Speaking on Capitol Hill Thursday morning, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan said, “I think some of them are not going to work, and they will cause significant problems.” Referring to … ?
by 5 p.m. ET Sunday to e-mail your answer to newsquiz@slate.com.
Wednesday’s question (No. 189)–“Slogan’s Run”:
The slogan “Feed the rush” is being replaced with “Life’s a scream.” Why?
“Why indeed? Didn’t they just CHANGE the $20 bill a few MONTHS ago?!!”–Jack Barth
“Jerry Falwell found ‘Feed the rush’ way too gay.”–Daniel Krause (Julie Anderson and Peter Carlin had similar answers.)
“I don’t really have an answer for this, but I did want to tell everyone that WHAT I’M READING RIGHT NOW is the fabulous new Elmore Leonard book, Be Cool. (Delacorte Press, available from Amazon at a 37 percent discount, plus shipping, which kind of wipes out the discount, but what the heck.) If you like authors LIKE ELMORE LEONARD or are IN THE MOOD FOR MYSTERY, check this one out. It’s DESTINED FOR GREATNESS. (Small fee paid for this mention by Delacorte Press, but I would have recommended the book anyway. Really.)”–Fred Graver
“The Federal Reserve Board likes the roller coaster allusion. Plus, ‘Hey, you never know’ was already taken.”–Jennifer Miller
“Becauseitsafullyloadedcitrusbeverageright? Yeah! Right! SUUUURGE! SUUUURGE! Mustgorunaroundongolfcourse untilbeveragewearsoff.”–Kate Wing
Click for more responses.
Randy’s Wrap-Up
With its limited advertising budget–limited to zero–News Quiz has no spokesmodel (despite my rambling, drunken midnight phone calls to Ellen Barkin), no Happy Meal (“Aw, Mom, I already have Tim Carvell! Make them take it back.”), and no slogan. Unable to afford a professional slogan, something hip and hot and happenin’ (Do the kids still say happenin’ with the apostrophe and all, or is there some swingin’ new punctuation?), we must make do with the public domain. Under consideration:
“Human life is everywhere in a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed.””The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.””You will see in me an extraordinary example of the effects of a bad education.””The truly comic is the blossom of the nettle.”
All T-shirts 100 percent cotton.
Heavy Citrus Answer
The new slogan is meant to induce 12- to 24-year-old males to drink Coca-Cola’s Surge instead of Pepsico’s Mountain Dew, the dominant soda pop in the “heavy citrus” category. Or, in the delightfully jargon-laden prose of Doug Jackson, senior brand manager for Surge, to “energize the brand for the next phase of growth.”
Jackson rejects their previous ads: “The campaign was grounded in the two core teen values of action and sociability, but was initially focused on the intensity more than the sociability,” he says without a trace of embarrassment. Jackson notes that the casts of the new ads have “a more urban feel,” i.e., include African-Americans. “And with urban kids today, there’s more of a melding of the races.” The new campaign will begin on Monday with what he calls “a youth-targeted media spike” i.e., with commercials during Dawson’s Creek.
Photo Fun Extra
Match the organization with the photo it retouched to remove an offensive cigarette.
Organization
1. U.S. Postal Service
2. Tina Brown’s Vanity Fair
3. Pravda
Photo
A. Guitar-playing Robert Johnson
B. Paint-splattering Jackson Pollock
C. Gestating Courtney Love
D. Parade-watching Joseph Stalin
Answers
1. A and B. The new Pollock stamp and an earlier Johnson stamp, both based on photographs, eliminate the cigarette from each man’s mouth, and the adulterous gleam from Pollock’s eye.
2. C. Brown said she didn’t approve of pregnant women smoking so she had the cigarette airbrushed out. Presumably, she did approve of the murderers photographed in other issues.
3. D. On Stalin’s own order, they retouched a photo of him on the reviewing stand in Red Square for the 1949 May Day Parade. He felt the long rhinestone cigarette holder undercut his butch image. I read that in Commentary. Or maybe I didn’t.
Common Denominator
Limbaugh–a fat man named Rush.
Slogan Citations
The first and second are Dr. Johnson, the third is Boswell, and the fourth is Coleridge.
Disclaimer: All submissions will become the property ofSlateand will be published atSlate’s discretion.Slatemay publish your name on its site in connection with your submission.
