For as long as I can remember I've been talking about this business plan of mine where I would be a sign/menu/promotional material maker for immigrants who want their piece of the American dream by owning a small business, but can't yet grasp Engrish. Although it would deprive me of endless unintentional comedy, the public good outweighs the funny. On one of our first dates, my girl told me that if she won the lotto, she'd start a charity and go around fixing fucked up "Good Lak" style broken English signs and be a copy editor for menus across the city. I liked that idea so much I married her.
So a little while ago I'm in my local deli getting Mexican Dynamite coffee and I notice that my boys fucked up the sign in a funny way. The NY Lotto has a tag line of "Hey, you never know" (this is important to the story) and in their zeal to attract more customers for the $185 million dollar MegaMillions jackpot, Jose and Diego put up a home made sign advertising their wares. Unfortunately, their grasp of marketing was just slightly worse than their English. Their genius promotional tool: "Mega Million $185 million. You will never know." At first I chuckled at the thought of an evil shopkeeper refusing to let the lotto addicts know if they had a winner, but I had to help my boys. So I did the good deed and rewrote their sign, patted myself on the back for fulfilling a lifelong dream and walked away with a net profit of one Cafe Bustelo AKA Cafe BurntAss-O.
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I thought this was gonna be about Johnny Carson's announcer, the honorable retired Colonel Edward "Ed" Peter Leo McMahon, Jr. Talk about false advertising!
Speaking of false advertising, did you know McMahon was actually down with "American Family Publishing Sweepstakes" and NOT "Publishers Clearing House"!
Is this not the biggest pop-culture misconception ever?!
This is deeper than people thinking Rick Astley was black!
Or that Zelma Davis was actually singing that shit in C&C Music Factory when we all know it was none other than big bad momma Martha Wash.
Publishers Clearing House was actually a competitor to "American Family Publishing" that ran a similar sweepstakes.
The two companies were oft mistaken for each other, with Ed McMahon and Dick Clark, the spokespeople for AFP, mistaken for representatives of the more well known Publishers Clearing House.
The plot thickens...
Publishers Clearing House continues to remain in business and promote its products by means of sweepstakes.
But wait, there's more!
Now a company called "American Family Publishing", also named & designed to be confused with McMahon's "American Family Publishers", uses online classified ads to try to lure old people into sending them money deposits to help make "crafts" or do at home "typing".
I need a nap. This investigative journalism bit is tiring.
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