Snake Oil

I can't believe nobody's thought of this before.

Vital Statistics

Date: August 20, 2012

Category: Shorts

Appearing: Graham Stark, Paul Saunders, Matt Wiggins and Kathleen De Vere

Writing: Graham Stark

Camera: Kathleen De Vere and Paul Saunders

Boom: Tim Sevenhuysen

Thanks To: Emily Carr House

Editing: Graham Stark

Synopsis

A sales associate for a firm in a Victorian era town comes up with the quintessential "Snake Oil" concept: dirty water marketed as an herbal remedy with nigh miraculous powers, with the text "results may vary" on the bottle so that the seller has an out if and when the substance has no effect. However, he finds that his superiors do not understand the idea, immediately accepting anything he says as truth and having difficulty parsing a direct lie from extremely creative marketing. In frustration, the salesman simply sells the snake oil to them and leaves to run the scheme on his own. In the stinger, he is shown selling a scrap of wood to a housewife, claiming that it performs a variety of chores for her.

Trivia

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