Consumer Reports Part Five

Consumer Reports was a ten part series of humorous articles appearing in the 1972-73 WHS Lantern. Alas, the first, fourth and tenth and final report have gone missing.

For posterity and your enjoyment I post the surviving articles.

Part five in a growing report of consumer hazards. Hello America, I'm Mike Gilroy and today I'd like to review your Sunday Newspaper.

Fact: 89% of all American's read a Sunday newspaper; the other 11% pick one up on Saturdays, coming home from their neighborhood Synagogues.

The newspaper game in America is a strenuous one indeed, and today the war of the newspaper giants to produce a better selling Sunday newspaper has become a hazard in the American home.

Fact: 36% of all violence seen by children on Sundays comes from Dick Tracy and Steve Canyon.

Billy Graham has a hard enough time competing with Oral Roberts without having to combat Denise the Menace.

Aside from all the propaganda your read in these editions, good or bad, what Sunday giant doesn't contain a supplement? Let us analyze one of these supplements.

First there's the kitchen tested recipes, the kind you always find on your mother-in-law's table the next weekend, and of course the advertisements for money saving tips which only cost you $4.95 and C.O.D. expenses.

Now, after all of these hazards have invaded your home what becomes of this newspaper on Monday? Yes, it is still a hazard.

Fact: 71% of all fires started by newspapers are fed by Sunday editions.

Your own privacy and sanitation are threatened by these Sunday publications. Is there one of us who has not been sitting in a relaxing tub of warm water when the doorbell rings? After leaving your bath and answering the door you find your favorite local charity collecting bundles of newspapers. This leaves you with two revelations and one question.

These are; "Your tub is now cold and of no use to you unless you have some champagne to be chilled"; "that they are no longer your favorite charity" and "What do they do with all those newspapers?"

Fact: 0% of Americans know where those bundles go.

Shall America keep this Sunday hazard or throw off it's shackles and start football games three hours earlier? I leave the answer to you.