# Oh Hell..go ahead and make up your OWN joke here.. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 12, 2000, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-hell-go-ahead-and-make-up-your-own-joke-here/32951 "2000-09-12T22:11:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![beagledave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@beagledave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beagledave)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2000, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-hell-go-ahead-and-make-up-your-own-joke-here/32951/1 "2000-09-12T22:11:16Z")
[http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000912/ts/campaign\_bush\_dc\_47.html](http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000912/ts/campaign_bush_dc_47.html) who is running Dubyas campaign anyway… ---
**Author:** ![CnoteChris](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/278dde/32.png) [@CnoteChris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CnoteChris)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2000, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-hell-go-ahead-and-make-up-your-own-joke-here/32951/2 "2000-09-12T22:25:16Z")
The guy lost my vote for trying this stunt (He never really had it to begin with, however). But to come out and say that he doesn’t think it was done on purpose is simply ridiculous. Someone did it on purpose. To even ignore that seems ludicrous. Man your and idiot Dubbya. I also find it hard to believe it took a guy on his couch in knowwhere land to finally spot it. It ran for how long? ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2000, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-hell-go-ahead-and-make-up-your-own-joke-here/32951/3 "2000-09-12T22:38:22Z")
While I find all TV ads pretty stupid, I just saw it and I wouldn’t have noticed it if I wasn’t looking for it. What happens is the word “bureaucrats” sort of falshes across and land on the screen. Thst’s where the “rats” come in 🙂 I think this is pretty much like those people who see satan messages in the Lion King or pictures of naked girls on a box of wheatties, etc. I think it says more about those who see those things than anything else. yea yeah, let’s talk about the issues! So, what are the issues? That Dubya is sending us Satanic messages through or foil hats… (they _are_ supposed to be foil aren’t they?) ---
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2000, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-hell-go-ahead-and-make-up-your-own-joke-here/32951/4 "2000-09-13T07:44:07Z")
Blaming Bush because some bored, lazy, and/or malicious punk engineer either A: missed the blindingly obvious, or B: got too clever for his own good? Seems like a stupid reason to dislike someone. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2000, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-hell-go-ahead-and-make-up-your-own-joke-here/32951/5 "2000-09-13T12:45:13Z")
sailor, let’s talk about what _really_ happens in the ad, o.k.? The word “RAT” is flashed up on the screen separately, and in larger letters. It is displayed for a 30th of a second, which is a process that cannot be done “acidentally”. It was a cheap trick and a dirty stunt. There is NO debate as to whether or not it happened. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Zero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c4cdca/32.png) [@Saint\_Zero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Zero)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2000, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-hell-go-ahead-and-make-up-your-own-joke-here/32951/6 "2000-09-13T12:45:29Z")
_snore\*\*ZZzzzzwhu?_ Oh… there’s an election going on? Gore and Bush? _Yawn_ wake me on election day, I’m going to hibernate till then. _snore_ ---
**Author:** ![Aglarond](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@Aglarond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aglarond)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2000, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-hell-go-ahead-and-make-up-your-own-joke-here/32951/7 "2000-09-13T14:54:19Z")
Maybe some punk did do it on purpose, but it very well could have been an accident. In high school debate, we had to do campaigning and got to use the school’s AV equipment to do it. The ad was earily similar to the ad in quesiton, except instead of rats, it said ass. Ass and part of an E(I can’t remember the whole word) would appear for a second, and then ‘shrink’ into the middle of the screen. I know it wasn’t on purpose, because I did it. I must have watched it 6 or 7 times before submitting it, and nobody on my team noticed until we showed the video in class and everybody started laughing. I’m willing to give benefit of the doubt on this one. ---
**Author:** ![CnoteChris](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/278dde/32.png) [@CnoteChris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CnoteChris)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2000, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-hell-go-ahead-and-make-up-your-own-joke-here/32951/8 "2000-09-13T15:09:03Z")
**Aglarond** - > [@](#): > > I’m willing to give benefit of the doubt on this one. Well, I’m not. From the report I saw on ABC’s World News Tonight, they mentioned that the producer of this ad is well known in the political arena for creating negative compaign ads. Was it on purpose? A joke? A disgruntled employee? It’s hard for me to know for sure. But the coincidences just seem too odd for me to dismiss it as easily as Dubya. They’re spending millions to create and run these ads. Someone was responsible, it didn’t come out of thin air. By the way Dubya, sublimimable advertising just just just ah ah ah ah doesn’t wo wo wo work. People get irritated when they think you’re trying to pull one over on them. They get even more irritated when they see a guy who will shrug off issues they find important and you simply find difficult to answer. ---
**Author:** ![capacitor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e47774/32.png) [@capacitor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capacitor)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2000, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-hell-go-ahead-and-make-up-your-own-joke-here/32951/9 "2000-09-14T03:12:47Z")
The same guy who did the ad made an ad for Jesse Helms depicting a White guy supposedly losing a job to a minority. ---
**Author:** ![wireless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f14d63/32.png) [@wireless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wireless)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2000, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-hell-go-ahead-and-make-up-your-own-joke-here/32951/10 "2000-09-14T18:36:45Z")
In developing/editing an ad or any similar marketing communication, the film/tape is viewed MANY times, frame-by-frame (or similar, for video). IMO, there’s no way the team/person who edited this ad _didn’t know_ the RATS word showed up. How far up the hierarchy that knowledge went, I couldn’t say. Probably nowhere near GWB himself. But I _can_ imagine (having spent years in Marketing myself) the ad team sitting around late at night having a good laugh, amusing themselves, thinking “aren’t we clever!” Unfortunately, as with much of politics, it’s all about “plausible deniability” rather than the truth, so we’ll likely never know for sure.