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Back in 1990 — when we were still wrestling with the consequences of having one President named George Bush — Dudley Moore starred in a pretty funny comedy called Crazy People. Moore played an ad executive who suffers a breakdown and, while institutionalized, resurrects his career on Madison Avenue using outrageously blunt campaigns dreamed up by his fellow mental patients. (Example: "Metamucil: It helps you go to the toilet so you don't get cancer and die.")

I don't know what made me think of it, but last night as I was driving the 95 miles home from chorus rehearsal, I recalled this movie and decided that the time had come to revisit its concept. There are any number of companies who today could benefit from a dose of Crazy People-style promotion. Besides, insanity more or less summarizes my entire career to date as an advertising copywriter.

The product of my noodling thus far:

• Denny's: At three a.m., nothing else is open.
  
  
• Taco Bell: You can't handle real Mexican food.
  
  
• Microsoft: There are still a few dollars that Bill Gates doesn't have.
  
  
• Kellogg's: Creating hyperactive sugar addicts since 1906.
  
  
• Wal-Mart: When you leave the trailer park, you have to go somewhere.
  
  
• Costco: If one is good, twelve are better.
  
  
• MasterCard: Because you're our slave, that's why.
  
  
• Apple Computer: Revenge of the Nerds was nonfiction.
  
  
• Spam: 1.2 million Hawaiians can't be wrong.
  
  
• 7-11: Thank you for not shooting the clerk.