Zeno's Bar & Grill

This is the kind of thing that drives me absolutely bananas. No, it’s not the sweet little girl pictured on the cover of this advertisement, or even the award-winning Muzzy videos themselves, which I like very much and bought for my own kids on eBay.

It’s the way I come away from the ad feeling vaguely terrible (especially after reading the true success stories of the post-Muzzy kids). And remember, I Already Bought the Tapes!! It’s just that we don’t use them that much…and my kids prefer the English version of the cartoon, which you’re only supposed to watch once or twice to get the story down.

The rational part of my brain tells me there have probably been Ivy Leaguers and Fulbright Scholarship winners who limped along without learning a foreign language from the Muzzy system (not that you’d know it from the copy on the back cover; pictured at right). However, this ad definitely feeds on the primitive, brainstem dog-eat-dog parenting instincts with quotes from satisfied users like, “I love the looks on other parents’ faces when either boy speaks Spanish.” Yikes!

For crying out loud, let’s be realistic here. They can always learn a foreign language in high school the way the rest of us did.

--Melanie