Monday
Aug252008
Banned Science Fiction Author Sells Prunes
Okay, this is actually a little old, but there's this great commercial of Ray Bradbury, author of many classic science fictions stories such as Fahrenheit 451, personally appearing on a commercial for prunes.
Speaking of Fahrenheit 451, many people presume that the point of the book is the censorship of books due to governmental control. Not so, says the author. Apparently he was actually making the point that television was going to kill off the book, which is why he predicted giant televisions that cover entire walls. Can you imagine? A television the size of a wall? Some people are just crazy.
In any case, the people who do ban Fahrenheit 451 from schools and libraries do it because they think that the book is about, well, burning books. That is always a fine source of irony when someone does an article about it.
I think it would be fun for people to come up with other great author / shilling for the man combinations in the comments. Either imagined situations or links to actual commercials. Bonus points for it being food related.
Via Boing Boing.
Speaking of Fahrenheit 451, many people presume that the point of the book is the censorship of books due to governmental control. Not so, says the author. Apparently he was actually making the point that television was going to kill off the book, which is why he predicted giant televisions that cover entire walls. Can you imagine? A television the size of a wall? Some people are just crazy.
In any case, the people who do ban Fahrenheit 451 from schools and libraries do it because they think that the book is about, well, burning books. That is always a fine source of irony when someone does an article about it.
I think it would be fun for people to come up with other great author / shilling for the man combinations in the comments. Either imagined situations or links to actual commercials. Bonus points for it being food related.
Via Boing Boing.
Monday, August 25, 2008 at 8:07AM
Reader Comments (3)
To start things off, Stephen King once did a commercial for American Express. As I recall, it was one of those things where it talked about his general anonymity. The downside of appearing on television is that he went from being comfortably famous, where you get perks but nobody ever stopped you on the street for your autograph while you're late for a lunch appointment, to being known by everyone in the US on sight.
You can read a bit about this at the bottom of this http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2007/11/past-tense-of-looming.html">Neil Gaiman blog entry
This is too funny. I wonder how much they paid him?
I know I've commented already on this post, but you always give us such interesting stuff, I wanted to share an award with you. You can claim it at my site.
http://mormonfoodie.blogspot.com/2008/09/you-love-me-you-really-love-me.html">http://mormonfoodie.blogspot.com/2008/09/you-lo...
Thanks for such great insight into cooking. I know I can count on you when I have questions about food.