The Artful Jurist

Okay, does anybody else see those Volkswagen "punch dub" TV commercials and think to themselves, "This is just begging to be the subject of litigation"?

Long ago, they did away with those cartoon Hawaiian Punch commercials.  (Remember?:  "Hey, how 'bout a nice Hawaiian Punch?"  "Sure!"  POW!)  I've lived under the impression that socking people in the nose for fun is no longer politically correct, and the soft drink's manufacturer probably didn't need the headache of dealing with people chanting that their commercials promoted violence and were a bad influence on impressionable children.

But here we are in the oh-so-PC 21st century, and an auto manufacturer has an entire ad campaign featuring the mostly forgotten "slug bug" game of the '60s where the idea was to punch your friend if you were the first to spot a VW Beetle.  Volkswagen calls it a fun, engaging way to reintroduce the VW brand to new markets.  (I suppose those new markets would be prize fighters?)

Okay, the people in the commercials are just actors, and no one's really getting hurt there.  But I've seen other commercials -- less flagrantly violent ones -- that have come under fire for promoting bad things.  And, if someone gets really hurt when his "punch dub" buddy gets a little carried away, is that injured person then going to have a lawsuit to file against Volkswagen for promoting unsafe behavior?  Is the person who gets sued going to blame VW for prompting him to do it?

Too silly even to consider, you scoff?  Well...Can you say "Twinkie Defense"?