All 80's Kids Dreaded... The Rappin' PSA

To this day I am still unnerved by it.  It was one of those things you knew were coming up in the commercial break, but could do nothing about.  The mute button hadn't been invented yet, you know.  That's right, it was the 80's Public Service Announcement.

And like a lot of commercials in the 80's they had a lot to say, but only 30 seconds to say it.  So they decided to "get with the times" and start rapping, err, rappin', about it.  I always dreaded when those PSA's would come on.  I know they were trying to be, "hip," but they were just embarrassing themselves.

Remember those G.I. Joe PSA's?  I must have seen every episode 200 times.  I knew every PSA by heart.  At least they didn't rap in those.

D.A.R.E. was always trying out things.  The best being the famous, "Your brain on drugs."  But for me, the snake man was just the best at being over the top.

Yes, this really aired.

Thank you D.A.R.E.

One of the worst... best?  Best of the worst?  Anyway, there was this one PSA called, "The Suicide Rap."  Of course, it should have more correctly been called, "The Anti-Suicide Rap."  I have looked for it, but can't find it.  I only saw it the one time, but it stuck in my mind.

I thought, "Oh no.  This is going to be bad."  And it was.  I didn't know what social anxiety was back then, but this gave it to me in bundles.

The lyrics were, (To the best of my recollection)

Your Mother, your Father,
Your Brother, Sister too.
Your teacher, preacher, councilor,
It don't matter who!

They were trying to say that you should talk to someone if you felt suicidal. The lyrics above were the chorus to it.  Why do I remember it after so many years?  Because the song was mostly chorus.  They really could have done a better job.  You know, write a few more lyrics?

Here's some of the great/terrible rappin' PSA's.

Never underestimate a deadline and a Casio keyboard.

Someone else had the same idea as me.  See, I'm not the only one who hated 80's PSA's.

Well at least I didn't have to worry about 80's PSA's once it flipped to 1990.  No, I then had to worry about 90's PSA's.  That, of course, deserves it's own blog post.