Ken Sletten writes:

> ... well, a giant-sized poster plugging the 3000 might be a great
>  idea....  oops...  Wirt and Adager already did that in 1996...   ;-)
>
>  hmmm...:  how about:  a slightly smaller-scale 3000 poster of
>  some kind;  say, four to nine times single-sheet poster size;
>  suitable for hanging somewhere in the hallowed halls of CSY
>  (maybe in the famous "MPE Lunch Facility" ??).  We then get
>  HP 3000 users who "kick butt" with their 3000's who wander by
>  at HP World to sign it, and present end product to Harry & Co.
>  before the end of the conference.

What follows is a kind of "now-it-can-be-told" story, released from the most
secret files of AICS and Adager :-).

The picture that appeared on the Anaheim poster was a cartoon of three
football players, but the original idea was to have a giant poster of Bart
Simpson. I never mentioned this on the HP3000-L before because it was never a
sure thing -- and I didn't want to disappoint anyone if we couldn't make it
happen.

In the original poster, it was Bart who was going to be saying "MPE Users Kick
Butt!", much like other pictures you've seen of him saying things like, "Eat
my shorts!" or "Don't have a cow, man!"

The idea of creating the poster together was the direct result of Stan Sieler
posting a notice about the poster that HP & Disney had just finished putting
together at the Los Angeles Colliseum. I called Rene Woc of Adager (before I
spoke to anyone here) and asked him if he'd like to split the cost of building
a poster twice the size of the HP/Disney Mickey Mouse poster.

Rene didn't hesitate, he simply said yes, not having any idea of what it would
cost. I told him, my guess was about $30,000 for materials -- and that didn't
prove to be too far wrong. He also asked what would the poster have on it? I
said that my idea was Bart. Rene thought that was a good idea.

The next day I called Fox Television in Los Angeles and explained what I had
in mind. They gave me the number of the Simpson production unit. There, I
spoke to Julie, a very kind lady, and explained again in detail what I had in
mind. She thought it was hilarious and was quite enthusiastic about the idea.
After all Bart was going to be twice as big as Mickey -- and only a few blocks
from Disneyland.

She also said that licensing was going to be a problem. They were very
restrictive about who they lent the Simpson images to. She mentioned that they
had just turned down Nancy Reagan for some project that she wanted Bart to
appear in. I went out of my way to make sure that Julie understood that this
planned event was being sponsored by HP3000 users, not HP itself, so that
there would be no anticipation of "deep pockets" in regard to licensing fees.

After several conversations, Julie and I agreed that, slim as the chances
might be, it was worth giving it a shot. She agreed to take it to there legal
department as the first step. At the time, Fox only had a two-minute newsbreak
on their national network, but I mentioned to Julie that a shot of a football
field-sized image Bart from a Fox news helicopter would look good on the
evening national news. She thought that was a great idea, too.

I thought it was a good idea too. It seemed as if it would be a way of getting
a free helicopter. Up to the time of the poster, I had never rented a Bell
JetRanger helicopter -- and I thought that they would be a great deal more
expensive than they were (the one we chartered was only $600/hour).

Unfortunately, things soon came to a dead stop. Fox, the Simpsons production
unit, and Gracie Films fiddled and dwadled, like any good committee-run
corporate organization -- and time was running out. They set forth several
conditions. One was they had to create the original artwork, for which we'd
have to pay time and materials. A second was that it was a one-time-only use
agreement. We had seriously discussed getting matching t-shirts made. They
stated that they would prefer to have one of their licensed vendors
manufacture such t-shirts and wanted both an estimate of how many would be
sold and a minimum guarantee.

It became clear that as time went on, a growing number of people within the
Simpsons production unit were actually quite pro the idea of the bigger-than-
Mickey Bart poster, but it was also becoming quite clear that we were running
out of time and I wasn't sure that we would be able to complete the poster if
we didn't begin very soon indeed.

In the end, on one Friday evening in early June, I spoke with Rene and we
talked about the fact that we had basically run out of time. So that night I
drew up the picture of a football player in PostScript vector graphics, faxed
a copy to Rene on Saturday, and began printing the poster on Sunday.

It was just as well. About two weeks later, Fox/Simpsons said no. I genuinely
thanked Julie for all of her trouble. She was as disappointed as I was,
although I didn't tell her that the poster production was already well
underway. I meant to send her some pictures of the completed poster, but never
did.

That year, at Anaheim, Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, was the guest
speaker at the Anaheim HP World. About half-way through the several months of
Fox's dithering, Rene and I talked about switching the image from Bart to
Dilbert, in great part because of the obvious tie-in. But we both rejected it
without even approaching Adams. Dilbert, as a cubicle-bound, powerless wimp,
would never look good or even believable, saying, "MPE Users Kick Butt!"
Dogbert might -- but he's not nearly as recognizable.

I still regret that we weren't able to use Bart. I saw him dressed in
something less than a full pirate outfit, perhaps just a headband and torn t-
shirt and a raised fist. Poster-matching t-shirts would have undoubtedly
continued to be a big seller for some time afterwards.

Wirt Atmar