Help me, Obi-Wan Fanobis, you're my only hope

[gwyn]

I'm doing some research into fan campaigns to save or bring back shows. (And no, I promise, it won't be for "fans are so silly and live in their parents' basements" kinds of stuff.) And I need your help, oh all knowing wise and powerful flist. (Also, feel free to pass this around if you want.)

1) I can't find a still image of the Variety ad that Firefly fans bought; you know the one, with the "You keep flying, we'll keep watching" stuff. For some reason, the image is no longer linked at fireflyfans.net or browncoats or whedonesque, and I don't even see it on alyson beatrice's own site. I can't find any information about a request to make the image unavailable. I know that there's a shot of it on the DVDs, but I really would prefer a still image. Does anyone know where I can find one, or if it's cached somewhere, or have a copy of that ad?

2) What other fan campaigns used objects to symbolize their attempt to save their show? I can come up with a handful off the top of my head, but I can't remember if other shows used items sent to TPTB -- like, I don't think Sentinel did, but maybe I'm wrong.

So far, I've got:
La Femme Nikita -- sunglasses
Now and Again -- plastic eggs
Roswell -- Tabasco bottles
Jericho --peanuts

Was there anything for Miracles, Wonderfalls, and so on? There are probably plenty of series I wasn't into, so your help would be greatly appreciated.

Comments

[moonpupy.livejournal.com]

Besides lots of letters, Sentinel fans set up an Anthropology Endowment Scholarship (ongoing) at U of BC.

And, I think dueSouth folks sent rubber ducks?

::dazed and confuzed::

[ciardhapagan.livejournal.com]

The original Star Trek series is the first one I know that had a campaign, but all I know they did was write letters, it did net them one more season (unfortunately the lions share of season 3 shows were terribly written.)

[escritoireazul.livejournal.com]

I think Friday Night Lights fans sent mini footballs.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Ooo, mini footballs. Thank you!

[elz.livejournal.com]

I don't think anyone sent ABC rosary beads when Miracles was canceled - a missed opportunity, alas. :)

[deejay.livejournal.com]

We actually sent thousands of paper napkins with the words "God Is Now Here" written on them.

Copies of two of the magazine ads ('Variety' and 'Hollywood Reporter') that ran during the revival campaign are here: http://www.angusmacfadyen.com/miracles.html

More details are at MiraclesHQ.com.

Re:

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

I knew you would totally know this! Thank you.

[imwalde.livejournal.com]

Yup, I was just going to say this, Miracles people sent napkins.

[vamysteryfan.livejournal.com]

Sentinel fans sent in towels for the "damp, not dead" part of the campaign

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Towels! Wow, I had never heard that, even from my Sent friends. I'll add that to the list.

[danceswithwords.livejournal.com]

I seem to remember Veronica Mars fans organizing a campaign to send pillows in to (then) UPN executives, including Dawn Ostroff, during the first season when the show was up for renewal. All of the campaigning for that show was preemptive, though; when it finally got canceled, there wasn't much of a hue and cry, and some fans were actively campaigning to get it canceled. That was a weird fandom.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_jems_/]

Wasn't the pillow just a Kristen Bell thing? Some fans made one for her because she said she was so tired after season 1?

I do remember something with Mars bars. And the skywriting thing. But, like you said, both of those were preemptive.

[danceswithwords.livejournal.com]

You could very well be right about the pillow. I was the active opposite of involved with that fandom, so I heard about a lot of things fifth-hand. I did try googling it, but all I turned up were a bunch of links to bloggers wishing for a pillow fight between Kristen Bell and Ali Larter, which was unenlightening on several different levels. I do remember the skywriting, though,

[par-avion.livejournal.com]

It may not be googleable, since the pillow came from fans at TWOP. And TWOP deletes things after awhile. But spectral_bovine aka Polter Cow would definitely have info.

Someone who was either a fan having a set-tour (or an extra, or both) gave the pillow to Kristen in person.

And I think people may have sent flowers to the UPN exec (Dawn Ostroff) after the show was renewed the first time.

[(Anonymous)]

When Comedy Central cancelled MST3K, there was a fan campaign to urge SciFi to pick it up, and we were successful (yay!). There's a page about it here:

http://home.comcast.net/~mharneyma/mst_can.html

It includes, among other things, a picture of the Variety ad for which a bunch of fans chipped in (yours truly included :) ).

Dorinda

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

I love the eminently pushable buttons link.

[http://users.livejournal.com/wisteria_/]

Good question! While I can't remember if items were sent, I know that VM fans paid for skywriters (google something like "save mars".) and among other things, Everwood fans set up a ferris wheel outside the studio, as a shout-out to a scene in the finale.

Is this for an article? I have to say that I'm a bit weary of how nearly every cancelled show these days has some vehement (and futile) fan campaign. Jericho's renewal was a fluke and, unfortunately, I suspect its fate reinforced the networks' stubborn refusal to pay attention to them. But then I've also grown very cynical about the TV biz, so take that at face value. ;)

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

It's not for an article, but I think this is going to end up being some good material that I might be able to turn into one, actually. The more I find out, the more interested I am.

I kind of agree with you about the campaigns. I mean, I get wanting to save your show -- I certainly sent in enough money and stuff for Firefly, and any number of my other series, and I can't count how much postage I've paid for over the years. But OTOH, I think that the fact that every single series has some kind of campaign has taken away any hope people have of effectiveness, and you really cannot communicate to the cretins who run networks. These are people who think the Neilsens have value still. ANd it's a law of averages, really -- there are so many so it becomes easy to ignore them all; now the shows with the most dedicated audiences and critical support are simply lumped in with mediocre crap.

[deejay.livejournal.com]

We actually sent thousands of paper napkins with the words "God Is Now Here" written on them.

Copies of two of the magazine ads ('Variety' and 'Hollywood Reporter') that ran during the revival campaign are here: http://www.angusmacfadyen.com/miracles.html

More details are at MiraclesHQ.com.

[batwrangler.livejournal.com]

I think Farscape fans sent crackers.

IIRC, someone who worked in a close-to-mail room capacity at a network put up an excellent post advocating postcards and pointing out that no matter how clever, sending theme items isn't a great idea (short version: it overwhelms the mailroom staff but seldom goes any farther than them).

[cofax7]

The Save Farscape campaign did NOT advocate the sending of crackers; the campaign kicked off less than a year after 9/11 and the anthrax scares, so there was a real fear of sending anything that would spook the networks. Which is not to say that some fans didn't send crackers; but we really didn't want them to.

Mostly we sent letters and postcards, to the network and to the advertisers.

Additionally, there was a drive at one point to send bras in clear plastic envelopes, because the president of SciFi announced publicly that there weren't any women watching the show. The bras were later collected and donated to a NYC women's shelter, if I recall correctly. It was a while ago.

[cofax7]

And I'm happy to answer any other questions; I was on the SFS strategy team for the first year of the campaign. However I'm running out the door so I may not be able to reply until tomorrow...

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I remember that Farscape was cancelled at the time LFN was, and the main save LFN groups were actively discouraging people from sending sunglasses, but unfortunately, a lot of people still did -- and I'm sure they were unopened because of those anthrax scares. For my purposes, though, either crackers or cracker boxes will work fine, so I'm happy either way!

Fucking Sci-Fi.

[imwalde.livejournal.com]

This Farscape fan sent postcards made from cracker boxes saying "Crackers DO Matter", since we were advised against actually sending crackers.

If the reference seems obscure, it was a nod to an episode called Crackers Don't Matter.

[imwalde.livejournal.com]

Oh! And Farscape had the first DVD donation campaign I had heard of. We were donating them to libraries and military bases. Veronica Mars later expanded on this model.

http://library.watchfarscape.com/ (http://library.watchfarscape.com/)

http://www.watchveronicamars.net/dvd_drive/ (http://www.watchveronicamars.net/dvd_drive/)

[gattagrigia.livejournal.com]

i know Farscape fans did stuff, but i couldn't remember what - googled this Salon article (http://dir.salon.com/story/ent/tv/feature/2003/03/13/farscape/) that talks about FS as well as several other shows. Farscape fans sent crackers, as well as buying print adds in several papers/mags.

[keerawa.livejournal.com]

Veronica Mars had one.

[paris7am.livejournal.com]

I think that one of the lfn campaigns was sending actual tvs in, (there's nothing worth watching on tv, so) but as far as I remember there were only 10 - 15 sent.

[par-avion.livejournal.com]

Whedon.info has a lot of stuff that they steal from other sites, it may be there.

I participated in the campaign to save JMS' Crusade, and somewhere I have a copy of the advertisement we bought (in either Variety or the Hollywood Reporter).

[ETA: May 29, 1999
Newsflash: Crusade for Crusade has succeeded in raising enough money to pay for an ad in Daily Variety.

http://midwinter.com/lurk/99.whatsnew.html]

Farscape - crackers (from the ep. Crackers Don't Matter) You were supposed to mail the empty box, because of the late-2001/early 2002 anthrax scare.


Veronica Mars - marshmallows? (I *think* people did this)

More citations for Crusade

[par-avion.livejournal.com]

http://www.darkmoonrising.com/voice/camp.asp

http://www.sfcrusade.com/Misc/Mission.html

http://www.fsl.cs.sunysb.edu/pipermail/b5jms/1999-June/003278.html

http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue116/news.html (scroll down)

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

Dresden Files fans sent skulls to TPTB.

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

Ha! Now that's something to send.

[par-avion.livejournal.com]

Well, it wasn't *successful*, but aggrieved Angel fans had portable bill-boards driving around LA saying "We'll follow Angel to Hell...or another network."

http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2004-04-12-angel-fans_x.htm

Firefly Ad

[dkfeatherstone.livejournal.com]

This is a link to a thesis written about fan campaigns for Firefly and Veronica Mars (http://dspace.nitle.org/bitstream/10090/4120/1/220.pdf)

"Big Damn Fans:Fan Campaigns of Firefly and Veronica Mars"

It has a the Variety Ad on page 79 and a photo of Veronica Mars on a two-dollar bill.

Try Googling "you keep flying, we'll keep watching" and you may find more.

Re: Firefly Ad

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

This is great, thank you.

Firefly

[par-avion.livejournal.com]

http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=3&t=889

I can't find a complete copy, but here is a partial copy of the ad:

http://web.archive.org/web/20030208113731/sgcwebdesign.com/fireflysupport/varietyad.html

And there were guerilla art posters that I quite liked:

http://home.att.net/~the11thhour/

Re: Firefly

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

It's just so odd to me that the usual suspects don't have copies anymore of the ad. I'd think that's something people would want to keep around for posterity.

[soundingsea.livejournal.com]

The Saving Angel campaign had character and ship-themed donation days for the Los Angeles Regional Foodbank. I remember I donated on Wesley's day. They still have me on their mailing list.

http://www.whedon.info/Angel-s-Food-Bank-Drive.html
http://whedonesque.com/comments/3348
http://whedonwiki.com/comments/3466#more

[darkravine.livejournal.com]

Wildfire (I know, no one probably even watches that) - sent horseshoes.

[belmanoir.livejournal.com]

i'm pretty sure angel fans donated blood? but i have no solid footnote for that.