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If you are familiar with the Ad Council, then you have seen every one of their public service advertisements. In business since 1942, the Ad Council has distributed multitudes of PSAs. During the early 1990s, a few of the public service ads for anti-domestic violence and spousal abuse became televised. Among the few that were aired, there was once anti-spousal abuse PSA that I found absolutely horrifying.
It was the "Kid on Stairs" PSA, for the Family Violence Prevention Fund. The PSA was pretty straight-forward. It featured a little boy sitting on the stairs in his pajamas and holding a toy truck, listening to his father berate and ultimate beat his mother all because she bought home pizza and didn't cook dinner like her husband thought. One theory revolved around the dad coming home from work, expecting to have dinner on the table. Disgusted over the fact that his wife brought home pizza, he screams at her to go in the kitchen anyway. You don't see the couple, but you can clearly hear the wife screaming to be let go and the asshole husband slaps her, not having regard for his son watching the abuse unfold. Many people believe that these were just actors in the public service ad doing a very brutal dramatization.
But it was shockingly real. It was real. A demented film maker who had a sick fetish for video-taping people's suffering and pain shot the footage of the little boy on the stairs as he listened to his poor mother get manhandled and beaten by his father. In the uncut version of this public service ad, it shows the inside of the home and an actual shot of the parents. The father looked like he had served in the military because of his short hair, chiseled body, and jawline. He may have been a drill Sargent. His wife had long flowing dark brown hair with streaks of blonde and looked absolutely gorgeous.
The home was very palatial, too, suggesting that this was bought with a salary only a doctor, judge, dentist, attorney, or lawyer. So this indicates the wife may have been working as a dentist. Periodically, you would see the camera operator's chunky hand in front of the camera, showing that he was fat. There was a gold class ring with a deep green jewel, suggesting that he graduated from high school. Every few minutes, you'd hear the woman say "No, please, don't..." begging the camera operator to turn off his camera, but no matter how many times she begged and pleaded, her request would fall on deaf ears. The husband, on the other hand, paid no mind being video-tapped. To make matters even worse, he knew the camera boy. He was his cocaine and drinking buddy. His friend knew he beat his wife on a daily basis and would never ever try to report him and have him convicted. If he had his friend reported, that would end his friendship. The camera boy had no regard for the son and didn't care about him being with an abusive father. The dad always abused his wife, but never his son. I wonder why?
You know that little children are so impressionable and believe anything, he believed that the camera boy would never harm him. Far into the footage, the scenes get progressively disturbing and more violent. In the bathroom, it showed the wife looking at herself in the mirror, sporting a black eye, clad only in an off-pink nightie. The camera boy was hiding in the shower, right behind the curtain, video-taping everything. The husband then comes in. You think that he's going to beat his wife mercilessly, but he begins to kiss her softly, and sliding her nightie strap down her left shoulder, kissing her shoulder blades, then he begins to rape her. It showed everything, sadly. For the next 9 nine and a half minutes, the wife's crying can be heard. The next morning, when the husband takes his son to school and heads off to work, the woman screams angrily at the camera boy to shut his camera off and call the police, but he just laughed like it was all a joke. Acting similar to Kid behind a camera, but instead of video-taping Angry Grandpa, the camera boy was video-tapping the wife's suffering. The woman called the police, insisting that the camera boy get thrown out of her home, but he lied to officers, saying that he is her cousin and wasn't doing anything harmful.
Later that same night, when the mother returned home from grocery shopping and checking on her son who was fast asleep, she couldn't see the camera boy. She thought he had learned his lesson and went home. But he was actually sitting in the living room. About thirty minutes into the video, you hear a door open and the following takes place:
Husband: "W-where's dinner?"
Wife: "Well, I thought you'd be home a couple hours ago, so I put everything away..."
Husband: "What is this? Pizza?"
Wife: "If you had just called me I would've--"
Husband: "Dinner ready is PIZZA?!"
Wife: "Honey, please don't be so loud, please don't-- LET GO OF ME!!!"
Husband: "GET IN THE KITCHEN!!"
Wife: "NO! [cries, sobs]"
Husband: "You wanna see what hurts?! [SLAP] THAT'S WHAT HURTS! THAT'S WHAT HURTS!"
[Glass shattering, wife crying]
[Teenage boy hitting his father with a baseball bat]
Husband: OW! JESUS CHRIST!! [Thuds]
The little boy on the stairs is listening to everything that goes on and sees his poor mother getting hurt, all while the camera boy, having no remorse for the wife getting assaulted, films the boy. And that's what you see. Years later, in 2007, the little boy-- now a teenager, always has to see himself beating his daddy mercilessly with a baseball bat until dead. The boy did this for very good reason... he watched his mother get assaulted and abused by his father when he was a child, and the son took matters into his own hands, and sent his father to his maker. Today, the mother is very much alive and well... with a new husband that treats her like a princess and keeps her safe. The camera boy later comitted suicide out of fear for being an accessory to a crime. Anyone who abuses their spouse or girlfriend, just know, your actions will come back to bite you on the ass and lay you to rest. Now, I'm starting to question how the Ad Council got a hold of this snuff video, or what seems to be one...