An Open Letter to the Man Who Sang the Skip It! Song

I wanted to share your excitement. Your earnest, folksy demeanor won me over. When you intoned, "Hey now, kids, come gather 'round/ Look what just skipped into town," I wanted to gather 'round , as the kids on my television screen were doing. This was partly because what had just skipped into town -- Skip It!, of course -- did indeed look like a novel and desirable product, but it was also because you, you modern Siren of the Saturday morning airwaves. Only you were a siren offering fun and fulfillment, not destruction. The opposite of a Siren in every way, not least of which your masculinity.

I'll admit you lost me in the middle, Nires. Whatever, you were singing after the refrain "Skip It!/Skip It!" has been corrupted in my memory to "Slamming and a jamming with two high-tops" Sing slowly, Nires; we children are easily muddled by rapid-fire lyrics. I can only hope that there was no product safety information in those lines.

My interest was first piqued and then abruptly terminated by your bridge leading to the final refrain-- such a melodically complex piece for a thirty-second jingle!-- which was confusingling dedicated to a single feature of the product of dubiously paramount importance. Again, I quote: "But the very best thing of all/Is the counter on this ball/ Try to beat your very best score/ See if you can jump a whole lot more!"

I have been young, Nires, but I was never stupid. You cheapen a superlative through overuse, and you risk condescension by choosing the exact same superlative --"very best"-- twice in a single quatrain. This makes the counter feature seem unimpressive, and since it is by your own admission the "very best thing" about the whole package, my interest quickly waned.

By the time you had segued into your final refrain with its Broadway-style singing-to-spoken-word dramatic finish, I was firmly in the anti-Skip It! camp. What is this product, I asked derisively, but a poorly conceived amalgamation of the jump rope and the Hula Hoop? And do I own either of those? I know one toy, I thought to myself, I will not be begging Mom to buy me this weekend. (Not that it would have made any difference: I was the only boy in northern Virginia who lived, despite my persistent pleas, through the entire Voltron Era with neither a Lion Voltron nor a Spaceship Voltron. I saw refugee children on "20/20" playing with the two Voltrons, making them fight each other. Which they would never do.)

"C'mon, everybody!" you concluded, a tone of desperation in your voice. I just wanted you to go away. Peddle your shoddy toys elsewhere, Nires. Or maybe Siren-the-forwards-way after all. "Skip It!" you shouted.

I think I shall, I replied. I think I shall.