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#34185 06/29/01 01:26 PM
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
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Heard or seen any stupid/idiotic/ridiculous ads lately? My favorite idiotic ad campaign is the one Taco Bell used last summer to promote the fact that they were open late at night: It's late. Eat more.



#34186 06/29/01 08:59 PM
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Carpal Tunnel
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I read about a Holiday Inn that had, on its sign out front,
"Have your next affair here".
(Note: These and many other hotels and motels have conference rooms that they rent to groups.)


#34187 06/29/01 09:59 PM
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Saw a hand-written sign at a car sales in some whistle-stop in the Oklahoma Panhandle the other day which read "Cheap cars. Be quick. They won't last".

Not sure it was an English error actually.



The idiot also known as Capfka ...
#34188 06/29/01 10:15 PM
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wwh Offline
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"They won't last".

Dear CK: that company is obviously entirely ethical, and practices truth in advertising.


#34189 06/30/01 11:51 AM
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Not sure it was an English error actually.
Good eye, CK! You do have a way of seeing the humor in things.


#34190 06/30/01 02:50 PM
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wow Offline
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A sign spotted at a quick-food restaurant with gas pumps out front.

Eat Here
Get Gas

(For those not familiar with US idioms -- Gas = Petrol also Gas = heartburn)

#34191 07/05/01 09:01 PM
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
R
Pooh-Bah
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The famous sign outside a London transport café just after the war read,
"EAT DIRT CHEAP AT JOE'S CAFE"


#34192 07/06/01 02:59 AM
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Speaking of which and resurrecting a discussion in an old thread, I've been seeing those damned Burma Shave adverts all over since I've been in the States.

Does the firm still exist? If not, it must be one of the few instances where the advertising is mightier than the product or the firm itself!



The idiot also known as Capfka ...
#34193 07/06/01 12:39 PM
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wwh Offline
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Dear CK: I found a site on Internet about Burma Shave's history. It was owned by a family named Odell.

In 1963 the Odell Family sold their company to Philip Morris, Inc.

So Philip Morris, Inc. is too stingy to remove signs.


#34194 07/06/01 01:15 PM
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Philip Morris, Inc. is too stingy to remove signs

These signs required maintenance. See the book The Verse by the Side of the Road : The Story of the Burma-Shave Signs and Jingles by Frank Rowsome, Jr. These things were a cultural icon. They now remind us of a time when things were slower and which we imagine to have been better days (conveniently forgetting all the things that made them the Bad Old Days, a subject which has already been covered here). I would suspect that the land owners, mostly farmers, keep the signs up themselves. The roads that CapK is following, as any of us who have been following his excellent travelog will attest, are roads less traveled now that we have the Interstates. The advertising value of the signs, even if the product does still exist, is minimal, but their nostalgia value is high.


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