Saturday, June 17, 2006

Drug Problem

The Sav-on drug stores which dot Southern California (and elsewhere) are all turning into CVS Pharmacies. The parent company of the latter purchased the former and I don't think they've gotten as far as changing the signs outside but legally, the change was official a few days ago.

Yesterday afternoon, I went into a store that said Sav-on on the outside and Sav-on all over the insides. I'm guessing that if you went around the store and counted, you'd find the name "Sav-on" at least a thousand times. Over the pharmacy, for instance, there was a huge, six-foot sign that said "Sav-On 24-Hour Pharmacy." Absolutely nothing else had changed except that taped to all the cash registers were little paper signs that said, "This is now a CVS Pharmacy," and then under that in smaller type, the signs explained that if you pay by check, you have to make the check payable to the new name, not the old.

Ahead of me in the one checkout line was a woman, perhaps seventy, who was utterly confused by all this. She had purchased a tube of Vagisil (I think it was) which her doctor told her to get at Sav-on. She'd found it on the shelf and carried it to the register...where she'd discovered, much to her horror, that she was not in a Sav-on. I had to stand and wait through about ten minutes of conversation, the last part of which went roughly like this...

LADY: Why does it say Sav-on if this is a CBS Pharmacy?

CLERK: CVS Pharmacy, ma'am. And it used to be a Sav-on but now it's a CVS Pharmacy.

LADY: Well then, I can't buy this here. My doctor told me to buy it at a Sav-on.

CLERK: This is the exact same store it always was.

LADY: If it's the exact same store, why isn't it a Sav-on?

CLERK: Because Sav-on was sold. And anyway, you can't buy it at a Sav-on. There are no more Sav-ons. They're all CVS now.

LADY: (getting panicked) But my doctor said I needed this and I had to buy it at a Sav-on...

At this point, I decide that if I'm ever going to make it out of this store, I'm going to need to step in and clear things up.

ME: Excuse me. Your doctor doesn't care where you purchase this item. It's the medicine that's important, not where you buy it. This is the exact same product they sold here when this was officially a Sav-on.

LADY: Then you think it would be safe to buy it here?

ME: Absolutely. For all intents and purposes, this is still a Sav-on.

LADY: Well, in that case, I'll buy it here. Thank you. [to Clerk:] I'm going to need to write a check.

CLERK: Certainly. Please make it out to "CVS Pharmacy."

LADY: But this man said this was still a Sav-on!

At this point, I gave up and went to another register. In a Walgreen's.

• Posted at 7:46 PM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Hey, for today's video link, how about a cartoon? How about a Tex Avery cartoon? This is Jerky Turkey, which was released to theaters on April 7, 1945...like you couldn't guess the approximate date from all the World War II references. It's another in the endless (for a time) stream of attempts to create a new Bugs Bunny by having a hapless character chase a crazy, carefree animal character who has the ability to defy all laws of physics and to pull explosives out of nowhere. Tex did a few of them, none of which evoked the magic he'd achieved with the wabbit in A Wild Hare.

One source gives the voice credits as Harry E. Lang and Leone Le Doux...but Leone Le Doux was a lady and I don't hear no female voices in this cartoon. The voice coming out of the turkey call and one or two other lines sound to me like Frank Graham, who was featured in a lot of Tex's cartoons, including the ones he made before and after this one. Other sources say that Bill Thompson, who was the main voice of Droopy, did the pilgrim but I'm not sure about that.

Preston Blair, who we wrote about here, did a lot of the animation of the doughy pilgrim. And this particular print seems to have a few frames clipped out in and around some of the more "violent" jokes but I can't help that.

I've always found it interesting that these cartoons "work" for people too young to get a lot of the phrases and gags. The lineup to purchase cigarettes, of course, had to do with wartime shortages. The billboard that asks, "Was this trip really necessary?" is derived from the advertising campaigns at the time encouraging Americans to save gas and to ask, every time they travelled, "Is this trip really necessary?" I wonder if very small kids even know what the "1-A" notice means. I hope they never have to experience it first hand.

Okay, enough intro. Here's Jerky Turkey...

• Posted at 12:20 AM · LINK