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The results? Free publicity, Baby!
Lookee here:
- Interviewed on Online Tonight with David Lawrence, a nationally-syndicated radio show.
- Interviewed on National Public Radio's "Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me" program.
- Article by Brill's Content magazine, scheduled for their February/March '99 issue.
- Articles in online magazines such as Salon and Suck
- Interviewed on Geek Radio, a nationally-syndicated show.
- Corrections, retractions, laugh-at-the-Times articles in numerous papers.
- And the following article, from the front page of the Washington Post's Style section...
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Titles Too Bad To Be True
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 4, 1998; Page F01
It was a cute item in the New York Times Week in Review section, a
peek at some of the wacky titles slapped on American movies in Asia.
In Hong Kong, the article last month said, "Leaving Las Vegas" somehow
became "I'm Drunk and You're a Prostitute." In China, "George of the
Jungle" turned into "Big Dumb Monkey Man Keeps Whacking Tree With
Genitals." "My Best Friend's Wedding" was "Help! My Pretend Boyfriend Is
Gay." "Batman and Robin" sounded less than swashbuckling: "Come to My Cave
and Wear This Rubber Codpiece, Cute Boy."
Some titles obliterated the taste barrier. The Pamela Anderson Lee flick
"Barb Wire" was said to have been marketed in China as "Delicate Orbs of
Womanhood Bigger Than Your Head Can Hurt You." And there was this Hong
Kong knee-slapper: "The Crying Game" emerged as "Oh No! My Girlfriend Has
a Penis!"
But the joke was on Times reporter James Sterngold and his editors.
These outlandish titles were spoofs that first appeared in August on a Web
site called TopFive.com. "Rolling on the floor laughing!" TopFive
contributor Doug Johnson said by e-mail.
Sterngold says he was skeptical at the outset. He says Scott Neeson, the
executive in charge of foreign distribution at Fox, sent him a legitimate
Wall Street Journal clip about creative foreign titles -- and attached a
list of the wild ones.
"I said, 'These are kind of outrageous. Are these for real?' He said yes,"
Sterngold recalled from Los Angeles. "I made a mistake. I should have
checked each of these out."
A Fox staffer confirmed that Neeson had sent the satiric list but said he
thought it was part of the Journal article. Sterngold, though, says it was
his responsibility, not Neeson's. "It's embarrassing," he said. "I'm
disappointed and depressed. If it was hard news, I probably would have
been more vigilant. But it was a light item."
©Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company
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