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With the rise of illegal uses of substances (and illegal uses of illegal substances) in the 1960s, major companies started trying to find ways to market products to play off of this. Some wise guy at the Sanford company thought it would be a brilliant idea to let children play like the big boys. Enter Mr. Sketch Scented Markers!
Children all across the nation could sniff their markers just like Johnny McFootball did before the big game without killing those brain cells they tell you you need for Harvard, and believe it or not, it's still a going phenomenon today. Erm, the scented markers. Not sniffing before a game. Anyway, you can get them in packs of 4, 8, 12, or a whopping 192 (for teachers) and they come in a wide variety of colors, each boasting a unique smell represented by a cute personified cartoon fruit or what have you. Ironically, "Sharpie" is not one of the scents. Must be a union thing. The breakdown is as follows:
I remember the first time I was introduced to Mr. Sketch. I was about 5 years old, at my best friend Michael's house (who lived across the street and 3 houses down). After being mind boggled by their ability to both satisfy the need to scribble on things and to smell like things AT THE SAME TIME, I had to have some. Fast forward to a week ago. I was in the school supply store getting some stick-on letters for a project when I ran across these bad boys again. Naturally, I had to pick some up. Why? Because looking at the box for a second in the store just isn't good enough. I needed to smell their artificially scented marker goodness again. I bought them, and before I even started my car in the parking lot, I already had a nose full of Red Cherry, Yellow Lemon, and Blue Blueberry. Green Mint still gives me a headache to smell, and I still see no point in having both a magenta and pink marker. But really, let's get back to the obvious issue at hand. Who the fart invented markers you're SUPPOSED to sniff? What happened to all we learned from those PSAs? What about those after school specials? Okay, so there weren't ever any after school specials devoted to sniffing markers but I'm sure they were included on the PSAs about sniffing gas, paint and other useful things. I bet there's at least one brain-dead former child out there that if he could think rationally, could trace his entire demise back to Mr. Sketch. Not to mention, some of these color/scent/character relations are absurd. Since when are mangos turquoise? Must have missed that press release. And since when is a teddy bear associated with cinnamon? Teddy Grahams MAYBE, but that would be a super-stretch. It's bad enough that the world thinks raspberries are blue and that thanks to Jessica Simpson, buffalos produce buffalo wings. Really though, the scented aspect of the markers is nothing more than a gimmick to sell everyday Crayola-esque markers to kids. They won't make you a better student. They won't help you win the Super Bowl. They sure as Howdy Doody's wooden butt won't make you a better artist.
Someone should be ashamed of creating these. But, they probably aren't. Heck, I sure wouldn't be if I invented something that paid the bills for over 40 years. But gosh darn it, they're MARKERS...and they SMELL LIKE STUFF. I'd say they smell like fruit, but three stubborn markers smell like un-fruit things (mint, cinnamon, licorice), and stuff is the only general term I can think of to describe them all. But seriously. These things are awesome and that's all you need to know. Josh, 2/27/06 |
