Week 2: Campaign Commercial Causes Controversy

It has only been the second week of the race to the presidency between Carl, Laura, Eddie, and Steve and one of Steve's marketing campaigns has sparked controversy.

In a recent commercial airing during Family Matters reruns on WGN, Steve Urkel and his sponsor, the Geek Party, blasts the other candidates by saying they do not care that alcohol products, although they provide money for the government through taxes, harmfully affect children.

"I can't believe Steve would think we don't care about kids," says Carl Winslow, presidental candidate for the House Party. "I mean, I have two kids myself, not even counting that whole Judy thing, and plus I watched over him for several years."

"I once had a drinking problem," admits Eddie Winslow, presidental candidate for the Bachelor Party. "And when I did, my dad and Waldo were there to set me straight. I almost lost them both as friends. I would never endorse a product that almost made me lose the ones I hold dear."

"I will never think alcohol is a good thing," says Laura Winslow, presidental candidate for the Slumber Party, who also admits to being drunk once. "When I got drunk, it made me the do the worst thing possible... it made me kiss Steve."

But the controversy does not end with the statements. In the ad, Steve uses young Richie Crawford to promote his love for children, also using the title "Urkel 4 Kids". The information, written in a child-like font, describes statements about alcohol, children, and taxes, as well as how Urkel understands kids and says no to making money off of their mistakes.

In the ad, each word of the statements has one letter highlighted in yellow, "for effect", says a Geek Party representative who worked on the ad. But if you look closely at the yellow letters in these four frames below, you will notice disturbing subliminal messages.

Frame 1	Frame 2
Frame 3	Frame 4

The highlighted letters spell "CARL STINKS" in Frame 1, "HATE LAURA" in Frame 2, "EDDIE BITES" in Frame 3, and "URKEL RULES" in Frame 4.

"This is a shame that someone could stoop so low to try to win," says Eddie. "And to try such a sneaky way is horrible, too. It's quite hypnotic." Eddie's running mate, Waldo Faldo, watched the commercial ten times and asked Eddie the rest of the day what did he bite, not even realizing the question came from the subliminal messages.

"I'm just upset that my son was involved in such a horrible trick," says Rachel Crawford, sister of Carl's wife, Harriette Winslow, and mother of Richie Crawford, the young boy pictured in the commercial.

There was no comment from Geek Party presidental candidate Steve Urkel himself, but a statement prepared by the Geek Party stated "...the highlighted yellow letters were randomly chosen by the graphics program that created the commercial. Any use of this machine with subliminal messages is purely coincidental."

But Laura's running mate, Maxine Johnson, calls the mudslinging a double standard. "He nevers mentions my birthday party a few years back," she says. "The one where he did this silly dance, got drunk, and almost fell off the roof." Steve claims spiked punch was the catalyst behind those incidents.

The commercials have been pulled from airing in the future. There still is denial that these messages were intentional, but the press of it will more than likely affect Steve in the opinion polls, and possibly the final election.