‘Give us the finger’

The Duncan Yo-yo Company is running nationwide television commercials depicting young men “giving the finger” to the camera, sparking a protest by members of the American Family Association.

The new Hard Core line of yo-yos just released by Duncan is designed to appeal to participants in extreme sports. To promote the line, Duncan has placed on the E! Entertainment and MTV cable channels what the AFA considers to be a hardcore commercial promoting vulgar behavior in children of all ages.

Image from controversial Yo-yo ad.

“Duncan began airing a television commercial that bounces from one rebellious personality to the next, each floating the crude gesture of social disrespect into the camera in slow motion. After 17 ‘one finger salutes,’ the announcer tags the 30-second spot, ‘Give us the finger, we’ll give you the power,'” Tim Wildmon, AFA vice president wrote to the members of his association.

Wildman said Duncan yo-yos are as much an American icon as baseball and blue jeans. The company has abandoned its past status, he said, and is now “subverting the core moral values” of American children.

“Parents don’t want their children using the Duncan yo-yo as an excuse for exhibiting an obscene gesture,” added Wildmon.

Thousands of the organization’s members are mailing letters and making calls to Flambeau Products, the parent company of Duncan Toys, AFA director of special projects, Randy Sharp, told WorldNetDaily. They are asking company president Jason Sauey to stop the controversial commercial, but Sauey told WorldNetDaily the commercial will continue to run.

“Most of the people that we’re receiving responses from haven’t even seen our commercial,” complained Sauey. However, the American Family Association has made the commercial available for viewing at its web site.

“First of all, these commercials run on programs that one can argue have more offensive program content than the commercial itself. They run on programs like wrestling at night and MTV, so the things that are shown on our commercial certainly don’t depict anything that the viewers have not been probably exposed to in the program content itself,” said Sauey.

“Does that justify their use of the finger?” asked Sharp. “Just because there are worse examples of bad behavior on television is no reason to justify vulgar gestures in the advertisement. There are better ways to market to their potential customer base than to use an obscene gesture such as the finger,” he added.

“Yo-yoing today has become an extreme sport,” explained Sauey. “What we’re trying to do with our Duncan brand now is that we’ve created a whole new line of extreme yo-yos to respond to these kind of X-game, X-generation-type teams that exist today. That’s why we’re on the programs we’re on.”

Duncan Toys has other commercials targeting younger children. They play on the Cartoon Network and are designed to sell traditional yo-yos.

Sharp recommended that Duncan Toys could make an excellent commercial showing young people performing yo-yo tricks. “I guarantee they would sell millions of yo-yos. What they’ve done, they took the first 23 or 24 seconds and showed nothing more than flipping off. That’s it. No message.”

Chris Neff, X-game participant and national Yo-yo champ conducts demonstrations of the extreme sports presentation of Yo-yo competition.

Sauey says it’s not that easy to get the attention of young people and then motivate them to buy. Duncan Toys is trying to find new ways to communicate with young people and influence them to buy yo-yos.

“It’s very difficult to get youth today to listen to and respond to a message if it’s not properly positioned for them,” Sauey explained. “We can preach to children all we like today, yet children aren’t going to listen to preaching usually. You have to relate to them in a different way.

“Our commercial is attempting to do that. We do have the middle finger extended. Not straight up in a vertical position but in a horizontal position at the camera in a number of scenes by different people. Then the commercial moves into being slipped on the finger of a player who then goes about creating some very exciting yo-yo trick action with it. Then we finish up with some super-impositions of our product.

“What we’re really trying to do is to make people understand there’s a more positive and constructive way they can use their middle finger other than just to raise it straight up in some vulgar act of defiance,” said Sauey in defense of his advertising strategy.

Sharp accused Sauey of using the similar spin tactics to those of President Clinton. American consumers are smart enough to see through that, and it will result in a major impact in the sales of yo-yos, he said. Although Wildman is not yet asking his members to boycott Flambeau Products and Duncan Toys, such a move is being considered.

“If one thinks about how they slip the yo-yo string on their finger, they indeed do have to stick their middle finger out straight and slip the yo-yo over it. If they take the whole message in full context, they won’t be offended, but I can see why if they see all these people at the beginning sticking their finger straight out at them why they might be startled at first, but that certainly is intended to get people’s attention,” explained Sauey of his marketing strategy.

Sauey insists that his commercial is being taken out of context, that his message is a good one and the American Family Association does not recognize it.

“Some people are taking this out of context,” he added, “and I do feel like there is an agenda behind this. The American Family Association may indeed be trying to just drive a train for another purpose other than to get their people excited. Make their people who are members feel like they’re providing them a service and keep them enjoined in a cause,” said Sauey of what he believes is nothing more than an attempt to gain donations.

“It’s hurting their cause,” said Sharp. The publicity has been negative. There are very few parents in the United States who want their children flipping people off. … It is hurting them because these are the parents who might buy a yo-yo as a Christmas present. We’ve heard from countless people who have written and called Duncan. Their phones are jammed. They know it’s wrong,” said Sharp.

Although Sharp said many of his members reported being hung up on when they called to complain to Flambeau Products, several test calls by WorldNetDaily received courteous treatment.

“We need to realize as parents that our kids are going to be exposed to a lot of negative adversity out there and real challenges. They need to be strong and they need to be able to respond to it properly. But if they watch this wrestling program, I mean Steve Austin’s flipping off all the time,” said Sauey.

X-generation Duncan yo-yo professionals Steve Brown and Chris Neff began a tour of America on Wednesday to promote the new line of Hard Core yo-yos. They are traveling separately and are stopping to give demonstrations at retail outlets such as Media Play, Wal-Mart, Toys ‘R’ Us and Zainy Brainy.

Brown and Neff took part in the filming of the controversial commercial. Neff could not be reached, and Brown did not respond to messages requesting an interview. Store managers at locations where he was giving demonstrations gave messages to him for WorldNetDaily.

Jeff Klinsciver, Media Play manager in Nashville, Tenn., said Brown gave a demonstration at his store on Sunday. So few people attended that the presentation was delayed 90 minutes to generate an audience. Klinsciver was not aware of any complaints by his customers regarding the commercial.

The “new generation” of Duncan Pros, currently traveling by RV across the country. They conduct Yo-yo demonstrations at WalMart stores and at public schools.

Another manager, who would only say his name was Allen, told WorldNetDaily that Brown kept his Mohawk haircut covered by a cap during the presentation, but that “he’d fit in well with the teens and early 20s crowd.” He would not comment on the commercial.

Neff gave a presentation at a Toys ‘R’ Us store on Saturday where Myron Green is the manager. He said the presentation went very well and was viewed primarily by younger children and their parents.

“As the kids came through my store, they all stopped at the guy and were amazed at what he could do with a yo-yo,” said Green, who was shocked to learn of the television commercial and said he would have reconsidered having the presentation if he had known in advance.

“I wouldn’t like that at all if I had known about it,” Green told WorldNetDaily, adding that there was a good chance the Duncan yo-yos could be pulled from the store. He gave several examples of other toys that have been discontinued because of “moral issues.”

Green was asked if he would let his own children watch such a commercial, or the programs it airs on. “Absolutely not. I have a 10-year-old girl,” he stated. He said he agrees with Sharp that it will continue to be a problem for his daughter because she will encounter other children who are permitted to watch such things.

Ironically, Sauey says he also controls the programs his children watch.

“Frankly, my kids don’t watch wrestling. I let them watch the Cartoon Network, but we have a different commercial on Cartoon Network. The fact that people who are watching wrestling see somebody flipping a bird, that’s not what we’re intending to be doing in the context of our whole commercial. People who are watching wrestling have seen people flip birds before, and the parents who are watching wrestling are probably flipping their kids the bird. That’s unfortunate,” said Sauey.

Wildman and Sharp are disappointed that Flambeau Products and Duncan Toys have not taken a different approach.

“We were hoping that they would realize and say, ‘Really, we can’t pull the wool over anybody’s eyes. This is a bad idea. Let’s swallow our pride and pull it (the commercial),'” said Sharp, add that there is a great deal of “positive publicity that they could get from that.”