My wife Barbara and I were watching TV last night when we were surprised during a Lexus commercial to hear the announcer refer to 'something wicked this way comes" as it would relate to the Lexus vehicle. I plan to ask Ray about this tomorrow. I am hoping that they are paying Ray for the use of that line. I'll let you know what Ray says.

I hope they pay Shakespeare as well. Oh, wait ... he's dead.

If that's the case, I hope Ray's paying Shakespeare too!

I think everyone has the same right to borrow lines from Shakespeare, whether for good or evil.

They stole the one phrase from Shakespeare and made up the rest. Ray has nothing to do with car commercials. He's never driven a car in his life and I think the last commercial he wrote was something for the war effort--WWII, that is.

For that matter, the Bard borrowed much from writers who preceded him. It was an accepted fact of the time. Audiences actually looked forward to seeing how a different author would interpret a previously written work.

As Dandelion remarks, Mr. Bradbury is not commercially motivated. He is an inventor and a conjuror, not an imitator or a duplicator. His allusions to other authors (whether in titles, verses, or metpahor) are frequent. However, his themes and plots are always uniquely Bradburian.

Consider some of these authors (and their stories, poems) who have in some way been included in his s.s. or novels: Shakespeare, Poe, Bierce, Dickinson, Dickens, Baum, Blake, Carroll, and then there are the - too many to list here - countless references in F451 (IE, Jonson, Donne, Pope, et al)!

So, if anyone should be getting royalties for the comment in the car ad, maybe in all fairness it should be the 2nd witch in MacBeth(Act VI,sc i):
"By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes:--
Open, locks, whoever knocks!"

Flyboy, good to hear from you again!!!




[This message has been edited by fjpalumbo (edited 06-20-2002).]

Ok, not to sound totally ignorant, but I was unaware of this quote's source. So, it was Shakespeare who wrote this and then Mr. Bradbury who expanded upon it? I thank you for any answers in advance.

Shadow

quote:

Originally posted by ShadowSpiritWolf:
Ok, not to sound totally ignorant, but I was unaware of this quote's source. So, it was Shakespeare who wrote this and then Mr. Bradbury who expanded upon it? I thank you for any answers in advance.

Shadow

That's correct, Shadow. The witches in _Macbeth_ chant the phrase as part of a spell just before the title character comes on stage. Do you know the story? It's a good one, worth seeing if you can. BTW, legend has it that the spells in the play are *real,* and that this partly accounts for "the curse" that befalls those who are part of this play. There is a small troupe of actors in the Los Angeles area putting on a _Macbeth_ production for free, so if you live around here they'd be a good choice. Here is a newspaper article talking about "the curse" and their schedule of performances:
http://www.dailybreeze.com/content/bln/nmbshakes31.html

Love that book but it's from Macbeth as well. :-).

quote:

Originally posted by flyboy:
My wife Barbara and I were watching TV last night when we were surprised during a Lexus commercial to hear the announcer refer to 'something wicked this way comes" as it would relate to the Lexus vehicle. I plan to ask Ray about this tomorrow. I am hoping that they are paying Ray for the use of that line. I'll let you know what Ray says.

My thoughts...
when I first saw the ad for Lexus automobiles more than a year ago now... (2 years?) was...someone on the advertising power board is a Ray Bradbury fan. I can't really see it otherwise! No one else is going to pick up such a specific line from Shakespeare and use it thusly.
(Anyone out there know the ad agency name, at the time, behind Lexus?)

For what its worth, Something Wicked This Way Comes is also the name of an album by Iron Maiden-inspired Iced Earth.

Its also a line in a My Ruin song (cant remember which song): "something wicked this way comes, premeditated evil numbs".

I think it may be in a Bruce Dickinson song too, but I'm not sure.

Somebody wrote a poem with "Something Wicked This Way Comes" as the title. It's actually not bad......(Don't know who the author is)
http://home.satx.rr.com/howboutastory/wisdom_halloween.html

Guapodevil

the commercial writers could quite possibly have used "something wicked this way comes" from Macbeth without thinking of Bradbury. The lines are repeated often in the play by the witches, so it's not like their just random lines that someone picked out.

Keli Linda:::: I don't think so.....

Here's why I say that::::

A "new" generation grows up on something...fads, ideas, and forgets pretty much everything about where they came from. A lot of them do. I know kids who think TV has been around here always. Like...I mean always!! I think some of them grow up and never think about it until someday they read about it and say, Hey, lots of stuff wasn't here before. Now, Macbeth? Good grief that's stuffy stuff.... while Bradbury, Niven, Herbert, Asimov, well that's new stuff, science-fiction, outer worlds.

I've been around the advertising and publishing fields for 30 years and have never Never!!! heard the term "...something wicked this way comes..." applied to an advertised object . Why now? Well, because now here comes up and coming Ad Directors who remember not especially Macbeth, but much more Bradbury...and think, maybe, Hey, I can have the best of both worlds, classic literature and classic Bradbury. And if we somewhere in the far back of our head remembered Macbeth...we surely don't have to think too far to remember the music from Arthur C. Clarke's 2001. It's all classical music...but we remember it as the film 2001. Alex North wrote the music for 2001 and Director Kubrick dumped it all in favor of "old" music.

The new robot from Japan is named "Asimo", in honor of guess who!! Even "robot" is a word invented (coined) by Isaac Asimov. Now there be a bunch of people in a whole new generation who won't have any idea who Isaac "Asimov" is, but will certainly know who "Asimo" is. It's brand new!!

The old Flash Gordon films from the 1930's with Buster Crabbe is great symphony music from the 1800's. I couldn't tell you the name off hand of the composer if you presented me with a new car, but I'll tell you right away, it's Flash Gordon Music.

I'll stretch it a little further. Cyber-Space. Gee, I was on Cyber-Space when I was a kid. Didn't know it.... My grandparents, too. They didn't know it either. But we didn't call it that. Because "Cyber-Space" defined is "... the space you create with your mind, in conjunction with the other person on the other end that you don't see...a space by which you both move about within your mind as you talk or communicate. It's a place that only exists in your thinking." Gee!! we were doing that on the "telephone" years back, but there wasn't a name for it. Now there is.

Well, to get a real answer to the question, like I stated before somewhere in posted replies, it'd be nice to find out the exact Ad Agency for Lexus that did the SWTWC ad, and find the exact individual who actually came up with the name, and ask him directly. What would that person say?? Hmmmm!!

Sorry if a duplicate show up here.
The first one was long enough.

[This message has been edited by Nard Kordell (edited 09-12-2002).]

Okay okay....
I did some looking and actually found the Ad Agency that did the ad with the Something Wicked This Way Comes line....and also the name of a person who will probably know the creative genius behind the Lexus ad. The ad agency is in El Segunda, California. ((Gee, "almost" Ray's back yard.)) They're called:: TeamOne

And yes, lots of people use the line... Sting has a song with that line in it, Jeremiah Blues. Also a title of a song by D. Pesch. And in David Lynch's movie, Lost Highway, there is a song sung by Barry Adamson, with that title... And Heavy Metal group, In Ruin, use the line...

But I am sure...Really Sure, that "all" these people are " NOT " Ray Bradbury fans, or are even familiar with his works. But I will say that there can be found some connections with some. I'll report later what I find out on the Lexus ad ....