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Believe it or not, winter will soon be here. Gray skies and dull landscapes. But there's a way to bring some life back to the season, once it's here: tell your children to break out their crayons and draw a colorful preview of spring. Hang it on the fridge. It will cheer you up.

Wait! On second thought, don't. The kids might start to ask why someone named their crayons Tropical Rainforest, Cerulean, Cadet, Bisque, and Razzmatazz. And trying to come up with logical explanations will have you begging them to go out and play in the snow.

How do you explain the role of marketing research and multi-million dollar promotional campaigns to kids who are just learning how to add two plus two? What parent has the patience to explain how Razzmatazz became just a fancy name for red?

A while back I thought there would be some good news to report on this topic because Crayola, the reigning crayon champ in the land, retired Magic Mint and Mulberry. I though that signalled a return to 'outrageous' names like green and orange. But no. Not a chance. Last year the company introduced Inch Worm, Jazzberry and Mango Tango to replace Magic Mint and Mulberry.

When the company started back in 1903, they had eight colors: black, blue, brown, green, orange, red, violet and yellow. Over the years they introduced more than 400 new ones. I'm not against color. My heart (which, by the way, is Wild Strawberry) sings whenever I see children hunched over tables seriously immersed in the creative process through the use of coloring. But I go nuts when I realize the extraordinary lengths to which manufacturers go to come up with fancy names for colors. We don't even need marketing savvy where kids are concerned, do we? They'll use crayons even without names!

Kids will grab Jazzberry Jam if that's the color they want, no matter what it's called. They don't look at the wrapper and say, "Hmmm, Jazzberry Jam. That sounds quite unique and effective." No, they will look at the color itself and simply decide to use it because it's a pretty neat color.

Don't the crayon companies (and there are several) want to make parents happy, too? I'm sure the prices have gone up since my kids were young. The companies can keep the costs down if they would simply refrain from hiring marketing gurus who, for hundreds of thousands of dollars, come up with names like Inch Worm and Wisteria.

But it's not just saving money that interest me. Why make parents even more frustrated than we already are by forcing us to try to explain what the names mean? Why Inch Worm? Does the crayon crawl slowly from one side of the desk to the other? Why Wisteria? Does it grow overnight and eventually choke all the other crayons?

In 1958, Crayola listened to the demands of many teachers, who asked that Prussian Blue be changed to Midnight Blue. I guess the teachers were just tired of telling their students that not all people from Prussia were blue. In today's world, there are incredibly important and difficult things that teachers must explain to their students. That's another reason why colors should be simple. I want to help our teachers. Their jobs are hard enough.

Then again, my home state, New Jersy, where my kids went to school, isn't much of a help in this endeavor. Our state colors are Jersey Blue and Buff.

Buff? What color is that? I always thought that buff was what I'm supposed to look like after spending so much money over the years on gym memberships. Which, by the way, is just another reason why my family's finances are in the Razzmatazz.

Learn more about this author, Joel Samberg.
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