telling the theater owner you won’t

be back if he doesn’t cut out the commercials.

Or encouraging your city or county government to pass a law

requiring theaters to tell people in movie ads that there will be

commercials and when they will be on. Or just booing when the ads

come on.

If all this sounds frivolous, at least it allows us a small sense

of control over a piece of our own environment -- at a time when we

seem to be out of the loop on larger matters.

If we can’t have a voice in whether or not we go to war, at least

we can try to get commercials out of our movie houses. Just like we

got Mickey Mouse out of our ballpark.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column

appears Thursdays.