back to article Simon's Cat app rapped for random 'racy' advert

The Simon's Cat Crunch Time app accidentally served up a racy advert – earning the American advertiser a symbolic bollocking from Blighty's ad watchdog because children might have seen it. The advert featured "an image of a fake tattoo which looked like a bite mark on a woman's chest", according to the Advertising Standards …

  1. Solarflare

    "Wish.com, the advertiser, ignored the ASA – unsurprising given that the clothing retailer is an American company headquartered in San Francisco."

    Personally I'd have described them as a 'random Chinese tat' retailer.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why?

    Why is a youtube video maker, needing an "app" when the youtube site works? Why do they need an "app" when they can use a bookmark on their own site?

    Why is the app pushing third party adds, when they can link directly into YT and it's API?

    So, *assuming* the user has a phone locked into a safe "child mode", in the first place, and the app is the only one available to the child, even then, why is the app doing any more than linking directly to the videos?

    Why advertise to children? Or why, on earth, is this ever even happening? I guess they just want a quick buck, so where do I sign up for a bit of the cash? ;)

    1. iron Silver badge

      Re: Why?

      Because YT is a video site so doesn't allow you to publish a game that entails helping the cat find food? Try reading the article.

    2. Peter2 Silver badge

      Re: Why?

      Why....

      Why....

      Why....

      I guess they just want a quick buck, so where do I sign up for a bit of the cash? ;)

      On your own website, having sucessfully created a set of IP that is more popular than Simon's Cat. At which point, given the work that you'd put in, you'd probably consider advertising a very slow buck and be slightly irate about how advertisers flag their adverts on API's to get around normal categorisation rules which are supposed to prevent these sort of things from happenning.

  3. Pete 2 Silver badge

    Nicely played

    And now, thanks to all the added publicity (so freely given by the ASA) the advert achieves much more exposure than it ever had in some child's cartoon.

    One single complaint, huh? Presumably filed by the advertisers, safe in the knowledge that nothing the ASA could do would have anything except benefits to them.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Holmes

      Re: Nicely played

      Don't assume the advertisers are the culprits here. The game maker has the same motive.

      Or it could be a pure accident. (stifling laughter...) Yes. Um, does anyone know the rough statistics on this kind of ad category error? There must be one, right?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The single (in every sense of the word) complainant

    should be forced to undergo aversion therapy of the kind endured by Alex in "A Clockwork Orange".

    One complainant and the ASA comes down like the RSPCA / PETA.

    Fucking millennial snowflake.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

      Re: The single (in every sense of the word) complainant

      Probably more like a cat lady.

  5. John Lilburne

    Typical ...

    ... it ain't our fault guv its the algorithm, we just take the money, and BTW don't keep asking for any taxes.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Am I showing my age? It reminds me very much of the cartoon antics of Garfield - not to mention Fat Freddy's Cat. Is there one where it puts a present in the owner's headphones?

    1. Count Ludwig

      Headphones

      http://feelingmyage.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/ffcheadphones.jpg

  7. Simon Harris

    The ad was in keeping with the game...

    it just highlights the fact that bites can occur if you spend too long annoying your pets.

    1. Sir Runcible Spoon
      Paris Hilton

      Re: The ad was in keeping with the game...

      Yet for some reason the fact this cute little feline vandalizes his keepers' ear and the proceeds to smack him in the head, full pelt, with a baseball bat.

      Mixed values?

      1. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge
        Headmaster

        Re: The ad was in keeping with the game...

        replace ("a baseball bat.","a baseball bat , is ok?")

        FTFY

        1. Sir Runcible Spoon

          Re: The ad was in keeping with the game...

          replace ("a baseball bat.","a baseball bat , is ok?")

          FTFY

          Thanks, I'll let you get back to your poetry now :P

          1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

            Re: The ad was in keeping with the game...

            Itchy and Scratchy, now with added sex!

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Childcatcher

        Re: The ad was in keeping with the game... NOT

        Striking a sleeping person in the head with a big stick certainly isn't nice, even if it's an unindictable cat.

        What if some little kid was led to do that in the game, and assumed that's how one wakes up sleeping parents? Shocking! I'm not sure this racy ad network wants to be associated with the creators of such vile and dangerous games!

  8. JoeCool Bronze badge

    @Anonymous Coward with the Garfield fixation

    Garfield is a fat slovenly man in a cat costume, drawn with the intent of maximizing marketing potential (Although I will say the Blues album tie-in has a pretty good roster of talent).

    Simon's cat is actual art.

    And, Cat Man Do is (still) awesome.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      'Garfield is a fat slovenly man in a cat costume...'

      Naaa, want to really see what a fat slovenly man in a cat costume looks like? (ok, maybe minus the slovenly bit...)

      I would apologise, but, be thankful, this is only the trailer, I've had to sit through this in it's weird entirety.....sans alcohol, drugs or anything else which might have improved my 'enjoyment' of it.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Tom and Jerry or Foghorn Leghorn anyone ?

    Required viewing when I was a kid, Tex Avery was a genius.

    People are far too soft and sensitive these days and need to learn to laugh.

    1. Teiwaz

      Tom and Jerry or Foghorn Leghorn anyone ?

      Required viewing when I was a kid, Tex Avery was a genius.

      People are far too soft and sensitive these days and need to learn to laugh.

      These days? When I was a kid, we had to endure Tom and Jerry kids* which was horrible. I was practically grown up by the time there was a backlash/return to form in cartoons (Animaniacs, Tiny Toons, Tazmania).

      * Special hell reserved for those responsible, I hope.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      > "People are far too soft and sensitive these days..."

      I don't think so. None of those old Avery cartoons ever had a character attack another (sleeping) character using a bat. The victim always at least had a chance at self defense. But now audiences are apparently okay with flat out assault on helpless people. That's not soft and sensitive in my book.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Tex Avery cartoons were well known for being violent WAY beyond the social norms at the time. Tex cartoons were about the characters literally destroying each other.

        There are anecdotal stories of Fred Quimby vomiting everytime he watched 'What's Buzzin' Buzzard', such was the violence beyond his contemporaries.

        Avery was far more shocking in it's time, than this trivial thing is, and despite watching many Tex cartoons, I never grew up carrying out violence. I think it's time people stop blaming cartoons and start looking closer to home. Kid growing up violent, Where is their influence? Do they have violent parents? Close Relatives? People are a product of their environment, not their bloody cartoons.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          I find it hard to believe anyone could vomit watching What's Buzzin' Buzzard, or any cartoon violence.

          OK, maybe a few people with weak stomachs might hurl watching Itchy and Scratchy, but that's a gag cartoon with deliberately ultra extreme violence (it is the cartoon Bart and Lisa watch in a number of The Simpsons episodes for those who don't know) where Scratchy is often beheaded, sliced into thin slices suitable for sandwiches, etc. by Itchy.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "None of those old Avery cartoons ever had a character attack another (sleeping) character using a bat."

        Not sure about that. I have recollections of a sleeping Tom or Spike each getting attacked.

    3. DropBear

      "Tom and Jerry or Foghorn Leghorn anyone ?"

      I wouldn't say Woody Woodpecker was a particularly pacifist cartoon either...

  10. ukgnome

    Wish.com

    the fine purveyor of things you never knew you needed.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  11. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

    Pictures Or It Didnt Happen!

    that is all

    1. Simon Harris
  12. Florida1920

    Simon's cat?

    As in BOFH? I'm surprised it wasn't wielding a cattle prod!

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Dear Sir

    I am outraged!

    Why?

    Because I am.

    Yours sincerely

    M. Brainhurts

  14. hi_robb

    Oh dear

    Thank god the viewers didn't visit the app hoping to see a bit of pussy...

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