\n\n\n\n\nOn the plus side, 20 years down the road some Mexican president is going to have a sweet opportunity to reprise \u201ctear down this wall!\u201d
\nPresident Chelsea Clinton, tear down this wall!
\n
I was alive but young when the Berlin Wall came down and I was confused because the Alvin & the Chipmunks cartoon had them sing it down a year earlier
which haha kids, but the fact that Reagan used pop culture triumphs interchangeably with geopolitical triumphs in his American renewal campaign was noticed at the time
\u201cRonnie Raygun\u201d, \u201cStar Wars\u201d Strategic Defense Initiative (to shoot down ICBMs pew pew), what Max Headroom was about
but that\u2019s just thematic Reagan did play with structural power here. Classic \u201880s cartoons like Transformers or G.I. Joe came from pulling back decades-old FCC regulations on ad minutes per 30-min slot and toy-branded tie-in themes (coming in part after the 1969 Hot Wheels)
the price for that was retaining the \u201cbumpers\u201d transitioning between kids shows and ads (\u201cafter these messages, we\u2019ll be right back\u201d) and also things like G.I. Joe\u2019s \u201cKnowing is Half the Battle\u201d segments, which would meet a remnant \u201ceducational\u201d requirement for kids\u2019 programming, one designed to fit say Mr. Wizard (that say Bill Nye the Science Guy or Beakman\u2019s World still tried towards)
Also you know how \u201880s family sitcoms famously had \u201cvery special episodes\u201d that were very PSA-ish
(\u201cPublic Service Announcement\u201d, the 80s-90s idiom for regime autopropaganda over loyalist broadcasts)
like \u201coh no wife-beating. THAT\u2019S BAD\u201d or \u201coh no consuming \u2018scheduled narcotic\u2019 intoxicants THAT\u2019S BAD\u201d part of that was when the government bought PSAs on these broadcast media they controlled a license regime over (even before merger antitrust shit came into it) they required a free match time and would demand that free match time at the highest-billing hour but give the networks a chance to instead earn \u201ccredit\u201d with messages on these prime time shows
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