When penguins fly
Posted: Tuesday, June 24, 2008 3:10 AM by Allison Linn
When most people think about winning the lottery, they think about what they could do for themselves with the money: buy a new house or a flashy car, perhaps, or quit that dead-end job.
A new commercial for the Washington state lottery poses the more altruistic question: “Whose world could you change?”
In their quirky universe, the answer is that you could offer a little joy ride to birds that can’t fly well, or at all, on their own.
 |
| Daniel Berehulak / Getty Images file |
|
The ad shows a penguin, a chicken and even an emu being strapped into hang gliders and, with human companions to guide them, given the experience of swooping through the air.
Remarkably, none of them looks that freaked out -- although that is likely because, according to the state lottery, these are trained birds working with professionals. The penguin even flaps its little wings a bit, as if testing out what it would be like to really fly, as it surveys its surroundings.
(The need for professional trainers is one reason a Washington lottery spokeswoman said the ad actually was filmed in California, although the gray weather does remind us of Washington state’s version of “summer.”)
The commercial has a quiet beauty and humor that gets your attention in part because it is the antithesis of so many other lottery commercials that play on greed or garish shock value. The light-hearted feel also is refreshing amid the myriad worries many Americans are dealing with these days -- meant, perhaps, to be reminiscent of how a person might feel if he or she won the lottery and didn’t have to deal with money woes again.
Still, the most cynical among us can’t help but wonder if this is really the dream of a lifetime for these birds. Perhaps the penguin would prefer that its habitat not be impacted by climate change, and the chicken would just like to not become someone’s dinner.
The commercial had a short run on Washington state television. Click here to watch it.
Update: An astute reader pointed out that the large flightless bird is an emu, not an ostrich. The post has been corrected.
