Best Billboard
Camel cigarettes
READERS' PICK: Are billboards just landscape clutter obscuring scenic views? Or are they a window into the minds of the corporate executives who are trying to influence us at every turn? Take, for instance, the Joe Camel billboard that aims to sell cigarettes to the cartoon-enjoying segment of our population who are still too young to legally buy the product. What were they thinking? Let's animate our logo, give him a nose that looks like a penis--cigarettes do give that phallic satisfaction, don't they?--and use this image over and over until kids recognize him as no more dangerous than Yogi Bear. What really irks us, though, is how the nose job defames the desert's noblest creature, a valiant and essential companion of ancient Old World tribes for centuries. An animal whose only crime is to occasionally spit at obnoxious tourists (and admit it, you'd spit, too, if you could get away with it). Now, because of those evil guys in the cigarette biz, we can't help but think whenever we see a camel: "Penis nose, penis nose, you have a penis nose."
Interstate-10 and Grant Road
