Sometimes events just overtake your brand management strategy and turn it to shit:
And when that happens, you just have to rethink your marketing plan, even if it’s not fair:
Via CNN:
Colorado spirituality bookstore named Isis vandalized
ENGLEWOOD, Colo. – A Denver-area store called Isis Books & Gifts wants the world to know its name comes from the Egyptian goddess of healing and motherhood, and it isn’t a retail store run by terrorists.
Co-owner Jeff Harrison says the suburban Denver store has been vandalized five times in the past year or so, probably by people who mistake the name for ISIS, one of the acronyms for the Islamic State terrorist group.
The latest vandalism came last weekend. A store sign was smashed after the terrorist attacks in Paris.
Harrison says the store has been around since 1980, selling books and gifts related to spirituality and healing.
He says the goddess Isis symbolizes caring human traits, the opposite of terrorism. He says he and his wife intend to keep the name.
I’m guessing the Harrisons are hoping the “Daesh” trend takes off.
Look, I can understand their attachment to the name. The goddess had that name before any of the squabbling Abrahamic religions came on the scene, and the bookstore laid claim to it before most members of the terrorist group were even born.
Besides, 20 years ago, I saw a bumper sticker that said “Ankh If You Love Isis,” and that was amusing. But as far as the bookstore is concerned, their brand may be beyond saving at this point. Might be time to give it up, if only to spare the signage from future drunken yahoos.
Open thread!
jeffreyw
I miss the plop plop fizz fizz guy.
The Golux
My sister used to have one of those “Ankh If You Love Isis” stickers, but I think that was on her previous Subaru; not sure if she has one on the newer Crosstrek.
Luthe
The TV show Archer has had a similar problem. The parody spy organization at the center of the show was named ISIS and they had to change the name and merchandising when Daesh came on the scene.
ThresherK
You forgot Goobers.
Back when Fries were Freedomy, in central CT the French Dry Cleaners had to go on local TV news to remind people that their name was French, not their heritage. Our local TV clowns really douched all over themselves to bothsides the hell out of it. Nothing wry or open-minded about it.
Glad to know everybody who needed to has learned something in the last dozen years.
Eric U.
there was something called ISIS more close to home, but memory fails me. Seeing how close we are to achieving a society closely modeled after “Idiocracy,” renaming a bookstore is probably the least of our problems.
schrodinger's cat
Downton Abbey killed Isis for the same reason. Poor doggie.
Lori
Pity poor Bob Dylan:
http://www.bobdylan.com/us/songs/isis
bluefoot
ISIS Pharmaceuticals also announced they are considering changing their name. I believe their stock ticker is ISIS.
ThresherK
@Luthe: I remember the story arc of Archer Vice, and how they came back, but I can’t believe I never put the two together.
Wait, I had something for this!
BillinGlendaleCA
Verizon’s tap-to-pay software was called ‘ISIS’, it was renamed last year.
Thoughtful Today
FYI:
The CNN link appears to actually be the A.P. via TBO.com (The Tampa Tribune).
beltane
Real Americans also hate New Age feminist spirituality and the people who practice it so it’s a win-win for stoopid.
benw
Cracker writes post on names that have to be changed because their new meaning is bad!
VincentN
I understand why businesses would want to change their ISIS type names but I think it’s a shame. Not only is it ceding a perfectly nice name (how many girls will be named Isis now?) to the terrorists it gives assholes the idea that it’s okay to go around vandalizing businesses with an ‘inappropriate’ moniker.
SiubhanDuinne
I know a woman who has a five-year-old daughter named Isis. It’s a pretty name, but I feel really sorry for the kid — through no fault of her own, I’m afraid she may start to be subjected to cruel teasing, bullying, or shunning. I don’t expect this behaviour to originate with her fellow kindergarteners, by the way, but with their idiot, bigoted parents.
jl
Sadly Dianne Feinstein seems have joined the pants pissing panic brigade. I heard her on the news this morning saying we need to ‘do something’ and Obama’s strategy has not worked. Why” Just buzzwords: they’ve ‘expanded’ and ‘gotten bigger’. What is that supposed to mean?
DiFi, when she is good she is very very good, when she is bad, she can be very very bad.
I think Waleed Aly in the ‘ISIL is weak’ post had it right. Don’t see many (any?) people like that on corporate US media. I wonder why?
I’ve thought about the Isis name problem before. I’ll quit using that name, then, if innocent people are getting bashed because other people are so ignorant and rash and hateful.
Matt McIrvin
@jl: Isn’t Feinstein pretty much a neocon when it comes to foreign policy?
beltane
@SiubhanDuinne: In 20 years, the name Isis will be returned to the goddess who has owned it for 4,000 years while America’s collective underpants will be soiled with the residue of dozens of new “Eek, skeery people! I is skeered!” cycles.
Betty Cracker
@benw: It isn’t considered a pejorative where I’m from — nothing wrong with being a Saltine-American. But good point.
scav
Brand America is pretty much past its best-by date — was tattered but generally upright in a a world of similar, but shit, this current attack of the screaming competitive outright thoughtless but considered nastiness leaves a really bad taste in the mouth.
BGinCHI
I’m guessing “ISIS” is still the safe word in the Cruz bedroom when Ted and Mrs. Cruz are doing it with their Reagan masks on.
Shakezula
Does this mean everyone named Christian should change his name?
Baud
Obama tried to get us to say ISIL, but once again, we didn’t listen.
beltane
@Matt McIrvin: Yes, without a doubt. She was less eager than most to kiss Netanyahu’s ass, but that could just be because he’s a jerk and she wasn’t going to be credibly labeled an anti-Semite. Other than that, she is fairly conservative on foreign policy issues.
jl
@Matt McIrvin: Sometimes she is, sometimes she isn’t.
She strongly supported the Iraq nuclear negotiations and the deal, and her cred at foreign policy and national security made that very important.
Sometimes she goes neocon and goofy. What really bothered me this morning is that her reasons were so vague. ISIS has ‘expanded’. What is that supposed to me. It is true that suddenly they have turned to terrorism, or as pointed out in the ‘ISIL is Weak’ claiming credit for what loners, or independent operations that they franchised by promising cash, have done. That is ‘expanded’ in a sense. But does it mean they are stronger, or they are lashing out in desperation because things have slowly turned from a stalemate to ISIL staring to lose. They have lost territory, have lost several key outpots, Sinjar being the latest, and their cash flow has been reduced. I don’t claim to know, but I am sick of the cowardly and stupid panic.
schrodinger's cat
@BGinCHI: Eewww, brain bleach please.
beltane
@Baud: He was pilloried for that if I recall. I hope that as pesident you will remember to use language that the average American can understand. Focus group testing on lobotomized baboons may help with this.
trollhattan
@Matt McIrvin:
Well, yes, especially anything remotely in Israel’s neighborhood.
Thoughtful Today
Interesting.
If wikipedia is correct*:
^ That TV show had kids in ’70’s watching a woman battling and besting bad people. Assuming wikipedia’s correct, it was a trailblazing show. It’s on the short list of reasons I’d prefer not to sacrifice the word Isis to a bunch of terrorist psychopaths.
* Skepticism of Wikipedia is always wise.
beltane
@jl: On has to wonder if this is not about Daesh at all, but about a desire to limit Putin’s influence in the region. Before we were always at war with everyone else, we were always at war with Russia.
jl
A comment on the always infamous site redesign(s). I don’t care what the site looks like as long as it is reasonably easy to read.
It would be nice to have a redesign that focuses solely on longstanding glitches like comments being eaten, unexplained access errors, and comment glitches, like not being able to edit a comment you just posted. But maybe those are FYWP issues that can’t be fixed?
A guy
The Muslim in chief keeps changing the name to obscure the fact he’s one of them.
beltane
@Thoughtful Today: I remember that show well.
Linnaeus
The flagship journal of my academic specialty is named Isis. I’m hoping the editors don’t feel compelled to change it.
jl
@beltane: Maybe so. I think that is stupid. We saw where obsession with cherishing outdated great power rivalries as the only important thing in US foreign affairs got W and Cheney early in their miserable term of malfeasance.
BillinGlendaleCA
@jl:
Agreed, 100% agreed. This is one of the reasons I voted against her in the primary last time around.
beltane
@jl: DiFi is old and is hardwired to see the world exclusively in Cold War terms.
BGinCHI
@A guy: Let’s say it’s a warm summer day. You are wearing shorts and a t-shirt or a short-sleeved button down.
Do you tuck in the shirt or leave it out?
Patrick
@jl:
Feinstein also voted for the idiotic war in Iraq. Then again, so did the 20 other Democratic senators.
BR
@jl:
Damnit…I was thinking I should call her and didn’t get to it and now she’s mouthing off about this in stupid ways. I just called her office and shouted at them.
Other Californians, please do so as well.
kindness
@beltane: How would DiFi be an anti-semite? She’s Jewish.
Baud
@beltane:
I’d like to promise I’d use no more than two syllables in my speeches, but “syllables” has three syllables in it, so I’m screwed.
Villago Delenda Est
Pantspissing cowards screwing up everything around them in their blind, unthinking, hatred driven panic.
lamh36
@Eric U.: ISIS was also a superhero character on one of Shazam tv show wasn’t it?
Amir Khalid
@jl:
@A guy:
We also need a site redesign that forces trolls to up their game. “A guy” is not providing adequate entertainment value.
Villago Delenda Est
@A guy: Just when you think this drooling troll can’t get any more moranic, he pulls this shit.
benw
@Betty Cracker: I’m mostly being silly – I’m not offended by your nym, although some others could be, I guess. Maybe if you wanted to change, you could hypenate? Betty Ritz-Cracker! :)
ETA: Saltine-American = LOL.
Baud
Dammit. Now I want to see a “Take Back ISIS” movement.
Heritage, Not Hate.
Mike in NC
I can vaguely recall a story from the 1979 Iran Hostage Crisis. Some couple had a vanity plate on their car that read “IRAN” (combined their names Ira and Ann) and it was soon vandalized by Idiot-Americans.
dedc79
Things aren’t going to get any easier for our President over the next week. Fresh off of dealing with all this Republican nonsense, now this:
father pussbucket
Fascinating.
gelfling545
@Baud: You’d think he’d know this by now. He needs to command people to say ISIS, then the GOP will raise hell & insist on calling it something else.
Betty Cracker
@jl: I’d recommend dropping this suggestion in the thread downstairs, where those with the power to fix it are more likely to see it!
The Ancient Randonneur
The anti-refugee folks do have a point. When the original Christian European refugees came to the so-called New World they ended up almost wiping out the entire indigenous population.
beltane
@kindness: Exactly. She was free to criticize Netanyhu’s meddling in a way that others may not have been.
Mike in NC
@Villago Delenda Est: If A Stupid Guy had any balls, he’d be packing his guns and crossbow and night vision goggles to head off to Syria to kill him some Mooslims, like any upstanding Real Murcan ammosexual.
Denali
@Baud,
Put it in your platform.
Tommy
@Linnaeus: I so hope not.
beltane
@Baud: Just grunt and make serious faces. It worked for W.
ThresherK
Since this is an open thread:
Which one of our number went to Cassie’s Kitten Kastle in CT for their livecam event? We watched some of it and the kittens were adorable.
kdaug
@Thoughtful Today: I remember that. It was the Shazaam/Isis Hour.
IIRC, she’d cross her wrists and say “Almighty Isis!” and go poof. Same as Shazaam, but with a girl.
kindness
@beltane: – Frankly I can’t stand DiFi. As a N. Cali resident she represents me poorly. There is no need for the Scoop Jackson hawk show she is always on when it comes to foreign policy or our spying agencies. Having said that I’ve always held my nose and voted for her in the General Election because any of the idiot Republicans running against her have always been far worse.
BillinGlendaleCA
@BGinCHI: EWWWW!!! I need BrainBleach.
Gin & Tonic
There is an Internet routing protocol called ISIS. But that’s pretty obscure, and it’s certainly not going to be changed. Deep geek joke: to be perfectly accurate it’s IS-IS (hyphen in between) and it is known to be difficult to implement correctly, so at a tech conference a long time ago some wags made a t-shirt that said: IS – IS = 0
You had to be there.
Baud
@beltane:
Ugh.
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne: I think I’d call the child “Iris” in the meantime. It’s a pretty name too.
A guy
As a devout Muslim I’m surprised Obama let’s his wife drive a car. Oh wait, has anybody seen her drive a car?
Elizabelle
@ThresherK: Was it PurpleGirl?
eemom
Reposted from earlier: the correct term to use now because it pisses the murdering monsters off is Daesh.
eta: Sorry, I see this has already been noted on this thread.
Amir Khalid
@A guy:
If you are a Muslim, then I’m the Grand Mufti of Istanbul.
M31
The online software for students to pick their courses at Johns Hopkins is called ISIS, “Integrated Student Information System.” No talk of changing it.
“oh man ISIS isn’t going to like that credit load”
“oh shit ISIS waitlisted me for Orgo”
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
Bigot humiliated by grammar. Nice.
Gimlet
Chicago Trib
A day after Gov. Mike Pence told all state agencies to suspend the resettlement of additional Syrian refugees in Indiana after the deadly attacks in Paris, an Indiana Family & Social Services official sent letters Tuesday to two organizations that help settle refugees saying the placement of the two Syrian families had been suspended.
One of the families has been has been waiting in Jordan for three years before getting approval to move to the U.S., according to the New York Times. The family of three will be resettled in New Haven, Conn., the Times reports.
“Indiana has a long tradition of opening our arms and homes to refugees from around the world but, as governor, my first responsibility is to ensure the safety and security of all Hoosiers,” Pence said in a statement Tuesday.
Patricia Kayden
Even the normally peaceful, diversity-friendly Canadians are engaging in anti-Islam behavior. Sad to see. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/mosque-peterborough-fire-1.3320013
Villago Delenda Est
@Gimlet: Pence is cowardly scum.
Patricia Kayden
I notice that all my comments with links end up stuck in moderation so will just say that sadly even (normally diversity-friendly) Canadians have succumbed to anti-Islam behavior with an arson attack on a mosque near Toronto. Sigh.
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid: Well, I’m Tsar of all the Russias, so it’s possible.
Gimlet
OMG, this is not parody!
From Shoebat.com
We speak of the terrorists who killed French people, but I will tell you this, France is a terrorist nation. The French were bombing and killing Christians, and no one flinched. The French bombed the Serbs in the 90s; the French killed Christians! The French President Jacques Chirac proudly spoke of how France bombed Christian Serbs who were defending themselves against Muslim Albanians. “I know that the French people will understand that we had to act,” Chirac said. “Before the unjustified and incomprehensible obstinacy of President Milosevic, the allies unanimously agreed that there was no other choice than to intervene militarily against targeted Serbian objectives. This in order to contain a tragedy which endangers the stability of the Balkans more and more.”
Never mind the fact that the Albanians were kidnapping Christian Serbs and dissecting them alive, the French didn’t care about this evil reality, but continued to kill Serbs.
Muslim Albanians in Kosovo are capturing Christians, dissecting them alive, tearing out their organs, killing the victims, and then selling the organs to Saudi Arabia and Turkey, the two major nations of the Antichrist. We learned this from a local Serbian Christian and veteran Special Forces officer in Serbia’s military, named Lazar. We interviewed him and this is the information he conveyed to us. He said “They also kill people and sell their organs in Turkey and Saudi Arabia.” He then said,
They abduct people in Kosovo, Serbian people — in some cases Albanian people — and they take their organs… they torture the people and take their organs while they are still live.
He added that the victims are mostly “Christian serbs, young women, and men, and also children.”
Amir Khalid
@Patricia Kayden:
From time to time, even a generally civilised nation like Canada will hoik up a Rob Ford or a Ted Cruz. Let’s not hold it against them.
max
@jl: @jl: Sometimes she goes neocon and goofy. What really bothered me this morning is that her reasons were so vague. ISIS has ‘expanded’. What is that supposed to me. It is true that suddenly they have turned to terrorism, or as pointed out in the ‘ISIL is Weak’ claiming credit for what loners, or independent operations that they franchised by promising cash, have done. That is ‘expanded’ in a sense. But does it mean they are stronger, or they are lashing out in desperation because things have slowly turned from a stalemate to ISIL staring to lose.
Right after Daesh expanded into Palmyra against the Syrian Army, they also took Ramadi.
Suddenly, ‘ISIS is still growing’ or ‘ISIS is expanding’ became the new CW buzzphrase. Ramadi is WAY behind the front line in Anbar, but a bunch of Iraqi army dudes had held out there for a year. The problem is, is that Daesh contracted a bunch in other places, but that doesn’t count when you’re a hawk humping it for more war. (And also are incompetent at reading and understanding maps.)
DiFi is a total fucking neo-con and she’s undoubtedly been pushing for the ‘Let’s go to war with Putin over the Ukraine’ and the ‘Let’s knock off Assad and end the Syrian civil war’ bang bang.
If you need to understand the current line being pushed out, here’s Michael Gerson giving you the ‘reasonable moderate’ scheme. The thing is titled ‘America’s politicians are feeding the Islamic State narrative‘:
Basically he’s arguing another version of the same line that’s been pushed for four years: Leaving Iraq Was a Terrible Mistake, We Must Reoccupy Iraq, and Invade Syria Using a ‘Coalition’ of the Same States That Have Been Funding Daesh to Destroy Assad Because It’s All His Fault’
(Theory: if we get rid of Assad, Syria will turn into a magical democratic paradise. AKA they will throw roses at our tanks. We can then occupy that country and make it a democracy and then we can get on with that war with Iran we should be fighting. To liberate the Iranian people, of course.)
Since the three named targets in World War IV (by Irving Kristol & David Frum) were Iran, Iraq and Syria, guess what the new targets are?
DiFi was a big Iraq war supporter if you’ll recall.
max
[‘Same shit, different day.’]
jl
@max: Of course Turkey and the Gulf States will be more reliable partners in going after ISIL/Daesh than the Soviet Union, which is part of the Evil Empire. /snark.
SiubhanDuinne
@M31:
Does no one remember the Wisconsin Tourism Federation? They had to change their name about five or six years ago because of all the acronym jokes.
scav
@Gimlet: Well, at least the Jordanians got a happy ending. Imagine having to live in Indiana.
Eta: Also, welcoming with open hearts? Nonsense, isn’t that the land of the purity pizzas? (One of)
Iowa Old Lady
An engineering college I taught at had a Science & Math Department. They eventually changed it to Math & Science to avoid the jokes.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Thoughtful Today:
I used to watch it, though I remember the title as “Mighty Isis,” probably because that was the catch phrase. I remember liking it, but I couldn’t tell you anything about a particular episode.
This was, of course, pre-Reagan. All of that inclusive racial and feminist stuff went off the air once the Reagan years started. Take a look at the cast of the original “Battlestar Galactica” and be amazed at how whitewashed the remake was.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@dedc79:
It’s not quite as bad as all that, at least according to the story:
What the US really needs to do is fucking step up to the plate and take more refugees. France is accepting 300,000 and we’re only accepting 10,000? What a fucking embarrassment.
Thoughtful Today
The children’s TV show Isis, beyond showing a powerful women as the lead protagonist (which, according to wikipedia was unprecedented??), was also about a positive non-Christian Goddess.
Feminist. Goddess. ’70’s tv.
(Mentioning Battlestar Galactica reminded me of that ^ … B.G. also had a non-Christian theology of Greek Gods and Goddesses.)
Thoughtful Today
women > woman
Luthe
@Gimlet: The score is now Connecticut 2, Indiana 0.
(Our governor took a hatchet to Pence after Pence signed the “it’s our religion to hate gays” bill).
Cacti
Senate Dem leader in waiting, Chuck Schumer, takes time to remember the real victims of the Paris attacks…
Israel.
Fair Economist
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
I was just thinking that reading about Wonder Woman, Secrets of Isis, and the Bionic Woman, which were all on at the same time IIRC and were all very focused on their female leads. Today it seems even with shows with a female lead like Mindy the supporting cast is more male and very prominent. 40 years and so little progress.
okay, then
How has the U.S. become such a country of dumbasses?
Fair Economist
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): The fundamental problem in Syria and with Daesh is literally billions in Wahhabi money coming from the Gulf states. As long as that flood continues, we’ll have horrible problems with stability and terrorism and no amount of bombs on Raqqa will help. It’s interesting that the Republicans rant about Iranian money supporting terrorism when it’s been something like a decade since they helped fund such, while much larger Gulf Arab funds are supporting terrorism right now and they don’t give a peep.
Cacti
@okay, then:
Become?
The Pale Scot
So I had my FL man/women moment today…
I volunteer at a foodbank downtown, today a disgruntled client verbally abused my boss and left; and then returned to stand outside near the property and wave a piece of box cardboard around with “we hate jews” whitewashed on it. Best part, on the other side she had written “we help hate jews”. So I showed my boss the “get a brain moran” pic on the internet and other tea party signs, I never really saw anyone’s jaw drop before I guess.
Her favorite was “homescoolers for Perry”
The client looked like an extra from deliverance, if she’s jewish I’m Somali.
and
Betty, how do you catch those little lizards that stand under the threshold and panic when you open the door and then rush into the house?
Happens every couple of days, eventually they all climb up to the top of my monitor and watch me read BJ. But they never trust me enough to let me corral them.
The Pale Scot
@jl:
What?!! the Senator from Mossad! I’m SO suprised>
Cacti
@jl:
Can’t let hubby’s hedge fund miss out on a new war bucks opportunity.
Can’t wait to see her retire.
The Pale Scot
@Matt McIrvin: Huh, hello!
Senator Dianne Feinstein is jewish.
So sorry, this was meant for
@beltane:
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/feinstein-dianne
What, are you from Kansas are something?
Uncle Cosmo
Patiently waiting for the crowd in the Guy Fawkes masks to shazaam ISIS into WASWAS….
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Fair Economist:
The one counterexample I can think of off the top of my head is “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” where the leads are four women and a (black) gay man.
I suspect a little bias with Mindy. After all, we already have an Indian woman as the lead, can’t surround her with a bunch of chicks, amirite?
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@The Pale Scot:
In Hawaii, people let geckos live in their houses (even buy them specially at pet stores) to eat bugs. It may depend on your tolerance for sharing your house with reptiles.
RSA
@Thoughtful Today:
Cool! I didn’t know that. But yeah, the first thing to come to mind when I hear the name ISIS is the superhero.
The Pale Scot
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): I love the guys, and I’ve left water out for them. But I always find them emaciated and dried up. The roaches that infiltrate my house are as big as them, so they don’t have a food supply to exploit, I want to get them back outside if they can’t live inside.
I’m pretty sure part of the reason is they’re avoiding the bigger guys outside. I’d feed them if I could figure out how. But they don’t stay in the kitchen where it’s moist(er), they like my office where the A/C is most powerful.
Maybe they’re Scottish geckos avoiding the humidity and attracted my playing Silly Wizard!
shell
Sweet Jesus, Jesus, Jesus…..
Between the Syrian refugee pants-wettig,Ted Cruz’s bullshit about Obama personally insulting him (oh, yeah, Id love to see how he stands up if the President actually took him up on his offer and went face to face.), wing nuts calling for the closing of mosques….well, ‘despair’ doesn’t quite cover it.
For the rest of the night, I think a couple of glasses of chardonnay and a search for a good movie is in order.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@RSA:
I realize in retrospect that those of us who were children in the mid-70s enjoyed a brief golden age of cultural inclusion. Female superheroes, black science fiction heroes, Free To Be You And Meon the record player at school and summer camp. Hell, even my Catholic Church was singing Beatles songs during Mass.
Fucking adults elected Reagan and ruined everything.
Mike G
@Thoughtful Today:
I remember watching the Isis show Saturday mornings when I was a kid in the 70s. It was always paired with Shazam, about a teenager with super powers, from the same production company — the Shazam/Isis hour.
I remember after 9/11 there was a story about Middle Eastern restaurant somewhere in the US called Osama’s Place, and the local customers were supporting the owner and continuing to patronize the place.
The Pants-Pissing Stupid that brought us Freedom Fries never went away, it was only dormant.
J R in WV
@Amir Khalid:
Congratulations on your promotion!!!
We hope it comes with a munificent pay raise!
Steeplejack
@Luthe:
I thought Archer missed a golden opportunity to make comedy lemonade out of that situation—Malory Archer: “What? Some crackpot terrorist group has stolen our name?!”—but then came the grisly beheadings phase of ISIS, so I can see why they quietly deep-sixed everything.
Lurking Canadian
@Thoughtful Today: Battlestar Galactica was hip deep in Von Daniken-style Ancient Astronaut horseshit. If wasn’t so much theology as it was History Channel.
RSA
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): I never thought of it that way, but you’re right. “Free To Be You And Me” didn’t ring a bell, but then I looked it up on youtube and… oh yeah.
Also, thanks for indirectly solving a mystery for me. Your comment about inclusiveness made me wonder about gay-themed children’s TV shows in the ’70s (hints, at least). Nothing jumped out at me, but a few links later I ended up on “Danger Island”, completely unrelated to what I was looking for, but a show I’d been trying to remember for at least a decade.
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
What was then known as Women’s Lib was riding high, and as I remember it, after the SHAZAM! show became popular enough to merit renewal, there was a campaign for a female version of Captain Marvel (an adult; the female version in the Capt. Marvel universe always remained a teen post-transformation) and the whole Isis character and program was cobbled together very, very quickly.
Truncated history: The “Big Red Cheese” Captain Marvel (SHAZAM) character goes back to the 40s, and was a major hit, regularly outselling even Superman and Batman during the years of WW2.. In an example of irony, the comics division of Fawcett (publisher of, among others, comics set in the Captain Marvel universe) was effectively put out of business in the very early 50s by a successful lawsuit from DC Comics (publishers of Superman). That Captain Marvel lay in mothballs for decades, during which time Marvel Comics managed to take advantage of a gap in trademark renewal and scoop up certain use rights to the name, and also during which time DC purchased the remaining rights to the long dormant comics characters from Fawcett and put out a new comics series more or less concurrent with the TV series. Because Marvel Comics had use rights as a title, the comic and the TV series could not be titled Captain Marvel, so the SHAZAM! name became the new standard.
A very inside joke in the Archer show was the multi-episode arc featuring, as Sterling Archer repeatedly referred to him, “TV’s Michael Gray!” teaming with the agents of ISIS. Gray had played Billy Batson, the kid who became Capt. Marvel, in the SHAZAM! TV series..
NotMax
@RSA
Well, there was always the fey H. R. Pufnstuf and Charles Nelson Reilly’s Hoodoo in the multitudinous Krofft shows of the time.
May be faulty memory, but vaguely recall some whispering of a (deeply buried) gay-related sub-sub-sub-theme in 1976’s Ark II kids’ series.(or perhaps just in an isolated episode).
JDM
If ISIS/ISIL was really smart they’d change their name to Jesus.
redshirt
@JDM: Lords of Jesus
Betty Cracker
@The Pale Scot: My daughter is a wiz at catching them. Her trick seems to be distracting them by moving her left hand and then coming up behind them with her right.