Talk:This Is Your Brain on Drugs

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I created the This Is Your Brain On Drugs article. I have been unable to confirm which year the version of that ad with RLC was broadcast. Can someone please take the trouble to find this out. The only source I can find on the matter said 1998, but I have a strong feeling this is incorrect. Also, can anyone find a picture of the poster from the campaign? Thanks, Aaron Jethro

Every source I've seen has 1998, and a few times 1999. I'm pretty positive it was '98. Then again, you insist that it isn't from that year so maybe I might be wrong. Buzda 17:22, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
Following comments on my talk page, Buzda said he was sure he'd seen the ad' before '98. I swear that it was the case too, but I can't find a way to back this up. - Aaron Jethro 20:50, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Drugs are bad?

Well, i would much rather eat a fried egg than a raw one. Enough said?

The second PDA seemed to approach the actual purpose of the ad while the first told you should not try drugs but eat raw eggs instead.

edited by rancid lamb

[edit] That commercial always made me hungry

...And this is your brain with a side order of bacon 207.157.121.50 07:57, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] the man in the first commercial

Anyone know who the man was that was in the original "brain on drugs" commercial? --Agerard 20:50, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sequence of Sentences in 1st PSA

This article, as written before, implied that the order of the sentences was: "This is drugs. This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs." I grew up hearing it as: "This is your brain. This is drugs. This is your brain on drugs." The guy held up the frying pan AFTER showing the egg, not before. So I edited the paragraph relevant to the 1st PSA. Roxtar 18:50, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Shorter version of commercial?

I seem to vaguely recall, from the 80s, a shorter version of the commercial. It opens with a focus on an frying pan filling the entire screen - no sight of a narrator, no sight of an egg, no words. An egg is poured/dropped into the frying pan, sizzling and bubbling.

A disembodied voice - possibly teenage? - says, "this is your brain on drugs. Any questions?"

This short version was incomprehensible because it lacked the opening "this is your brain", "this is drugs" explanation.

Can anyone else corroborate this? (If not, maybe my local TV station made its own version of the ad, who knows.)

[edit] "This is the last time..."

I seem to recall an alternate version where the male narrator says "All right, this is the last time I'm going to tell you..." (or words to that effect) before holding up the egg. Any verification of this?

  • Yes, yes, absolutely! I'm guessing mid-to-late 80's. My recollection: some male dude, white T-shirt, short-to-medium darkish hair, sturdy build. The scene is shot is in a large kitchen. The speaker is speaking in an intentionally simplified tone, as if to imply "come on, this isn't that hard to understand." I recall the guy saying, in an almost exasperated tone, something like "All right, one last time: THIS is your brain. [holds up egg]. THIS is drugs. [holds up frying pan, puts it on stove] THIS [crack egg, pour into frying pan] is your brain on drugs. ANY QUESTIONS?" I always thought this version of the commercial was a direct response to the overly-abbreviated, incomprehensible version mentioned above (which simply said "this is your brain on drugs" as an egg was fried) - since no one understood what the hell the short commercial was trying to say, they made the follow-up "exasperated explanation" version.
You forgot his opening words (which also are absent from the article): "For the last time, etc." These opening words stuck with me because I had never seen or heard this message before. And I remember my reaction as a teenager to this PSA: "The stoners are just going to laugh at this, & talk about how much fun they're having by frying their brains." -- llywrch 22:29, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 2nd commercial

the second commercial with rachel that was linked is very low quality and has CNN text garbage covering it up, this version link has better quality and no CNN garbage.

[edit] C&P of too-long trivia section

The second PSA was satirized in the premiere episode, 'Junk In The Trunk', of the animated television show Robot Chicken, for which Cook reprised her role. In this one, instead of merely smashing plates and glass objects in the kitchen, she goes crazy with the pan, hitting old women, animals, passers-by, and, eventually, herself, screaming about consequences that are actually entirely unrelated to taking drugs ("And your boyfriend gives you Herpes simplex A!") or only marginally possible consequences ("And you get a unicorn tattoo on your left ass-cheek that was supposed to be a bitchin' firebird but you were too stoned out at the time to notice!")

  • Its use in the first PSA was also sampled in the parody song, 'I Can't Watch This', by 'Weird Al' Yankovic on his 1992 album titled Off The Deep End (alongside other US television advertising slogans from the time, such as "I've fallen and I can't get up").
  • It was also ridiculed by stand-up comedian and satirist Bill Hicks, as can be heard in his live performance on Relentless (album).
  • On the sitcom Married With Children, in the episode "What Goes Around Comes Around", Al takes an egg, says "This is your brain", then says "This is your brain on marriage", drops it on the ground, and asks, "Any questions?"
  • A poster produced in the early 1990s called "Famous Brains on Drugs" parodied the concept by having eggs appear in the frying pan in forms intended to remind the viewer of certain people. For instance, a pan labeled "Saddam Hussein" had an egg with a crosshair over it, and a pan labeled "Milli Vanilli" contained a box of imitation eggs.
  • The film sequel Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991) also spoofed the original PSA by having Johnny Depp (whose acting career began with A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), the first film in series) perform the skit, only to be hit in the face with the frying pan by the character Freddy Krueger.
  • The second PSA was satirized in the premiere episode, 'Junk In The Trunk', of the animated television show Robot Chicken, for which Cook reprised her role. In this one, instead of merely smashing plates and glass objects in the kitchen, she goes crazy with the pan, hitting old women, animals, passers-by, and, eventually, herself, screaming about consequences that are actually entirely unrelated to taking drugs ("And your boyfriend gives you Herpes simplex A!") or only marginally possible consequences ("And you get a unicorn tattoo on your left ass-cheek that was supposed to be a bitchin' firebird but you were too stoned out at the time to notice!")
  • The movie Scary Movie 2 also features a parody of the skit.
  • There have also been in form of T-shirts, such as versions based on The Simpsons ("This is your brain on donuts, showing a X-ray of Homer Simpson's head) and the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry (shirts targeted to both alliegiances of the famed rivalry), among others.
  • The title of the New York Times best-selling book, "This Is Your Brain On Music: The Science of a Human Obsession" (Dutton/Penguin, 2006) by Daniel Levitin was a nod to the first PSA.

[edit] Before 1987?

I remember see the commercial in the early 1970's, which I was in grade school. But I clearly remember it showed the hot butter sizzling in the fry pan first: "This is drugs." Then the egg breaking into it: "This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?" But everyone thinks of it as the "This is your brain" commercial! Digitalinky (talk) 22:36, 28 November 2007 (UTC)