Saturday, January 01, 2005

What if Pompeii had had a Subway?

The folks in marketing at Discovery Channel are seriously out of touch with the realities of the New York City subway. For their upcoming program on the last day of Pompeii at the end of this month, they've launched a subway ad campaign.

Coming home from New Year's Eve festivities on the C train (yes...I have no idea what gives, the C was running and the A was going express on New Year's Eve; normally the C stops running after 11 p.m.), I spied a poster meant, I think, to instill fear in the hearts of your average straphanger.

"How do you outrun an eruption faster than this train?" said the poster, in ominous black lettering against a field of glowing lava.

Faster than this train? The C? Oh, I don't know. I guess you could crawl. Crabwalk? Cartwheel, perhaps. Maybe even just lie down on the tracks.

I think this ad would have been way more effective on, say, the Acela.

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