Volume 67, Issue 4

Let’s Go Crazy!

by Reuben Rosenberg

Quizzes. Tests. Reports.  Midterms. They're enough to drive anyone crazy.  And on the night of October 29th, Yeshiva students were no exception.  In an attempt to help the student body relax (both mentally and physically) during this stressful time of year, the American Marketing Association and Advertizing Society Club, both of the Sy Syms School of Business, co-sponsored a presentation of the film “Crazy People” as well as a free meal of pizza from Grandma's Cookie Jar, a local dairy eatery, and some soda and popcorn.  .

At 8 P.M. in Belfer Hall (Wilf Campus), students who needed a break were invited to watch “Crazy People,” a movie featuring Dudley Moore, Darryl Hannah, and Paul Reiser, and enjoy a scrumptious meal of Grandma’s pizza along with some soda and popcorn.

Moshe Kopstick, an SSSB senior and president of the Advertising Society Club, explained his club’s rationale for choosing this particular movie. “I found the film appropriate for the YU and marketing crowd,” he said, “in that not only did it enlighten students on some of the aspects of marketing, a popular major at Sy Syms, but the movie itself introduced us to characters that we could sympathetically familiarize ourselves with for 90 minutes.  After all, we’re all crazy people at heart.”

American Marketing Association President Bradley Cherney was proud of the relatively large number of students the event managed to draw. “This is a prime example of what marketing is all about - when an event can bring in 100 people by promoting it through signs around campus,” he said. “And the free pizza helped too!” 

“Crazy People,” a comedy about “truth in advertising,” as its posters all over the Wilf Campus proclaimed in the week leading up to the event, features Dudley Moore as a stressed-out commercial slogan writer whose boss decides to send him to a mental home to relax his mind when Moore begins to write advertising campaigns that he finds too truthful (e.g. “Buy Volvo: They’re Boxy, but they Safe” or “French People are too Rude; So Come to Greece, We’re Nicer!”).  But Moore’s ads are mistakenly published and disseminated to the public, becoming an unexpected hit, and suddenly Moore and his fellow mental patients find themselves creating more of these ads for his corporation.

The audience, consisting of students from Yeshiva College, Sy Syms, and even a few from the Wurzweiler School of Social Work, appeared to enjoy watching the film; the crowd of over 100 could be seen constantly breaking out in laughter.

Kopstick and Cherney said they hope to plan more such events for students over the coming year.¨

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