January 31, 2002

-Excerpt from The Washington Post

GARTH BROOKS COMMERCIAL INJURES MILLIONS

    Emergency rooms all over America were flooded with millions of people made severely ill after the network television airing of a new commercial featuring country music singer Garth Brooks.  The ad was aired Sunday afternoon during an NFL playoff game at 2:17 PM, EST.  Shortly afterwards, millions of people complaining of nausea, severe headaches, and projectile vomiting inundated hospitals across the nation.

    The advertisement seemed innocuous enough, featuring Mr. Brooks in a front porch "jam session."  A group of racially diverse musicians join him in singing the praises of Dr. Pepper as a group of gorgeous, multiethnic supermodels fawn over the pudgy, balding country superstar.

    "Sure, it is a terrible commercial," says media analyst Lance Nesterterverson.  "It is complete crap, full of bad music and insultingly dumb, banal imagery, but who would have guessed that it was bad enough to actually injure people?"

    The commercial was immediately pulled by ABC after the initial airing.  The original copy of the film was then sent to the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta for analysis.  Toxicology expert Nace Golaffertson studied the ad frame by frame and found what he calls a ''trigger point" when the ad was shown to a control group of healthy volunteers in a closely controlled setting.  "Analysis points to a 0.3-second time frame between when Mr. Brooks is laughing and cutting hambones on his knee and when he starts to hug the toothless old black harmonica player.  This is when immediate dire symptoms occur.  Certainly anger at seeing an awful commercial is one thing, but these victims had real symptoms ranging from full-fledged migraine headaches to severe abdominal cramping."

    Given the massive, powerful nationwide response to the commercial, concerned officials from the Department of Homeland Security have stepped in to evaluate whether this phenomenon is merely a strange incident or perhaps the covert work of international terrorists.

    Mr. Brooks, ABC, and Dr. Pepper have all pledged complete and immediate cooperation in this ongoing investigation.  In a move to reassure the population, the CDC and the Department of Homeland Security have requested that Mr. Brooks refrain from any further public appearances in the foreseeable future....

...and then I woke up.