I don’t want to be a part of any of it since all of those pull-your-heartstrings commercials turn me off but I understand them. Nothing like Sarah McLachlan singing about her dead, overdosed friend to make people adopt a cat or dog.
What I think I’m saying (but don’t hold me to it) is that one form of manipulation is better than the other. There’s truth and there’s. . . sad songs and happy endings.
Nothing makes me hit the fast forward button on my remote faster than a Shriner, St. Jude, or any animal adoption commercial.
Disney “may” be done with its Halloween ads already…
…because on 10/1, I saw a Disney Christmas ad.
I could die happy if Liberty Mutual would stop it with those godawful Doug and Emu commercials. I can’t get to the mute button fast enough.
I am flabbergasted! Look, drug commercials are supposed to show the patient living a happy carefree life, now that they have taken damnitall. Bike rides, walks in the woods, flying kites, eating snacks etc. In other words, damnitall not only heals your ingrown toenails, buut it also makes your life carefree, with not need to go to work or anything.
But I just saw an ad for some sort of diabetes drug where it showed the woman at work. Okay, okay, then she was coaching her kids baseball game, but WORK!?! Dont they know the drug commercial code? 
At least she wasn’t dancing and singing about her A1C.
Car commercial:
“They’re not just headlights, they light the way forward.”
So they are headlights.
They’re not just cars, the are four wheeled road vehicles.
There was a commercial at the beginning of the movie M3GAN in which a little girl mourns her recently dead dog, and her dad gets her a robotic toy as a substitute. I’m embarrassed to say I thought it was a real commercial and was disgusted.
Just wait until you can get a robot boy to replace your dead son.
I remember when they had a commercial with Roberta Flack (who, BTW, has ALS 
) with “First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.” Okay, folks, “the first time ever I lay with you” is NOT about your dog or cat curling up with you at night, mmmkay?
Anyway, I came here to say that Pilot singer David Paton went back to Abbey Road Studios, where they originally recorded “It’s Magic”, to do Ozempic music. Spoiler alert: If he takes it himself, he didn’t mention it here.
My Girl Scout leaders (a husband and wife), before I met them, had a child who was one of the first St. Jude patients, and even though she too died, they had 6 extra years with her, and for most of that time, she was in otherwise good health. It was a type of leukemia that usually strikes adults, and isn’t often curable nowadays; that’s all I know about it.
I have supported them financially in tribute to this.
Interesting to see this here, because I just came from a health care board where a poster from New Zealand said that a colleague started a GFM in an attempt to raise NZ$300,000 to pay for a cancer drug that their health care system is refusing to pay for. He has terminal cancer and his wife is pregnant, and he knows that it MAAAAY extend his life for up to 7 months and he wants to at least meet his baby.
My folks had a neighbor who left the bulk of her modest estate to St. Jude. She had made a few bequests to people who;d helped her in her old age. She and her husband had no kids, but the husband of a niece came sniffing around for money, and didn’t get anywhere with it.
Regarding St Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, you are of course free to give them whatever you want, but be aware that it’s already a very rich hospital. ProPublica ran a series of articles on them a couple of years ago. In November 2021, ProPublica wrote
Last year, St. Jude raised a record $2 billion. U.S. News & World Report ranked it the country’s 10th-best children’s cancer hospital, and St. Jude raised roughly as much as the nine hospitals ahead of it put together. It currently has $5.2 billion in reserves, a sum large enough to run the institution at current levels for the next four and a half years without a single additional donation.
I’d just point out that there are many other children’s hospitals that also do good work; you may choose to give your money to one of them, particularly one in your area.
Shriner’s also does good work, and unlike St. Jude, they do not charge insurance or other third-party payers.
I hate to sound cynical but I figure any organization that has enough money to relentlessly pound me with TV ads, probably doesn’t really need my donation. It makes me wonder how much of my money is going to the cause, and how much is being spent on more fundraising.
From St. Jude’s website.
The ProPublica article says they spent thirty percent of the money raised on fundraising.