Some time ago, a survey was conducted to show the poor state of science education among the American Public. They asked the man-on-the-street: If you were on the moon right now, would you be standing on the surface or floating above it??? A large percentage (I forget how many) said ‘floating’ as the answer.
I think most of our CT audience knows the real answer: there is gravity on the moon, so you’d be ‘standing’ on the surface.
When the survey showed the man-on-the-streets pictures of the man-on-the-moon astronauts ‘standing’ on the surface, a second question was asked: “How is this possible??” The public came up with the classic answer: They are wearing magnetic boots.
Which brings me back to the SuperBowl FedEx advertisement showing an office on the moon, with paper and supplies (and even a dog) floating around. When the scene moves outdoors, we see astronauts ‘standing’ on the surface. Sorry folks, you can’t have it both ways. To add insult to injury, one of the astronauts then ‘jumps’ off the surface of the moon into space !!! You need a really low microgravity condition (such as is found on a relatively small asteroid) to do something like that .
I worry for the future of America. Or at least the future of the SuperBowl commercial.
Great observation. I knew I didn’t like that commercial, but you showed us why it’s stupid on many levels. Actually, most of the commercials were disappointing. Talking animals were a big theme for some reason.
My favorite commercial was the one for Garmin, which I just learned has a longer version in the form of a full music video with ass-kicking guitars:
WoW. Great video. And I thought nothing good could come out of YouTube besides badly produced video bits.
I went there and found a bunch of samples from the 1966 Ultraman TV show. A real treasure.
The Garmin commercial has come up on many conversations as the one that will be remembered. Too bad that creativity was on short supply for this SuperBowl year. I echo the general cry: “What were they thinking??”
I love the weird elbow-in-the-sky pose he strikes to turn into Ultraman. Wonderfully superfluous.
Yes, marketer Seth Godin (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/) wonders if some companies would have been better off spending the $2M for the commercial on developing a cool new product. Opportunity cost. I’m thinking that’s money you could have spent hiring and lavishing a few superstar developers or engineers for a couple years, and giving them the freedom to create something remarkable.
I would be interested in seeing a link to the survey you mentionm lest it become yet another internet urban legend.
Hmmm…. I don’t know where the article is located, but here are some people that read it !!! Perhaps we can follow their lead:
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wwu/truth/education.shtml
And here is another entry that adresses the Urban Legend issue. Perhaps we are chasing a myth (but no entry in Snopes.com)
http://forum.darwinawards.com/lofiversion/index.php/t3536.html