Your HMV story reminded me of the 3M company chemist, who sang in a church choir, and came up with a formula for glue that could stick a piece of note paper onto the music sheets he sang from, thus, avoiding the need to write on the original page. He took his idea to his superior, who said, "To how many church choirs can we sell these papers with glue on the back?", and rejected his proposal. The chemist thought his idea good, and developed it independently. He named his product Post It Notes.
Kept waiting for you to mention the context of the "His Master's Voice" painting Jeff. When you see the full painting, dog and phonograph are both sitting on a coffin. Thus, the dog is listing to not just his owner's voice, but his LATE owner's voice.
I have looked and looked for some evidence to back the story of the coffin, but it seems from what I have found to be an urban legend. From Leonard Petts's "The Story of Nipper and the 'His Master's Voice' Picture Painted by Francis Barraud," p. 11:
---blockquote starts---
Dick Holbrook in "Jazz Rustitution No. 14" published in "Vintage Jazz Mart" reported a legend that the original picture showed Barraud's brother's coffin—and this was part of what was painted out! James Playstead Wood included this 'invention' in his "Story of Advertising" (1958). When tackled by Holbrook on the origin of this story Wood was unable to give any satisfactory reply on the source.
Another interesting fact about "His Master's Voice." That is also the title of a famous science fiction novel by Stanislaw Lem, a novel about First Contact. In this scenario, humanity is the confused dog that cannot understand what it is hearing, an intelligence completely beyond its comprehension. As you can guess, it is a deeply pessimistic view of our place in the universe, pretty much the opposite of Carl Sagan's.
At 27:48 the music comes in and plays for almost 3 minutes but it seems to be all while reading from the original article.
Your HMV story reminded me of the 3M company chemist, who sang in a church choir, and came up with a formula for glue that could stick a piece of note paper onto the music sheets he sang from, thus, avoiding the need to write on the original page. He took his idea to his superior, who said, "To how many church choirs can we sell these papers with glue on the back?", and rejected his proposal. The chemist thought his idea good, and developed it independently. He named his product Post It Notes.
Kept waiting for you to mention the context of the "His Master's Voice" painting Jeff. When you see the full painting, dog and phonograph are both sitting on a coffin. Thus, the dog is listing to not just his owner's voice, but his LATE owner's voice.
I have looked and looked for some evidence to back the story of the coffin, but it seems from what I have found to be an urban legend. From Leonard Petts's "The Story of Nipper and the 'His Master's Voice' Picture Painted by Francis Barraud," p. 11:
---blockquote starts---
Dick Holbrook in "Jazz Rustitution No. 14" published in "Vintage Jazz Mart" reported a legend that the original picture showed Barraud's brother's coffin—and this was part of what was painted out! James Playstead Wood included this 'invention' in his "Story of Advertising" (1958). When tackled by Holbrook on the origin of this story Wood was unable to give any satisfactory reply on the source.
---blockquote ends---
Another interesting fact about "His Master's Voice." That is also the title of a famous science fiction novel by Stanislaw Lem, a novel about First Contact. In this scenario, humanity is the confused dog that cannot understand what it is hearing, an intelligence completely beyond its comprehension. As you can guess, it is a deeply pessimistic view of our place in the universe, pretty much the opposite of Carl Sagan's.
“Educated Left weirdness is an overwhelmingly white phenomenon”
The Wayans brothers had this pegged 37 years ago: https://youtu.be/UnKo6xNW1Ig?si=uWyD0qssZ6EQE-PG