watch it: “Shopping Can Be Fun (1957)”

Why do they want you to shop? Why are they so gung-ho on getting you to the mall? What’s in it for them? Did they really have to tell us that shopping can be fun? Couldn’t we have figured it out for ourselves... if it were true, that is. I mean, no one has ever had to make a PR short called “Sex Can Be Fun.”

Honestly, is it meant to be enticing, watching people driving around trying to find a place to park amongst all that “plenty of free parking”?

Doesn’t “Hillsdale” sound like a mental hospital?

Shopping makes Mother happy! Shopping makes children happy! Calling Dad a “doll” makes Dad happy! Nothing is gayer than farmers’ markets and circus themes! No, it’s true!

These things confuse me, though: Is the luau chick the mall’s ambassador to the armed forces, or the armed forces’ ambassador to the mall? (Who knew masstige retail had a diplomatic program?) And why would a penguin want to look like a “modern guided missile”?

It all makes me very suspicious that our happiness is not the first thing our retail overlords have in mind.