Watch Out for the 'Mouseprint'

Feb. 15, 2007 — -- Have you seen the television commercial for Corelle dish ware?

To demonstrate that it's "durable as ever," a fashion model carries a Corelle plate as she sashays down the runway. She slips -- the announcer says they "greased the runway" -- and the plate hits the floor, but survives unscathed.

The implication here is that Corelle dish ware will not break, no matter what.

I had to pause the commercial on my VCR to be able to read the fine-print disclaimer across the bottom of the screen that said the plate "is durable but may break if dropped or struck." But that's what they just did in the ad!

Watch the story on "20/20: Promises, Promises" Friday at 10 p.m. ET

Corelle wrote us, "The disclaimer was added because we never claim that our glass dinnerware is unbreakable."

I guess Bishop Fulton Sheen was right when he said, "The big print giveth and the fine print taketh away."

These fine-print disclaimers started with car ads in which "the cars are going impossibly fast," says New York Times advertising reporter Stuart Elliott. To stay out of trouble with government regulators, Elliott says, "there would be the words superimposed on screen: 'Professional driver, closed course, do not attempt.' And then from there, it's gone on."

Lately it's gotten even sillier. The disclaimer on the new ad for the Ford Edge, which shows the car high in the air whizzing across the facade of skyscrapers, points out that "vehicles can't really drive on buildings."

I asked Elliott, "What's the point of the fine print? Nobody can read it."

"Well, it covers them from anyone like yourself who comes out after them, saying, 'This is not true. This is deceptive. This is misleading,'" Elliott said.

The companies also want to avoid running afoul of the government's complex consumer protection laws, like Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, which prohibits unfair or deceptive advertising.

Elliott says the fine print helps advertisers stay out of trouble because "they can point to that and say, 'We fulfilled our obligation. We told the viewer that this cannot be done in the real world.'"