Jaime Weinman links to this thorough analysis of "Baseball Bugs," or, more accurately, of the game therein, from U.S.S. Mariner. Among the topics discussed: Modest Soil Displacement and Accelleration Through Encouragement.
Mr. Weinman's analysis is fascinating, but he did not cover the incident where one of Bunny's home run hits propels a Gorilla into an advertising sign, with a mashed cigar in his mouth. The sign reads, "Does Your Tobacco Taste Different Lately?".
This was obviously overlooked by Mr. Weinman, for there's a fascinating story about the sign and its impact on baseball players in the 1945-'46 season. Now, most people today don't know this, but the slogan "Does Your Tobacco Taste Different Lately?" was the slogan of "Sir Walter Raleigh" pipe tobacco, manufactured by the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company. Even though tobacco products were in short supply during and shortly after the end of the Second World War, Brown & Williamson wanted to a) remind people that they were still in the tobacco business; and b) there seemed to be a lack of sales of "Sir Walter Raleigh" among professional ball players. So, in addition to their slogan being read in newspapers and magazines and heard on Raleigh's sponsored radio shows, B & W got the bright idea of mounting this slogan on the walls of 14 major ball parks (including the Polo Grounds) across the United States, and made sure that, whenever a ball player hit the wall with their slogan on it, the dazed player would look up at the words, "Does Your Tobacco Taste Different Lately?", and slowly realize that it DID. Sales of "Sir Walter Raleigh" soared during the 1945-'46 season among professional baseball players...even those who DIDN'T smoke pipes!
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Mr. Weinman's analysis is fascinating, but he did not cover the incident where one of Bunny's home run hits propels a Gorilla into an advertising sign, with a mashed cigar in his mouth. The sign reads, "Does Your Tobacco Taste Different Lately?".
This was obviously overlooked by Mr. Weinman, for there's a fascinating story about the sign and its impact on baseball players in the 1945-'46 season. Now, most people today don't know this, but the slogan "Does Your Tobacco Taste Different Lately?" was the slogan of "Sir Walter Raleigh" pipe tobacco, manufactured by the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company. Even though tobacco products were in short supply during and shortly after the end of the Second World War, Brown & Williamson wanted to a) remind people that they were still in the tobacco business; and b) there seemed to be a lack of sales of "Sir Walter Raleigh" among professional ball players. So, in addition to their slogan being read in newspapers and magazines and heard on Raleigh's sponsored radio shows, B & W got the bright idea of mounting this slogan on the walls of 14 major ball parks (including the Polo Grounds) across the United States, and made sure that, whenever a ball player hit the wall with their slogan on it, the dazed player would look up at the words, "Does Your Tobacco Taste Different Lately?", and slowly realize that it DID. Sales of "Sir Walter Raleigh" soared during the 1945-'46 season among professional baseball players...even those who DIDN'T smoke pipes!
;)
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