Robert Jones

I've seen many great shows in the past few months, but since it's Jim Henson's birthday, I think today I highlight an underrated show from his production company, the 1990s ABC sitcom Dinosuars.

The show's premise is pretty crazy, it's set up as a sitcom, but instead of having a regular family in the modern age, it focuses on a family of dinosuars in a modern day inspired stone age, complete with TV, 9 to 5 jobs, and pop culture refrences.

The show's use of animatronic puppetry was really impressive at the time (this was produced way before shows heavily resorted to CGI), and I find the way they were able to highlight topical issues in several episodes very well done. Their episodes that illustrate how our actions impact the environment are some of their best work, as it highlights how we negatively impact the environment and calls for us to change.

When I was a kid, advertising was an interesting landscape, as companies would create interesting characters or commercials to get audiences invested in their product. One that still stuck with me was a spokescharacter for Skechers, that of course being Kewl Breeze from the shoe company Skechers. He helped advertise their air-cooled sneakers for kids back in the late 2000s called Airators.

Kewl Breeze displays the power of creativity in advertising highlighting the shoe's main purpose, providing cool (or in this case "kewl") air as the shoe's main feature to it's main audience, that being kids who want shoes that provide comfort, but also appeal to their interests. This superhero character provides something an interesting component to shoe advertising, in which you bring a spokescharacter (like Ronald McDonald or Smokey the Bear.) to help give a brand identity or in this case, character.