The United Nations has launched a series of 20 animated TV ads to stop the spread of AIDS, featuring cartoon condoms named Shaft, Stretch and Dick. (Yes I'm serious!) Available in 41 languages, the U calls The Three Amigos ad campaign the "start of the world's largest integrated behavior modification program." The condom characters are pictured in a variety of settings, including a spaceship, soccer field and casino.
A spot called "Talk," which features the three condoms on a couch interviewed by a TV talk host, reads like this:
INTERVIEWER: And you never try for sex on the first date?
DICK: Never, we just ... talk [nervous laugh]
SHAFT: Yeah, about stuff, and everything. [As female audience begins booing].
STRETCH: You see, manhood today, it's like a spirtual thing. [Audience booing grow louder]
INTERVIEWER: Yeah right, evolved men. Give me a break. [Audience cheers].
VOICE OVER: Trust your insticts, not your date. Carry a condom. Stop the spread of AIDS.
The spaceship spot has the Amigos as astronauts on a rumbling launchpad inside a condom-shaped craft as it builds power to liftoff while a female voice, apparently mimicking orgasmic sounds, counts down. The launch suddenly aborts and the voice over at the end tells viewers: "No condom, no blastoff. Stop the spread of AIDS."
The soccer ad says: "You just can't score without a condom."
The U.N. says the "groundbreaking HIV/AIDS prevention strategy" is strongly supported by South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who has called the TV spots "a powerful communicating tool." Tutu has written an open letter to broadcasters around the world with "an impassioned plea" to "use these PSAs. They cannot be played enough."
Editors Note: Archbishop Tutu also said about homosexulaity: "For us that doesn't make a difference, the sexual orientation. In our Church here in South Africa, the Anglican Church in South Africa, that doesn't make a difference. We just say that at the moment we believe that they should remain celibate and we don't see what all the fuss is about."
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