Drink Wilkins Coffee... or else!

So here's a strange historical artifact: the Wilkins Coffee commercials produced by Jim Henson between 1957 and 1961 and they are a work of art.

The ads feature two characters: Wilkins (who, I kid you not, is the Kermit prototype puppet), whose job is to shill Wilkins Coffee, and Wontkins, who doesn't want it. Over the course of at least a couple of dozens commercials Wilkins tries to “persuade” Wontkins to try some. In pursuit of this goal Wontkins is repeatedly humiliated, threatened, stabbed, shot, run over, blown up, thrown out of aircraft and in various one-off indignities he is executed by electric chair, eaten by a whale and crushed by the Washington Monument.

Any number of these near or actually fatal humiliations are accompanied by Wilkins declaring “Things just happen to people who don't drink Wilkins Coffee.”. Hell, in one or two of them, after dispatching Wontkins, Wilkins even threatens the audience.

Its like the secret origin of The Muppet Show and you can watch it here. 

On the latest celebrity break-up announcement

I say this as someone who has known people who were in unhealthy relationships but couldn't see a way out because they believed the commitment they'd made was more important than their own well-being. It is a horrible situation to be in because on the inside of it you can't even see that there is an outside. Especially as we have a culture that tends to reinforce the idea that “being in a relationship” is some sort of literal win condition for your life. It is a prerequisite for happiness.

In films a romantic plotline is almost mandatory. When our media addresses pretty much any form of sexuality it's a better than average bet that it will end in true love and happiness forever. We have whole genres that revolve around the main character overcoming all sorts of obstacles to find “The One” (and I am not talking about The Matrix).

And that is fine. Those can be good stories, inspiring stories. However, it does often seem that our society views “happy and single” and some sort of essential contradiction. This in turn leads to this pernicious belief that on you're in a relationship then any sacrifice, no matter how harmful to you or your partner as individuals, is not only acceptable but necessary.

So I guess what I'm saying here is that Kermit the Frog is better off single.