For Whom The Annabell Tolls

Like many parents, I’m often concerned about the effect TV advertising has on my children.  Now, this isn’t simply me being tightfisted and worrying about the ‘pester factor’ when trying to do a supermarket shop (“Daddy, can we have a Barbie?  Can we have a water cannon?  Can we have a Black & Decker chainsaw?”), but just what messages the advertisers are subliminally putting into their suggestible little heads?

I only ask, because, having got used to years of those fluffy (and entirely reasonable) little advert jingles that go, “Baby Annabell was born to swim” or “Baby Annabell was born to drive”, my little six-year-old princess blurted out, perfectly and sweetly in tune, “Baby Annabell was born to kill”.  Naturally, after a split-second’s stunned silence, I collapsed into helpless ribbons of laughter – and she, being used to daddy doing such things, didn’t see anything unusual in this.

Still, it only seems like yesterday that we weren’t allowed to watch those Chucky films because of their ‘possible’ influence on kids who would in no way (no WAY) commit brutal murder under any other circumstances – I wonder what reasoning the ‘ban everything’ collective can offer me about my daughter’s song, then?  Unless it’s because I play Rick Astley records backwards, it’s baffling me.