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Palmolive released a series of TV commercials in 1981 featuring Madge, a spry and chatty manicurist. Each commercial’s concept was simple: a housewife would visit a nail salon, inexplicably stick her hand into a small saucer full of green goo, then be told by Madge that the green goo was Palmolive dishwashing detergent. Surprise! By today’s standards, the commercials were certainly gender-biased, if not borderline sociopathic, as Madge seemed to take great pleasure in telling unsuspecting housewives her trademark phrase: “You’re soaking in it!” Coined by the advertising firm Ted Bates Company, the TV campaign reached legendary status by running continuously for nearly three decades. The campaign showed the power of a catchphrase and demonstrated a fundamental truth: we often do not realize our current circumstance until someone points it out to us.

Michigan J. Frog was unlike any other frog. He sang. He danced. He was destined for stardom. In Warner Bros.’ 1955 cartoon, One Froggy Evening, a construction worker freed Michigan from a time capsule buried within a recently demolished building’s cornerstone. Upon reaching the open air, the frog stood and sang, “Hello my baby, hello my honey. Hello, my ragtime gal. Send me a kiss by wire. Baby, my heart’s on fire.” The construction worker gasped in amazement as Michigan, wearing his trademark top hat and matching cane, pranced across the lid of the time capsule, which moments before had been the frog’s boxy prison.

German engineers designed a terrifying tank in the closing years of World War II. They called it the Maus—or “Mouse” in English. The ironically named tank dwarfed its Allied competition in both size and ferocity (see Figure 5-1). However, like most complex creations, it could win a battle but not a war.