Beat Me With A Drumstick

     Sometimes I can be as peevish as Andy Rooney—I miss him already. 
     Hollywood irks me quite often. Why is it that whenever someone gets into a car they never look in the back seat where a killer is patiently waiting for them. I saw this happen once in a movie and the car was a freakin’ convertible. In spy movies, whenever the main character is suspended from the ceiling by a wire, the bad guys never look up when they enter the room, leaving the likes of Tom Cruise to dangle above them without drawing attention. I can’t remember a time when I entered a room without glancing up at the ceiling. 
     In action adventure movies when our hero defuses a bomb he’s always forced to make that all-important decision: should I cut the red wire? The green one? Or the yellow one? Why would a sadistic bomb maker use colored wire in the first place? I bet if you ask demolition experts they’d tell you bombs don’t come with wires colored like the rainbow. And why do action movies now all have fake endings? Sure, like I really believe the killer is dead. Everybody knows the villain can’t be dispatched that easily so why play this game with us. And speaking of playing, there seems to be only one reason for parties in movies—so the director can bust up the revelry with violence. Happy pioneers having a picnic in the grass and before you know it—thunk…arrows aerating everyone’s backs. Happy square dance; time for the villains to ride into town and shoot up the place. Cruise ship ballroom dancing—time for the iceberg to hit. 
     But Hollywood's assumption that our brains are thimble-size isn’t what ticks me off the most. It’s a small thing, really. You’re about to think, C’mon, don’t you have anything better to do than fret over…that? Obviously I don’t so here it is:

     I’m troubled by what advertising agencies consider an absolute: NEVER show a child holding a piece of chicken unless it’s a drumstick. Yes, as a former illustrator who once worked closely with advertising agencies I understand the reasons behind depicting kids holding drumsticks: kids are small and big pieces of chicken look cumbersome. Besides, drumsticks have a handle for little hands. But just once couldn’t there be a picture of a kid holding a thigh, or a small breast or even a wing? I once painted an illustration of a child holding a chicken thigh and the client ordered me to repaint the thigh and replace it with a drumstick.

     That was decades ago, but I continue to scour TV commercials and magazine ads, looking for that elusive kid clutching a piece of chicken that isn’t a drumstick. I’m convinced he or she is out there, happily holding up a handle-less piece of poultry. Help put me out of my misery by finding a picture of this kid. Remember, no drumsticks! (Nuggets don’t count and probably aren’t really chicken.)

     Do you have a pet peeve?