Starting today, EU regulations require that cigarette packages carry large-format “Shockbilder” (German for “shock-pictures”) on them. You may have seen these before, especially in foreign countries—usually they are super-disgusting medical pictures of diseased lung tissue and things like that.

Such “Gruselbilder” (“gross pictures”) are definitely enough to give one pause, but all in all, they probably don’t affect cigarette consumption all that much. The left-leaning German newspaper taz.die Tageszeitung, however, ran a cover page today with an intriguing take on the issue—taz thinks that putting annoying public figures like Heidi Klum or right-wing politicians like Donald Trump, France’s Marine Le Pen, and Germany’s Markus Söder on cigarette packages might be fiendishly effective. Other pictures taz proposed were Korean leader Kim Jong-un and a thick, green smoothie. Here, look: 
 

 
Donald Trump is so incredibly loathsome that taz hardly deserves credit for including him. Obviously the entire continent of Europe is quivering with dismay at the prospect of a Trump presidency.

I decided to speculate on what the cigarette packs might look like if they were targeted at a U.S. audience:
 

 
I’m pretty bad at Photoshop, but even I was able to alter a few of taz’s examples to get what I wanted. Here’s the original image. I’m sure that the talented DM readership will be able to surpass me in no time at all…...
 
via Kraftfuttermischwerk
 

Five-year-old Ardian Azka Mubarok smokes at his home on March 27, 2015.

Perhaps you’ll recall that viral video a few years back of an obese Indonesian toddler chain-smoking cigarettes like a nicotine fiend. Some found it “funny” to see such a young kid puffing away like an old pro. Others were shocked and appalled. I mean, how could a toddler be a chainsmoker?! But the thing is, apparenlty seeing young children smoking is a very common sight in Indonesia and “public-health activists describe the country as a ‘playground’ for big tobacco companies like Philip Morris, which makes the country’s No. 2 cigarette.”

Young smokers begin the cycle of addiction but at a health cost for generations to come. The juxtaposition of young boys smoking like seasoned addicts is jarring yet this project is intended to not only shock and inform viewers but to demonstrate the lack of enforcement of national health regulations and to question the country’s dated relationship with tobacco.

Photographer Michelle Siu captured this dark phenomenon with photographs. The series is called “Marlboro Boys.”

Students on a public bus.
 

Five-year-old Ardian Azka Mubarok easily purchases a cigarette which he will smoke near his home.
 

Eman smokes while clutching a bag of juice.
 
More after the jump…

 
Keeping pace with our laughably inefficient abstinence-only sex “education” program, the drug education at my school was incredibly patronizing, to say the least. For chastity, we ripped pieces of Scotch tape off of one another; the metaphor became clear as the adhesive wore off—the more you sleep around, the less likely you will ever be able to romantically bond with another human being. For the drugs though, we had a more old-fashioned scare tactics—photos of black lungs, testimonials from former addicts and alcoholics (on video of course, can’t have the kids around anyone who has ever done drugs of any kind), statistics that were obviously skewed to make a joint appear as dangerous as black tar heroin and, etc.

Obviously it was disingenuous propaganda, but it wasn’t nearly as insulting to our intelligence as Smokey Sue Smokes for Two, the fetus in a jar with a doll head that smokes. It’s apparently supposed to teach you something about fetal distress? From a health teaching tools site that sells this abomination (for $163!):

Sue’s motherly instincts are questionable at best. There she sits passively smoking cigarette after cigarette, ignorant of how her vile habit is affecting her baby. Tragically Sue personifies many real-life mothers who don’t see that their choices influence the health of their babies. As Sue smokes each cigarette tar builds up around the gaunt fetal model and gradually tints the clear fetal environment a sickly shade of amber. Sue may not be able to think for herself but she prompts others to do plenty of thinking.

Seeing as even the youngest child understands the body is more complex—and pregnancy more involved—than a plastic fetus in a jar, I can safely say I don’t see this creepy fear-doll working. (And isn’t it kind of insulting to portray a woman as a literal baby-jar?)
 

 
God bless those Canadians and their national arts funding—even their public service programs are some of the loveliest little vignettes ever committed to animation. Take “The Drag,” an anti-smoking PSA from 1966. Sure, it’s a bit of a preachy cautionary tale of peer-pressure, but the swingin’ soundtrack and groovy animation makes for a great little cartoon. The animator, Carlo Marchiori is now a muralist, and you can see how he gravitated toward lush graphics early on.

Funnily enough, as a public service announcement, “The Drag” is actually a bit of a flop. Our nicotine-addicted protagonist (who refers to cigs as “the drug”) avoids lung cancer but instead blows himself up on account of a gas leak? Huh?

Got that kids? If you don’t wanna quit, just make sure you’ve got an electric stove!
 

 
By the time this national Film Board of Canada anti-smoking PSA came out in 1970, Dark Shadows was already so popular it had begat a Canadian copycat, Strange Paradise. I’m not knocking it, by the way. Strange Paradise definitely retains some of the charm of its predecessor, and I’d recommend it wholeheartedly for fans of DS. I’m just saying it’s difficult to believe that “Ashes of Doom” wasn’t intentionally parodying the creepy/romantic style of those supernatural soap operas. (The short was created by Don Arioli and Grant Munro, by the way—Munro created “Toys,” the brutal stop-motion short made from GI Joes.)

While I applaud the Canadian government’s sense of humor (and their awareness of the latest trends!) there are a couple of reasons why I don’t think this film stopped anyone from smoking. First of all, the one minute and 55 second short starts with 53 seconds of credits—that’s definitely time enough light up, or at least resent the film enough to want to smoke out of spite. Second of all, while it’s a good bit of slapstick, the minute-long skit doesn’t really show any negative connotations of smoking. It ends with the protagonist’s smokey lungs mildly inconveniencing a vampire, which would actually be a really excellent incentive to smoke if you were a Gothic soap opera heroine. O Canada, what you lack in effective public health initiatives, you make up for in good-natured satirical farce.
 

 
This little gem caught my eye at the Everything Is Festival! over the weekend: It’s a trailer/excerpt from Joe Dante’s 4-hour long epic of found footage mayhem, The Movie Orgy (which they screened at Cinefamily yesterday). In it, you’ll see one of the best ads for cigarettes, ever. I’ll leave it at that, as not to spoil it.