I know we’ve written about this before, but I happened to be visiting the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, Ill., yesterday, and wondered again what on earth our 16th president and a beaver are doing chatting with the insomniac in the ads for Rozerem, a sleeping pill. In comments to the earlier item, we got some theories. Dredpiraterobts writes: “The Beaver represents work ... he worries about the job. Lincoln represents Money, been known to keep people awake or even waken them from a deep sleep at 3:00 sharp! The chess board I’m not sure about, nor am I sure about the Naut in the suit in the background (he may be an aqua or an astro naut). If he’s an astronaut, then he would represent the stress of technology getting ahead of us all. If he’s a diver... then maybe it’s a sexual problem that keeps him awake.” (Other people, not surprisingly, connected the latter problem to a character other than the diver.) It’s also not entirely clear why these characters, if they’re what’s keeping the guy awake, claim to be visitors from his dreams—or why he would want to reconnect with them if they’re causing him anxiety. What is clear is that the ads are getting a big response, despite (or maybe because of) their mystery. Maybe people are just enjoying one ad that doesn’t wallop them over the head.

—Posted by Tim Nudd