O be wise

This week in Gospel Doctrine, we'll be discussing "the Lord's law of health," the Word of Wisdom. This commandment directs its followers to abstain completely from alcohol, tobacco, "strong" and "hot" drinks (currently defined as coffee and tea, though maybe we'll get an addendum for Rockstar, 5 Hour Energy, etc., someday), and illegal drugs.

Mormons are hardly the only ones to warn of the health risks and other dangers of these products. The anti-tobacco "truth" marketing is probably the most ubiquitous advertising campaign of my lifetime, and the anti-drug "Above the Influence" ads were everywhere for a while too. But for the most part, these commercials are too serious, heavy-handed, and manipulative for my liking. Give me the cheesiness of the PSAs of my youth, any day. When I think about Word of Wisdom-related PSA, this is always the first one that comes to mind:



Not sure why the one with the Blue Blazer (played by the late Owen Hart) is so memorable for me, since there are many anti-smoking videos from the same era featuring more prominent wrestlers like Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior. Owen's brother Bret Hart did a PSA on drunk driving where he even uses the phrase "words of wisdom," but this one with the Blazer is still the one that stands out. Here's my second-most memorable PSA:



I love yelling "I learned it by watching you!" at parents and others when the opportunity presents itself. So much fun. Along with those two ads, I also think of this clip. It's obviously not a real PSA, but it becomes even more ridiculous when you think about all of the drug problems Lawrence Taylor has had.



So those are my go-to PSAs, but if you took a Family Feud-style survey of 100 people to determine the most memorable anti-drug PSA, I bet this would be your top answer:



The more in-your-face heroin version of this PSA might also rank pretty high. The "brain on drugs" concept spawned an infinite number of jokes and basically became its own cottage industry. Check out the hilariously dated references on these posters. Dan and Dave!

Speaking of famous brains...here's some more PSAs featuring what were then considered top-tier celebrities, people that young folks looked up to. Like Mr. T:



And Pee Wee:



Even the Star Wars droids:



Of course, the best way to make sure kids got the message that drugs were bad was to sneak the warnings in at the end of their favorite cartoons. "Everybody's doing it" is not a good reason for doing drugs, but it seems like a good enough reason to include the anti-drug PSAs. All of my most-loved shows had them, whether it was He-Man...



...or G.I. Joe (where knowing was half the battle in the war on prescription drug abuse)...



...and of course, TMNT. Drug dealers are dorks!



It's easy to get caught up in the "don'ts" of the Word of Wisdom, but there are plenty of "dos" as well. Fortunately, the PSAs of my childhood covered that as well. Exercise isn't mentioned directly in Section 89 of the D&C, but it's an important part of healthy living, as my old pal He-Man knew well. The main "do" of the WoW is eating healthy, and my cartoon pals taught me about that too:



He didn't have his own cartoon, but many shows took "Time For Timer" back in the day. Timer's most famous ditty was likely the one about his hankerin' for cheese (rewatching that video now, I think it may have been the inspiration for the rich Texan character on The Simpsons), but this one was also pretty memorable, and more relevant to the current topic.



But when it came to eating healthy, nothing tops milk ads. Milk's "It does a body good" promotions (including the milk mustache print ads and everything else) is perhaps the only campaign as pervasive as the "truth" one I alluded to earlier. They aren't proper PSAs, since they were actually promoting a commercial enterprise, but hey--getting enough milk is still a good thing. I remember their "pass it on" commercials that tried to be really hip. My favorite was this one, mainly due to the "good for teeth and bones and hair" line:



Then milk moved on to a slightly more mature campaign; for some reason I remember the Carrie Jacobson ad well enough to remember that it was about someone named Carrie Jacobson. But the ones where scrawny kids grow before our eyes (due to their milk consumption, of course) were much better. I like this one:



But I like this one, featuring a classic Wendy Peffercorn-type, even more:



So there you have it. If I had to break it down, I'd say my childhood commitment to keep the Word of Wisdom was due to parental and teacher influence (60%), personal testimony (10%), and public service announcements on TV (30%). Did you have any favorite PSAs as a kid that I've overlooked here? Share the links in the comments!