Success Is Only A Signup Away !

Around here, almost every daytime television program is sponsored by a trade school of some sort. Each day they cast a wide net trying to snag those who are sprawled on their couches dreaming of a lucrative career in something, but have done little (including graduating from High School) to make that dream a reality.

What’s striking, aside from the type of clientele to whom these pitches are targeted, is how low budget some of the commercials appear to be. It seems they are done using volunteer students borrowed from a remedial reading class, using a script written by a former ad agency trainee, and filmed using a two hour camcorder rental from Lenses R Us.

These commercials have one simple message. After showing some slow-moving schlock laboring at the most simplistic requirements of the occupation being pushed, he or she turns to the camera and says, with an almost embarrassed grin, “If I can do it, so can YOU.” Simple translation, “If you're breathing, there’s hope.”

One of the most amateurish commercials I’ve seen lately, is for a local school that offers certification in Crime Scene Investigation. The sixty second spot is so poorly done, and so obviously geared to the dumbest of prospective applicants, that here are a few class descriptions I’d imagine to be in their catalog, that is, if such a publication existed:

- Outlining bodies using chalk, 1A and 1B.
- Advanced body outlining: Using pastels.
- Drawbacks of trying to outline bodies found floating in pools.
- Other methods of checking for signs of life when you’ve forgotten your mirror.
- The hard cold facts of rigor mortis.
- How to dust for fingerprints on an already dusty surface.
- Advanced techniques for lifting a gun using only a pencil.
- Why you don’t fasten crime scene tape to things that move.
- The Rorschach bias in Blood Spatter analysis.
- Techniques for detecting bullet holes in Swiss cheese
- The drawbacks of trying to find shell casings using a magnet.
- The differences between blood traces, and spaghetti sauce residue.
- Lifting fingerprints using Scotch tape: Remembering to use the sticky side.
- Using household cereal to outline bodies when you don’t have chalk or masking tape.
- Footprints: How to identify right from left.
- Finding fiber evidence in a fabric store.
- Determining whether a victim is dead, or just holding his breath.