Fox Throws A Conspiracy Party For 'Vanished," But No One Shows Up
Wanting to cultivate the kind of obsessive devotion that drives fans of Lost to scrutinize the possibly anachronistic inclusion of home appliances in The Hatch, Fox's publicity department decided to promote fledgling drama Vanished by embedding "enigmatic clues about a larger sinister conspiracy" in the show's press materials, hoping that members of the media would pick up their breadcrumb trail and lead their readers on a symbolic scavenger hunt to the ultimate prize: Nielsens good enough to avoid a hasty cancellation. Unfortunately, writers seem to have better things to do than hunch over a publicity photo with a magnifying glass and wonder if the plunging neckline of Rebecca Gayheart's blouse is a symbolic representation of a "V" or just a run-of-the-mill Fox attempt to spotlight a star's rack. Reports the LAT:
Earley had the photo department embed symbols in the publicity photos — a "9" in the wrinkle of a sleeve, a "V" in the cut of a woman's dress. The publicity kit also included a card that if dipped in water would reveal the number nine (which, of course, is actually the upside-down G), and on that card is the phone number (310) 369-7272, where callers hear the recorded voice of the senator's wife leaving a panicked message for her parents. And because once you start embedding clues and secrets, it must be hard to stop, 7272 spells "Sara" on the telephone keypad. ("That's not even necessary since in theory this is a voicemail, but it shows we were going the extra step," said Earley.)
The only problem is that very few members of the media actually picked up on all those secret clues. A letter attached to the press kit noted, "As with the series nothing is as it seems and all the materials in this kit should be closely examined and kept for analysis throughout the season."
But because they are reporters writing about the new television season, not FBI agents trying to find a missing senator's wife, all those sneaky hints went over the press corp's head (or under its nose) and the secret clues remained shrouded in a fog so deep, reporters never even noticed it was there.
And so yesterday afternoon Josh Governale, the publicist working "Vanished," called to explain the entire situation to the L.A. Times, even offering to show us where the embedded symbols are located in the press photos.
Even though the ambivalent press has to date ignored Fox's efforts to enlist their help in spreading (or even noticing) the Vanished Conspiracy, the Fox publicity department is committed to making their ambitious idea viable. After they determined that no amount of hand-holding would convince deadline-distracted reporters to spend time on their photographic scavenger hunt, they decided to release a more readily decipherable batch of press materials. The first offering in the new series of promotional puzzles is below:
