Kurt in St. George, our Slice of Trivia guru, sent us an email stating that either the SCI FI Channel or the writers for “Eureka” or taking a page straight out of the Rowdy Roddy Piper “They Live” play-book.
It seems this fan had recorded episode one of this season’s SCI FI Channel “Eureka” series on his TiVo. When Kurt played it back, at the end of the show, just before SCI FI began its blasphemous wrestling match this message came up for a micro-second — “LISTEN” appeared on the screen. He had to replay the segment frame by frame in stop motion before he could make it out, but there it was. The only reason he even thought to do so was because he thought he saw a flash of something out of the corner of his eye and did the frame-by-frame playback to see what it was he may have missed, since playing it in normal time revealed nothing.
For those who may not be familiar with Roddy Piper, he was a famous wrestler in the 1980’s that became an actor and his most popular movie was called “The Live,” a sci-fi movie about aliens invading Earth by using subliminal messages on TV, movies, billboards, or wherever visual aids were used. The film was directed by John Carpenter and was actually a pretty descent story.
Could SCI FI be using such a method to capture an audience for wrestling from a group of sci-fi geeks who would normally click off the channel at the end of Eureka? Stranger things have happened.
If you still have this particular episode of “Eureka” taped on your TiVo or DVR, try the exercise and see if you get the same subliminal “LISTEN” message. Some members of the SCI FI Channel forum state they also noticed the message. Call in our voicemail number 206-339-TREK, that’s 206-339-8735, and tell us if you caught it too.
I’ve noticed the messages too. Glad to know I’m not crazy!
That’s waugh. Eff that waugh!
“Could SCI FI be using such a method to capture an audience for wrestling from a group of sci-fi geeks who would normally click off the channel at the end of Eureka?”
Well, if they are, it’s not working.
Eureka seems to be borrowing from the SoSF playbook too.
Remember last year’s contest for the best invention we’d like to see come out of Eureka. The winner was the “Poopless Dog.”
Robot dogs were the B story line in this week’s episode.
Scare Tactics start with “listen” Is this the same Listen??
So, I noticed it after tonight’s episode of Eureka. I figure that it’s one of 4 things:
1.) Some sort of viral campaign (most likely)
2.) Some joke by the writers of Eureka or it might somehow relate to a future episode
3.) Something to do with the “beginning” of the wrestling show – nothing to do with Eureka at all
4.) They have been here for a long time and only now are there a few lucky ones who have become aware of their deception
So, number 4 would be fun, we could wear cool sunglasses, blow up stuff, get into long exceptionally brutal fistfights in the alleyway, travel to distant planets and save the world, but I have a feeling number 1 is the correct answer…
It was a viral campaign for Scare Tactics:) Yep, Larry was right, it was the same Listen.