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"The Best Musical of the Century"
25 Mar 2003 by Matthew Linderman
David Merrick once hyped one of his musicals, “Subways Are For Sleeping,” by placing a full-page ad in New York papers with raves from random people with the same names as real critics. Here’s the ad (with description) and here’s another version of the full story.
Subways was an awful show and Merrick knew it. He instructed his press agent, Harvey Sabinson to contact seven people with the sames names as the drama critics covering New York theatre. He was to take them to a preview performance and then wine and dine them in some fancy restaurant. All he had to do was get their written consent to quote them in an ad for the show…Sabinson then went through the archives of some of the biggest hits ever on Broadway and lifted the quotes from old reviews.
6 comments so far (Post a Comment)
25 Mar 2003 | Hopper said...
Damn that's some gonzo marketing. That's The Gonzo marketing. I applaud gonzo marketing. Even if it's slimy shit.
I'm reminded of something I heard a few years ago, in the same Gonzo Marketing vein. I don't have a source for this, so consider it worth at least half as much as you paid to read it. Probably Paul Harvey or some such crap.
Anyway, in Texas, so this yarn goes, people placing an operator assisted collect call had their choice of long distance providers. The operator would ask "Which company would you like to use for LD?" What the fuck do they care? It's a collect call. So the common response was "I don't care."
Well, some company decided to start selling very expensive long distance for collect calls under the name of "I Don't Care" long distance. The actual company name was I Don't Care. They also had some affiliated companies: I Don't Know and It Doesn't Matter, if memory serves.
When asked, people saing I don't know, I don't care, or it doesn't matter, were routed to this particular firm's services. At high prices.
This is no joke.
No word if Who the Fuck Cares, LLC was also formed.
26 Mar 2003 | Paperhead said...
I forget the names concerned now, but I remember years ago There was a story of one critic reviewing a play along the lines:
"If I had never seen any other play, this would still be the second best play I've ever seen."
Of course, the poster carried:
" . . . the second best play I've ever seen."
26 Mar 2003 | Don Schenck said...
I love musicals. LOVE musicals. My "short list" of movies has always included "Music Man", "Jesus Christ Superstar", and "Singin' In The Rain".
But my favorite all-time musical movie, without question, no doubts, hands down, is "Chicago".
Saw Les Mis live and was quite moved. To tears, actually.
28 Mar 2003 | Paperhead said...
huge yay! @ "Singin' In The Rain"
17 Nov 2003 | world directory said...
I don't like musicals, ever is the same
27 Nov 2003 | Victor said...
Very nice blog
