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The Ultimate Trip - In 1977, the Kawasaki
Motorcycle company sponsored a commercial entitled "The Ultimate Trip." The
commercial showed wildly colored scenery (akin to an hallucinogenic trip) as a
motorcyclist sped down a highway. The commercial ended with the phrase
"Kawasaki. We know why you ride!"
According to the J. Walter Thompson Agency who produced the spot, the
psychedelic landscape (orange trees, green skies) was an attempt to simulate the
"motorcyclist's rush of freedom as things flash by...glowing, going into the
vortex."
However, because the blurring, streaking effects used in the ad were
reminiscent of visual sensations experienced by drug users, the network
officials at both ABC and CBS censored the commercial for allegedly
"contributing to the use of drugs by motorcyclists."
The ad was actually a homage to the climatic psychedelic trip at the
conclusion of the sc-fi classic movie 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) where
the sensations of speed and color and sound all built to a wild crescendo.
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