Anti-smoking ads are coming to DVDs

BURBANK — Walt Disney is one of six major Hollywood studios that will now show anti-smoking ads before youth-related DVDs.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on July 11 met with the California Health and Human Services Agency, the Entertainment Industry Foundation and the studios to announce the use of anti-smoking commercials.

The ads will appear before movies rated G, PG and PG-13 DVDs that contain scenes with tobacco use, said Judi Ketcik, vice president of communications of the Entertainment Industry Foundation.

“The goal is to strike a balance between allowing film makers to make creative decisions on how to tell their stories while ensuring that parents get critically important information about the content of films,” said Seth Oster, spokesman for the Motion Picture Association of America. “When smoking is depicted, the industry is responsible for telling the viewers, which in this case are impressionable kids that it is a dangerous habit and one they should not take up.”

Universal Studios, Sony, Time Warner, Paramount Pictures and Twentieth Century Fox have all agreed to broadcast the ads.

This is not a new effort for Walt Disney, which has been showing similar ads for just over a year, Oster said.

“Disney became the first major motion picture studio to eliminate smoking in many of its films and begin running the anti-smoking public service announcements,” he said. “They deserve a great deal of credit for taking the first steps and being a strong contributor in addressing the issue of smoking.”

The ads include “Programmed,” which juxtaposes a smoker with a laboratory rat who drinks from a yellow, nicotine-filled water bottle every time the smoker inhales, and “Daddy’s Tape,” which shows a boy supporting his father’s efforts to quit smoking by making him a motivational tape to play in his car, Ketcik said.

The new commercials are another effort to combat smoking by the foundation, a charitable organization that puts together programs such as Picture Quitting, which helps industry employees give up nicotine, she aid.

“Over the last year or so, we worked with each of the individual studios to provide access to these public service announcements, that provide important messages around encouraging kids not to start smoking,” Ketcik said. “The DVDs are a place with a captive audience and a great place for parents and kids to see them.”