Published: New York Times April 10, 2008

From time to time Sam Blackman, a pediatric oncologist in Philadelphia, checks up on people other than patients. Namely, other Sam Blackmans. Skip to next paragraph No stethoscope is needed to take the pulse of his namesakes, though just a Google search. And while he has never met the men he refers to as Sam 2.0 and Sam 3.0, when one of those other Sam Blackmans posted a photograph of his wife on the Internet, Dr. Blackman, 39, couldn't help but feel a twinge of pleasure.

"I'm like 'Oh! Sam Blackman got married," he said. "I felt like I should send a card or check his registry on Amazon."........

THESE DAYS IT'S TOUGH . . .: Billboards bug Sarah Marshall, Sarah Marshall, Sarah Marshall and Sarah Marshall

April 17, 2008

BY PAIGE WISER This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

The billboards were jarring, before anyone figured out they were promoting a movie. They said, in big black capital letters:

"I'M SO OVER YOU SARAH MARSHALL"

» Click to enlarge image

Sarah Marshall of Chicago stands in front of a promotional billboard for the movie "Forgetting Sarah Marshall."
(Keith Hale/Sun-Times)

"MY MOTHER ALWAYS HATED YOU SARAH MARSHALL"

"YES YOU DO LOOK FAT IN THOSE JEANS SARAH MARSHALL"

They were jarring, especially, to women named Sarah Marshall.

There are dozens of them in Illinois alone, and they got no notice before they started seeing their name on taxis and bus shelters.

The billboards are meant to move tickets for "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," a breakup comedy opening Friday. The ads are called "viral marketing"; they generate buzz by word of mouth.

"Viral," of course, derives from "virus" -- and local Sarah Marshalls are indeed feeling nauseous about the whole thing. There's a fine line, after all, between ad campaigns and rude graffiti.

One Sarah Marshall, reached by phone at her place of work, was rather curt. Had she gotten a lot of calls about the billboards?

"Yep."

Would she like to share her feelings on the subject?

"Nope."

Another Sarah Marshall, 29, in Andersonville, was more forthcoming. "One Friday morning I had to get up early and go into work," she says. "The first thing I saw was a billboard that said, 'You suck Sarah Marshall.' "

She knew she wasn't the only Sarah Marshall in town. There was another one registered at the tanning salon in her old neighborhood, and their accounts would get mixed up.

But this was name recognition of a different level. At first, her friends thought it might have something to do with her recent engagement. "They thought it was an ex-boyfriend trying to get back to me," she says.

It's hard not to take it personally. Luckily, Marshall has had some experience with heckling. "Last year, there was that movie 'We Are Marshall,' " she says, which was about a high school football team. "People would come up to me and say, 'We are!' and I'd have to say 'Marshall!' "

She is looking forward to changing her name when she gets married in August.

Another Sarah Marshall -- the 28-year-old one in Terre Haute, Ind. -- says the campaign has been "interesting and annoying."

She'd run into the name problem before, when she was a graduate student at Loyola. There was another (undergraduate) Sarah Marshall.

She's not planning anything so drastic as changing her name, but she is sick of people asking her, "Hey, did you know there's a movie about you?"

Yet another Sarah Marshall -- the 74-year-old, South Side one -- heard about the "I hate you Sarah Marshall" billboard from, of all people, her minister.

"I thought he was kidding," she says. "It's right down the street from where I live." The minister was going to make an announcement in front of the congregation, to find out who was behind negative messages, until he learned it was just a publicity gimmick.

It's a shame, says Marshall: "I've always liked my name. I never thought of it as being common." Her father named her after the Sarah in the Bible, but now the name is being associated with a raunchy comedy.

She might go see it for herself, with her granddaughter. But she won't be there opening night. She'll be out of town at a church convention.

Name confusion, of course, is nothing new. It rarely grows beyond aggravation, unless you share a name with a celebrated serial killer, or Monica Lewinsky. The 1999 cult movie "Office Space" had a character named Michael Bolton who refused to go by "Mike."

"Why should I change?" he reasoned. "He's the one who sucks."

During the '50s, a game show called "The Name's the Same" boasted panelists such as Carl Reiner, Audrey Meadows and Mike Wallace, who had to guess the famous name of a mystery guest. Sometimes the celebrity namesake -- Ronald Reagan, for instance -- came out at the end to surprise the ordinary Joe.

When Britney Spears eloped with Jason Alexander, many people wondered what she saw in the curmudgeon from "Seinfeld."

Right name, wrong guy.

If you happen to share a name with a celebrity, you can join the club at myfamousname.com, along with Christina Aguilera, Louis Armstrong and Pamela Anderson. That's just the A's.

And if you're a Sarah Marshall, there may be one perk. "I'm hoping that when I go to the theater, if I show my ID, they'll let me in free of charge," says Sarah Marshall -- the Andersonville one.

There could be one major downside, too, she says: "If the movie sucks, it would really be a bummer."

The famous Olympic skier, Picabo Street, (pronounced Peek-A-Boo) is not just an athlete...

She is now a nurse currently working at the Intensive Care Unit of a large metropolitan hospital.

She is not permitted to answer the hospital telephones. It caused too much confusion when she would answer the phone and say:.....................................

"Picabo, I.C.U"

The Name's the Same was an American game show produced by Goodson-Todman for the ABC television network from December 5, 1951 to October 7, 1955, and was sponsored by Swanson and Johnson Wax for the majority of its run.

Gameplay

The show's guessing-game premise was similar to Goodson-Todman's What's My Line?. The panelists could ask 10 questions each, to determine the "famous name" of an ordinary citizen -- named for an actual person ("Jane Russell," "Abraham Lincoln," "Napoleon Bonaparte"), a place ("Virginia Beach," "Monte Carlo"), or a thing ("A. Lap," "A. Table," "Ruby Lips").

Sometimes a contestant's celebrity namesake (Ronald Reagan, Phil Rizzuto) was brought out at the end of the round to surprise the contestant. The panelists then had to guess what the celebrity's "secret wish" was (Gloria DeHaven wished she were Eve; Kirk Douglas wanted to coach the Vassar lacrosse team; Van Johnson wanted Marilyn Monroe to sit on his lap; Charles Coburn's wish was to dance the rumba with Monroe again as he did in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes).

Hosts

Robert Q. Lewis was the original emcee, from December 1951. During Lewis's two-week vacation in September 1953, film star Brian Aherne substituted for him, as did Conrad Nagel during a one-week absence earlier that year. The show went on hiatus in 1954 (Lewis insinuated on the August 31 episode that the show's future was in doubt), but did return in October with a new emcee: Dennis James, who remained until June 1955. Bob and Ray hosted from June to early September, and for the final five weeks the hosting chores were taken over by Clifton Fadiman.

Panelists

The only panelist to remain for the show's entire run was New York-based actress and socialite Joan Alexander. From 1951 to 1953 her co-panelists were Abe Burrows and Meredith Willson. In 1953 Burrows's chair was taken by Carl Reiner and Willson's by sportscaster Bill Stern. Host Lewis would always call on Reiner first when the mystery name was a thing: Reiner's innocent questions always took on funny meanings, followed by Alexander straying even farther away, to the studio audience's delight. (For "A. Harem," Reiner asked, "Is this thing used for recreational purposes?" and Alexander pursued this: "Do fat men use this to reduce their weight?") Lewis would enjoy these detours as much as the audience. It was then left to Stern, a veteran reporter, to zero in on the actual name with serious, shrewd questioning.

In 1954 Gene Rayburn replaced Reiner, and former Miss America Bess Myerson replaced Stern. A fourth panelist was added: humorist Roger Price. The final panelist who lasted at least six months was The Honeymooners' Audrey Meadows. Many familiar faces of the era, such as Mike Wallace, Basil Rathbone, Arnold Stang, and Jerry Lester were guest panelists.

Theme

The first theme song, a busy string arrangement, was "Shooting Star" by Sidney Torch and His Orchestra. The second theme song was "Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis" about the city which is where the show's later sponsor, Ralston Purina was headquartered.

Foreign versions

A UK version was made for radio (BBC Home Service) and TV (BBC Television) with British namesakes of famous people, buildings, and things. A one-off revival edition was produced for BBC Four in 2005 as part of a season of programs detailing the "lost decade" (1945-1955).

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Document License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. Thanks to Wikipedia.