Yesterday on Facebook, the ever creative Park Howell shared a 30-second TV spot (embedded below) his company, Park & Co., had created about donating to Goodwill.

In the spot, a young boy packs his teddy bear into his backpack and pedals his bike to a Goodwill center to donate it.

It’s a sweet, heart-warming, storied video. BUT, something that happens between the teddy bear being bundled in the backpack and being dropped off at Goodwill distracts from the message, in my opinion.

The boy passes and glances at another teddy bear, this one sticking out of a garbage can. The message is intended to be that donating to Goodwill is a better alternative to tossing out your beloved stuffed-animal friends.

But that message was lost on me because all I could think about was “Why didn’t the boy rescue the bear from the garbage can and also take it to Goodwill?” Another commenter asked the same question. Park’s response: Because it would not have fit in the 30-second spot.

Maybe it’s because I always tended to over-sentimentalize and anthropomorphize stuffed animals. I have only one from my own childhood, but I still have all my grown kids’ stuffed animals. Maybe the spot reminds me of a childhood trauma in which I bathed a doll that should not have been bathed. Though she had rubber or plastic “skin,” she oddly had some sort of stuffing inside that was not meant to get wet. My mother made me throw her away. I was so devastated, not as much over the loss of the doll as over what she must be going through.

Another commenter would have liked to see another child adopting the donated bear from Goodwill. Again, no time to fit in that scene.

It’s an interesting discussion because it raises the question of what parts of the story are most important to include when time is highly constrained. Which parts of the story will best convey the message, and which will distract?

I would rather see Park risk not conveying the Goodwill-as-alternative-to-garbage message than risk traumatizing and distracting people like me and the other commenter who want to see that trashed bear rescued. Maybe if he took out that piece, he’d have time for a scene in which the bear gets adopted.