Adult-themed ‘Frosty’ videos stir outrage
Jolly Frosty the Snowman bragging about his porn collection, discussing breast size and bullwhips, and then soaring off in Santa's sleigh announcing that he's off to an execution?
CBS promotions staff apparently thought that two mashups of the iconic cartoon character spliced to look as if he were uttering adult lines from "How I Met Your Mother" and "Two and a Half Men" were just harmless fun.
But the resulting videos, available on CBS' Web site and on YouTube, have caused no end of holiday consternation.
The Boston Herald dubbed the videos “Frosty the Perv.”
“Yes, the trailers are funny, in a “South Park”-this-feels-so-wrong way,” wrote Herald columnist Lauren Beckham Falcone. “But it’s not going to be amusing when some fourth-grader Googling Frosty gets schooled on everything from porn to prostitutes. That these Web trailers are sanctioned by CBS is incomprehensible.”
One viewer wrote on CBS.com, "I loved Frosty and I loved 'How I Met Your Mother.' I do not like them together at all. Frosty is for my child. 'How I Met Your Mother' is not. You just lost a viewer. Disgusting."
At the end of each video, dubbed "Frosty the Inappropriate Snowman," a caption notes "Some holiday classics are better left untouched," before advertising the Dec. 18 CBS airing of "Frosty" and its sequel, as well as plugging "How I Met Your Mother" or "Two and a Half Men."
CBS would not comment on the videos, which have not been shown on television.
CBS promotions staff apparently thought that two mashups of the iconic cartoon character spliced to look as if he were uttering adult lines from "How I Met Your Mother" and "Two and a Half Men" were just harmless fun.
But the resulting videos, available on CBS' Web site and on YouTube, have caused no end of holiday consternation.
The Boston Herald dubbed the videos “Frosty the Perv.”
“Yes, the trailers are funny, in a “South Park”-this-feels-so-wrong way,” wrote Herald columnist Lauren Beckham Falcone. “But it’s not going to be amusing when some fourth-grader Googling Frosty gets schooled on everything from porn to prostitutes. That these Web trailers are sanctioned by CBS is incomprehensible.”
One viewer wrote on CBS.com, "I loved Frosty and I loved 'How I Met Your Mother.' I do not like them together at all. Frosty is for my child. 'How I Met Your Mother' is not. You just lost a viewer. Disgusting."
At the end of each video, dubbed "Frosty the Inappropriate Snowman," a caption notes "Some holiday classics are better left untouched," before advertising the Dec. 18 CBS airing of "Frosty" and its sequel, as well as plugging "How I Met Your Mother" or "Two and a Half Men."
CBS would not comment on the videos, which have not been shown on television.