Do you know somebody who can’t take a joke, even an extremely dumb one? Well it’s possible they’ve recently complained to someone in a position of power about a string of advertisements for Fox’s upcoming comedy Cooper Barrett’s Guide to Surviving Life. Below is one of the advertisements that the network recently (and temporarily) put up to promote the show.
In case you’re thinking that people were complaining that using a light switch to advertise a TV show is an ill-advised move no matter what the purpose, let me clear things up for you: people were upset that the light switch was made to resemble a guy’s dong. Or “penis,” for all the scholars out there.
Apparently the ads weren’t the biggest hit at the downtown L.A. Live entertainment complex, nor sites in Houston, Minneapolis or Atlanta. According to EW, Fox was asked to remove similar ads in all of those places. I hate to see what would have happened had they shown images of “boobs” written on an upside-down calculator. I mean, to give Fox credit, at least the letters aren’t spelled out using pictures of actual penises.
The lightswitch penis image is more or less part of the show’s marketing campaign online, so it’s not like the loss of real-life displays is going to eradicate it from our lives (which we are currently surviving without Cooper Barrett’s assistance). The picture obviously symbolizes mild immaturity, which is part of this show’s appeal. It stars Jack Cutmore as the titular college grad that still hasn’t gotten everything together yet, and he’ll face daily relatively small-scale challenges that will involve his roommates, his neighbor girlfriend and his brother. Check out the preview below and tell me this doesn’t feel like a show that deserves to use a lightswitch penis on billboards.
In the scheme of things, a penis gag is probably less emotionally stunting than The Man in the High Castle’s propaganda posters, so we don’t blame the show’s marketing team for putting one out there, as it were. You can find Cooper Barrett’s Guide to Surviving Life when it premieres on Sunday, January 3, as part of Fox’s new lineup for Sunday Funday.
