This Is Your Brain on Drugs
This Is Your Brain on Drugs was a large-scale US anti-narcotics campaign by Partnership for a Drug-Free America (PDFA) launched in 1987, that used two televised public service announcements (PSAs) and a related poster campaign.[1]
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[edit] 1987 version
The first PSA, from 1987, showed a man who held up an egg and said, "This is your brain," before picking up a frying pan and adding, "This is drugs." He then cracks open the egg, fries the contents, and says, "This is your brain on drugs." Finally he looks up at the camera and asks, "Any questions?" A shorter version of this, simply showing a close-up of an egg dropping into a frying pan, was used a few years later.[2]
The PSA was so popular that Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare spoofed the PSA with Johnny Depp, (who appeared in the first Nightmare on Elm Street movie.) The PSA goes on as normal until Robert Englund (who plays Freddy Krueger) hits Depp with the frying pan and says, "Yeah! What are you on? Looks like a frying pan and some eggs to me."
[edit] 1998 version
The second PSA, from 1998, featured 18-year-old actress Rachael Leigh Cook, who, as before, holds up an egg and says, "this is your brain", before lifting up a frying pan with the words, "this is heroin", after which she places the egg on a kitchen counter - "this is what happens to your brain after snorting heroin" - and slams the pan down on it. She lifts the pan back up, saying, "and this is what your body goes through", in reference to the remnants of the egg now dripping from the bottom of the pan and down her arm. Rachael then says, "It's not over yet", and proceeds to smash everything in the kitchen with the frying pan, saying, "And this is what your FAMILY GOES THROUGH! AND YOUR FRIENDS!! AND YOUR MONEY!!! AND YOUR JOB!! AND YOUR SELF-RESPECT!!! And your future!" She ends with "And your life." Rachael finally drops the pan on the counter of the now-wrecked kitchen, and says, "Any questions?"[3]
The commercial was directed by Eden Tyler. It was written by Ken Cills and Doug Hill, who were working at the New York ad agency, Margeotes, Fertitta and Partners.
[edit] Impact
TV Guide named the commercial one of the top one hundred television advertisements ever.[4] Internet comedian Nostalgia Critic poked fun at both advertisements in his Top 11 Nostalgic Drug PSAs video, stating, "People know this one so well, they can say it in their sleep." In response to Rachael destroying the kitchen, he answers the question by asking one of his own: "What the hell kind of drugs are you on?!"
The second version was parodied on Robot Chicken, in which Rachael Leigh Cook herself goes on a psychopathic rampage, ending in her arrest.
[edit] See also
- Just Say No
- I learned it by watching you
- Public service announcement
- Partnership for a Drug-Free America
- War on Drugs
[edit] References
- ^ "PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENTS". The Museum of Broadcast Communications online archive. http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/P/htmlP/publicservic/publicservic.htm.
- ^ "The Partnerships "Fried Egg" TV Message". Drugfree.org press release. The Partnership for a Drug-Free America. October 24, 2006. doi:August 13, 2007. http://www.drugfree.org/Portal/About/NewsReleases/Fried_Egg_Message.
- ^ "The Partnership's Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Creation of Campaign Advertisements" (press release). National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign. January 24, 2005. Archived from the original on January 14, 2006. http://web.archive.org/web/20060114023517/http://www.mediacampaign.org/newsletter/spring98/update-04.html.
- ^ CNN report on the commercial
[edit] External links
- The second version of the "This Is Your Brain On Drugs" ad, featuring Rachael Leigh Cook.
- Official PDFA website
- PDFA Fried Egg Webpage including videos and spoof information
