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Thursday, April 29
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"Nobody bodder me either!" |
This posting won't apply to most people. It's a shout out to my Washington, DC metro area childhood and a local commercial that changed my life. Let me take you back to the late 80s. Sweats were my shirts and my pants. Flight of the Navigator was my favorite movie. I really wanted to see the Fine Young Cannibals in concert. I was a latch-key kid. When I'd come home from school every day, I'd immediately eat a whole bag of UTZ potato chips. Then I would plop myself in front of the TV from 3 p.m. til dinner time. During my residency on the couch I would complete my homework. Commercials were always a good time to work on my Social Studies' assignments or Math problems (remember when it was just called "Math" instead of something that ended in "bra" or "ometry"? Oh, those were the daze).
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"Nobody bodder me either!" |
But every now and then there would be a local TV ad that would make me put my books down and pay attention to their fine selling points. There was the whole "Putt-Putt for the fun of it" song. Klassic with a K. And who could forget the Mr. Ray's Hair Weave promo. But the Citizen Kane of them all was the Jhoon Rhee Tae Kwon Do commercial circa 1978, and played for what seemed like most of the 80s. (Editor's Note: I wish I had a clip of the ad instead of describing it, cause you need to see it to bee leave it).
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"Nobody bodder me either!" |
Basically the ad kicked glass from frame one to the last. There was a video montage of people practicing super fly ninja-like moves. And the background music was a killer part of it too. The music was supplied by ex-E-Street gee-tarist, Nils Lofgren, while some "Weird Al" Yankovicesque crooner crooned, "Nobody bother me" over and over. At the crescendo of the song, it went something like, "Call USA-1000, Jhoon Rhee, Fight For RIGHT!!!." Then it cut to a little girl saying "Nobody bodder [bother] me", and then cut to a little boy retorting, "Nobody bodder [bother] me either!", followed by wink. A wink that would launch a thousand ships and zillions o' laughs for the rest of my life.
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"Nobody bodder me either!" |
A sensation was born (or at least in my head). Actually it was a regional one, but sensational none the less. Jhon Rhee's school of self-defense went on to have much success and became the new hotness. And it was all because he put his daughter (Meme) and son (Chun) in his commercial and had them utter those two infamous quotes about being "bodder"ed. It had such kitschy kitsch that those two phrases and the wink became a part of the people's lexicon. Two years ago, the finest newspaper in the world, The Washington Post, even did a where are they now kind of article about Jhoon Rhee. One of the topics tackled? The commercial.
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"Nobody bodder me either!" |
I don't know why I wanted to post this shizzle about a commercial only 5 of you have ever seen. Maybe it was cause there wasn't that much info on it when I Googled it. Plus I found this picture (see anywhere in this article) and didn't want it to go to waste. If anyone can find the actual commercial, PLEASE send it to me. We accept VHS, BetaMax, Laserdisc, DiVX and sausage. The sausage isn't an acceptable video format, but we really do like sausage.
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