Last month’s Fake Ad, for the ’80s trivia contest at the Washtenaw Coffee House (page 88), was particularly tricky. Our new-format ads have all contained the previous winner’s name. But this time we made that name, Patsy Morita, the answer to a trivia question in the ad: Who played Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid? The answer is, of course, the late Pat Morita. Close enough, right?
So why are all those people carrying torches and pitchforks? “I think that this ad does not meet the criterion of having the previous winner’s name in the ad,” wrote Chelsea’s Gerald R. Smith. “Yes, the answer to one of the questions is approximately the name of the previous winner, but ‘Pat’ and ‘Patsy’ are not the same. Plus, the name ‘Morita’ does not appear in the ad.”
But, Gerald, if you see “2+2” on a blackboard, don’t you see four? And if someone were to ask you who wrote Arrowsmith, we’ll bet you dollars to donuts you’d have Sinclair Lewis’s sucked-in-cheeks in your mind–except for those of you who thought we’d misspelled the band’s name.
Anyway, 159 Fake Adders saw through our deception. JoAn F. Wetzel, who won our drawing, is taking her gift certificate to Common Grill. Oh, and there really was a Washtenaw Coffee House, run by Ann Arbor’s founders, back in the 1800s.
To enter this month’s contest, find the fake ad and follow the instructions in the box on the bottom of the Back Page. The Fake Ad always contains the name of last month’s winner in some form.
