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Cigarette smoking and TOS

"Join us next week for another exciting adventure in deep space on... STAR TREK! And now, a word from our heroes."

Kirk: Mister Spock, how is it you're able to maintain that that steady logic through even the direst of circumstances.

Spock: With an arduous mental discipline... and these.

Kirk: Chesterfields?

McCoy: So that's your secret.

Spock: (Passes out cigs. They light up.) Chesterfields keep my thoughts focused no matter the situation.

McCoy: (Puffing.) They keep my hands steady, too. In fact, I recommend them to all my patients.

Kirk: Well, Bones, this is something I never thought I'd see.

McCoy: What's that, Jim?

Kirk: You two agreeing on something.

McCoy: When it comes to Chesterfields, we can all agree.

(A Klingon enters smoking.)

Klingon: You got that right.

Spock: Chesterfields. They're the logical choice.


Wasn't that kind of ad passe by 1967?

Considering how Roddenberry felt about ciggies being smoked by the crew of the Enterprise, it might have been better to have this product (if it existed back then) be used instead;

"Join us next week for another exciting adventure in deep space on... STAR TREK! And now, a word from our heroes."

Kirk: Miss Uhura, how is it you're able to get a signal to us on the planet through even the direst of circumstances?

Uhura: With great determination-plus Starfleet R&D's newest communication devices

Kirk: Androids?

McCoy: So that's your secret.

Uhura: (Passes out phones. They activate them.) Androids work well each and every time.

McCoy: (Fooling around with his.) They keep me on the go as well. In fact I think that everybody should have them all of the time

Kirk: Well, Bones, this is something I never thought I'd see.

McCoy: What's that, Jim?

Kirk: You liking technology.

McCoy: When it comes to Androids, we can all agree.

(A Klingon enters using one.)

Klingon: You got that right.

Spock: Android phones. They're the logical choice.
:):lol:
 
I am realizing my enthusiasm for grammar issues on this board far outweighs my enthusiasm for most Trek questions (except the two "fact-checking" threads). I wonder if there is a grammar board out there. Anyone know?
 
Ad for the feminist demographic http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4ksye_commercial-virginia-slims-cigarette_news

The ritzy smoker http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B3g80Q03t8

And something http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4jTCU7SsEw

Hober has the general style of the commercials down pretty well. Using characters was more for shows sponsored by a company so the cast might do skits like that. I think your right about that being more common before Trek's time on the air, more in the 50s, Shaka Zulu, but the style over all seems right.
 
I am realizing my enthusiasm for grammar issues on this board far outweighs my enthusiasm for most Trek questions (except the two "fact-checking" threads). I wonder if there is a grammar board out there. Anyone know?

Well, there is the Language Log blog, but it's more linguistics than grammar per se.
 
Watching that complete broadcast was illuminating. We've been talking about ratings data on the "These Are the Voyages" thread. NBC sure coulda used some more advanced metrics then. Or maybe their advertisers could have, to spend their advertising bucks more wisely. Trek was pulling in the now-coveted younger demographic, but they're advertising Geritol and some old-man cigarette with truck-drivin' music. And others I've already forgotten.
 
NBC knew younger viewers were watching -- I have press clippings from 1967 in which this is discussed, and suggested as a reason for renewal. Why they weren't doing a better job targeting that demographic...that I can't illuminate for you.
 
Actually, I feel that if they had filmed those smoking commercials, now they would be a really great find, if anyone would really have them. There are DVDs filled with old commercials that are sold for big bucks all the time. I would really loved to have seen that Star Trek commercial, especially with SQUARE cigarettes, Hehehehehe. :D

Greg
 
NBC knew younger viewers were watching -- I have press clippings from 1967 in which this is discussed, and suggested as a reason for renewal. Why they weren't doing a better job targeting that demographic...that I can't illuminate for you.

Related data:
In reality, Star Trek‘s young adult audience wasn’t any larger than the ABC and CBS programs it competed with. According to Television Magazine, the four episodes broadcast between October 27th and November 17th, 1966 averaged 8,630,000 viewers in the 18-to-49 age group, making up 43% of the show’s total audience [51]. By comparison, during the same period ABC’s Bewitched (which aired opposite Star Trek from 9:30-10PM) averaged 10,210,000 young adult viewers or 37% of the total audience.

As for CBS, My Three Sons (aired from 8:30-9PM) averaged 8,580,000 young adult viewers (the series was pre-empted on October 27th) or 36% of the program’s total audience. Thus, while Star Trek had a larger percentage of viewers in the young adult demographic, two of the programs it competed with had more viewers overall (and Bewitched had more young adult viewers as well). This was at the start of the show’s run; ratings fell every season.

^^^Source (link)
 
What was the policy of the U.S. Navy in the '50s and '60s regarding smoking on the bridge and so on? Although TOS obviously didn't hew too closely to the Navy, it followed the general model and had plenty of vets among the creative staff. They might have judged it too out of place.

Although that thought may be contradicted by the example of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Apparently they were fine with it.

Of course, there's a long history of iffy and outright bad grammar in advertising. For instance, Tide detergent had a real howler in their slogan a few years back: "Style is an option. Clean is not."

:guffaw::guffaw::guffaw:

And I cannot for the life of me figure out what "Imagine Greater" is supposed to mean. Will someone please get Syfy a noun??

Every time I see that phrase I think, "I can imagine any number of things greater than what you're doing!" It's positively Pavlovian by now.
 
No surprise. Just one more bit of allegedly "correct" grammar, like the so-called "split infinitive" rule, that's actually just a fantasy made up by prescriptivists so they could pretend their English was better than that of the masses.
Now, that's not exactly what the prescriptivists were about. They were merely trying to capitalize on the rampant class anxiety of people who thought their own English wasn't as good as the rich people's. :D
 
And I cannot for the life of me figure out what "Imagine Greater" is supposed to mean. Will someone please get Syfy a noun??

Every time I see that phrase I think, "I can imagine any number of things greater than what you're doing!" It's positively Pavlovian by now.

My Pavlovian response is "That doesn't mean anything!"

I had the same problem back in college when "My bad" caught on. That was fingernails on a chalkboard to me. Your bad what? Nouns! Where are the nouns?
 
The best way I can parse "imagine greater" is as a malformed suggestion for you to increase your imagination, i.e. as "imagine more greatly", the reason being that there is no other word for greater to modify besides imagine.
 
And I cannot for the life of me figure out what "Imagine Greater" is supposed to mean. Will someone please get Syfy a noun??

Every time I see that phrase I think, "I can imagine any number of things greater than what you're doing!" It's positively Pavlovian by now.

My Pavlovian response is "That doesn't mean anything!"

I had the same problem back in college when "My bad" caught on. That was fingernails on a chalkboard to me. Your bad what? Nouns! Where are the nouns?

I confess: I can't get used to "fail" as a noun, as in "epic fail!"

We already have a word for that: "failure."
 
Every time I see that phrase I think, "I can imagine any number of things greater than what you're doing!" It's positively Pavlovian by now.

My Pavlovian response is "That doesn't mean anything!"

I had the same problem back in college when "My bad" caught on. That was fingernails on a chalkboard to me. Your bad what? Nouns! Where are the nouns?

I confess: I can't get used to "fail" as a noun, as in "epic fail!"

We already have a word for that: "failure."
This thread is full of win. :techman:
 
And I cannot for the life of me figure out what "Imagine Greater" is supposed to mean. Will someone please get Syfy a noun??

Every time I see that phrase I think, "I can imagine any number of things greater than what you're doing!" It's positively Pavlovian by now.

My Pavlovian response is "That doesn't mean anything!"

No argument here — but I figure that if SyFy wants to make it easier to insult them, then more power to them. :techman:

I had the same problem back in college when "My bad" caught on. That was fingernails on a chalkboard to me. Your bad what? Nouns! Where are the nouns?

Strangely, that one never bothered me the way it should have.

"Morph" as a verb used to be nails/chalkboard for me, primarily because I was busy looking down my nose about Power Rangers at the time. I'm not sure if that show coined the term or if it existed before.

Ditto with "leverage" as a verb. I used to throw violent tirades about it. The fact is "leverage" only entered my personal radar about the same time as "morph", but a little research shows that usage has been around longer than I have. I stopped having tantrums once someone pointed it out to me.

Anyway, since then I've bowed to convention and started using both terms. ;)
I rarely make comments that would invoke those uses of "win" or "fail". Probably not due to dislike as much as that I'm still getting used to the context.

The misuse of apostrophes still drives me up the wall, though. (The "Simpsons" thread in TV & Media makes me flinch even now.) I'm in a technical writing job, and although my former partner was a very good writer, she occasionally got careless with punctuation.

Eventually I figured out a way to fight back without being too petulant. When I spotted one too many misused apostrophes, I'd take a red marker, circle them all, and write "Catostrophe" at the top of the page.
 
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