Television: Breathes There a Mouth

The television screen shows a college crowd clustered on the beach. One of the niftiest coeds of the lot, Betsy, is off by herself, ignored, patting castles in the sand. A girl friend comes over to console her. Betsy whispers a burning question: “Could I possibly have bad breath?” The answer is could be, and Betsy is slipped a mouthwash. Then the camera dissolves to THE NEXT WEEKEND. The same old gang is singing around a bonfire on the beach. Only this time Betsy and one of the guys are making out like crazy. Her girl friend returns, and coos: “Looks like you two are going steady.” Breathes Betsy sweetly: “We three—Jim, me and Listerine.”

Fact of the matter is that’the steadies are actually becoming a foursome —the boy, the girl, the mouthwash and, whether he likes it or not, the U.S. TV viewer. The television advertising budgets of Listerine and its competitors have more than doubled in the past two years. As a result, nighttime commercials have become rife with halitosis warnings.

For the Gipper. Take Micrin. Scene shows a high school football coach. His mouth tastes like a pair of socks after a hard day’s scrimmage, but he’s too stupid to know it. A player gives him a cold eye and blurts: “Why were the guys whispering? I’ll tell you. You have bad breath. BAD BREATH!” Instead of booting the impudent brat out of the locker room, Coach goes on a Micrin bender, leaving the audience to conclude that now, by gosh, his team will get out there against State, and win one for the Gipper.

Only a shade subtler is the Scope campaign, which opens with a man in a T shirt emoting into his mirror: “Boss, you could fire me for this, but you have bad breath. BAD BREATH!” Then, anguished minutes later, the employee is in the office and begins, shakily, “Boss,” only to be interrupted, mercifully, by the boss’s fragrant announcement: “Johnson, I have discovered a new mouthwash!”

Most of the ads, though, seem to be aimed at the prom set. Lavoris’ pitchwoman is “Fran,” a hip Ann Landers-type columnist, fielding readers’ problems. Her inevitable solution: “Use Lavoris, lover boy. You’ll sweeten up those sour dates.” How did she guess? “Don’t think your dear old Aunt Fran doesn’t know which way the wind blows.” Colgate 100 has similar advice to the breathlorn. The date is over, and Tom is depositing Betty at her door. She melts into a coy pucker only to be offered [gasp!] a handshake, as Tom about-faces out of the foyer. “Well, I never,” Betty tells her roomie, who shrewdly asks: “Sure you’re O.K. in the breath department?” Cut to the next Saturday night farewell scene. Betty proffers her hand to Tom, who ardently sweeps it away and darned near crushes her right there on the stoop.

Wild Scramble. Another product, Reef, attacks the problem with an equally ridiculous approach. The setting is a party or a convivial cruise. The apéritif is a bottle of Reef. All the gang raise their frosty champagne glasses in a mouthwash toast as the announcer cheers, “So here’s to breath [clink!] that’s really clean!”

It is clear that TV audiences will not be allowed to breathe easy again until the whole Pepsi generation is on the gargle. And as the competitive scramble gets wilder, Old Standby Listerine is forging ahead by hiring famous names for the sell. One commercial shows Golfer Sam Snead passing the word to a young pro whose lady students won’t let him get closer than an iron shot. Another stars Insurance Man and ex-Pro Footballer Y. A. Tittle propounding the disadvantages of you know what to a discouraged salesman. Does that mean that Tittle had learned a thing or two in the Giants’ huddles?