LOS ANGELES—Wicked Pictures’ blockbuster 2-disc DVD Men In Black: A Hardcore Parody has gone on sale in retail locations nationwide, but that’s not the only event making this summer so memorable. It is also the 35th anniversary of the infamous Wow Signal, a mysterious 72-second transmission received by astronomers on June 29th, 1977.
The extremely unusual frequency of this real-life “Message from Space” made it the high point in the history of SETI, the global organization formally known as the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. The cryptic signal gained its unusual name because the scientist who discovered it was so shocked he simply scribbled “WOW!” across his computer printout.
To mark the 35th anniversary of the event, a team of scientists are taking social media from cyberspace to deep space by sending the tweets of several world leaders to the stars via Puerto Rico’s powerful Arecibo Radio Telescope, the largest transmitter of its kind and a popular fixture of such Hollywood fare as Contact, The X-Files and Goldeneye. Now, while Wicked Pictures may not be helping E.T. tweet home anytime soon, it is commemorating this event with a social media contest that even Men In Black: A Hardcore Parody’s gruff Agent K would find irresistible: They say a picture is worth more than a thousand words; Wicked is about to prove it is worth more than 140 characters on Twitter as well.
Just throw on your best black suit and sunglasses, take a photo of yourself as a man (or woman) in black, and tweet it to @wickedpictures. You must be following @wickedpictures to participate, and your tweet must contain the hashtags #Wicked and #MenInBlackAHardcoreParody. With the 107 remaining characters, just state the one qualification you alone possess to be a member of the Men In Black: A Hardcore Parody team. Be creative!
The contest will go live at midnight this Friday, July 13, and run until midnight Friday, August 10. The prizes are as follows: First (Grand) Prize: While Wicked may not be able to bend the laws of the universe and provide you with a re-tweet by aliens, the grand prize winner will get a one-time RT from the Twitter feeds of Men In Black: A Hardcore Parody stars jessica drake, Kaylani Lei and Alektra Blue. What would you say to over a quarter of a million people? Tell everyone how much you love your girl/boyfriend; a Happy Birthday shout-out; support for your favorite sports team (Earth-based teams only, please); a baby-birth; or virtually anything else other than ads or insults. (The Wicked Girls reserve the right to edit and/or clean up the RT.)
The grand prize winner will also win a 40’’ inch flat screen TV, a Blu-ray/DVD combo player, a copy of Men In Black: A Hardcore Parody and a Brad Armstrong Blockbuster Pack featuring such award-winning hits as Eternity, Manhunters, Coming Home, Fallen, 2040 and Speed.
The second prize winner will receive everything except the RT and flat screen TV (meaning they'll still get the Blu-ray/DVD combo player, a copy of Men In Black: A Hardcore Parody and the Brad Armstrong Blockbuster Pack). Third, fourth and fifth prize winners will receive all the movies (the Blockbuster Pack and Men In Black: A Hardcore Parody).
Wicked Pictures can’t promise you a direct message from E.T., but who knows? Perhaps he's already following you on Twitter.
Men In Black: A Hardcore Parody. Protecting the Earth from the scum of the universe, 140 characters a time. To learn more, please click here.
