In Popular Culture
- From 1940 to 1968 the company sponsored The Bell Telephone Hour on NBC radio and (later) television. The program was devoted to concert performances by various singers and musicians.
- Steven Spielberg's 1982 film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial includes a scene where the title character watches a television commercial for the Bell System, prompting the famous line, "E.T. phone home!" Later that same year the E.T. character appeared in one of Bell's "Reach out and touch someone" ads.
- In the climax of the 1967 satirical film The President's Analyst, it is revealed that "The Phone Company" (TPC) - an obvious allusion to Bell Telephone - is planning a massive conspiracy to surgically implant communications devices into the brains of its customers. Also featured is a TPC-produced propaganda film that parodies The Bell Laboratory Science Series that Frank Capra produced for Bell Laboratories in the 1950s.
- The Beastie Boys alluded to Bell Telephone in their songs "Sure Shot" and "Get It Together" off of the 1994 Ill Communication album by finishing the song with the repetitive line, "Ma Bell, I got the Ill Communication."
Read more about this topic: Bell System
Famous quotes containing the words popular culture, popular and/or culture:
“Popular culture entered my life as Shirley Temple, who was exactly my age and wrote a letter in the newspapers telling how her mother fixed spinach for her, with lots of butter.... I was impressed by Shirley Temple as a little girl my age who had power: she could write a piece for the newspapers and have it printed in her own handwriting.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“The best of us would rather be popular than right.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“He was one whose glory was an inner glory, one who placed culture above prosperity, fairness above profit, generosity above possessions, hospitality above comfort, courtesy above triumph, courage above safety, kindness above personal welfare, honor above success.”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 1, ch. 1 (1962)