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Understanding McLuhan
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Understanding McLuhan (1996)(Voyager)[Mac-PC].iso
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06959_Field_TCUM T524.txt
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1996-04-10
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999b
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16 lines
magazine, movie, or radio. The sensory tolerance of the
audience has changed, and so have the methods of appeal by
the advertisers. In the new cool TV world, the old hot world of
hard-selling, earnest-talking salesmen has all the antique
charm of the songs and togs of the l920s. Mort Sahl and
Shelley Berman are merely following, not setting, a trend in
spoofing the ad world. They discovered that they have only to
reel off an ad or news item to have the audience in fits. Will
Rogers discovered years ago that any newspaper read aloud
from a theatre stage is hilarious. The same is true today of
ads. Any ad put into a new setting is funny. This is a way of
saying that any ad consciously attended to is comical. Ads are
not meant for conscious consumption. They are intended as
subliminal pills for the subconscious in order to exercise an
hypnotic spell, especially on sociologists. That is one of the
most edifying aspects of the huge educational enterprise that