A 30-minute television special on the making of the popular “All Smoke High” advertisements will air in July at least two times each in the Rockford, Peoria/Bloomington and Springfield/Champaign media markets (see schedule below).

The ads were developed by teens as part of the Illinois Department of Public Health’s anti-tobacco campaign, I Decide, and were first shown in February 2001. All Smoke High plays off teens’ misguided notion that most or all of their peers smoke and shows the absurdity of a school where everyone is required to smoke.

The commercials feature a number of memorable reoccurring characters, including Mr. Dingham of the fictitious Dingham Tobacco Co., which is the school’s corporate sponsor; Principal Schafer, who speaks with a mechanized voice box due to a laryngectomy that was the result of heavy smoking; and a student so addicted to tobacco that he asks students to blow smoke in his face when he runs out of money to buy cigarettes.

The ads were filmed in Winnebago County using Illinois talent and teens from Champaign, Macon, McLean, Peoria, Sangamon, Tazewell and Winnebago counties. Teens participated in both the development and filming of the edgy and award-winning ad campaign.

As part of the special program, the final installment of All Smoke High ads, which feature about 300 teens, will premiere. A 120-second ad called “Assembly” and several other treatments will be broadcast from mid-July until Sept. 1. “Assembly” has the students of All Smoke High – the Fighting Butts – rebelling against the school’s must smoke policy, realizing they have been duped into an addictive habit that causes cancer, saps their energy, curbs their social life and, in one case, forces a student’s dog to run away. The sleazy Mr. Dingham concludes that throwing more advertising dollars at the mutinous students will not be able to stem the revolt. “The kids aren’t as dumb as they used to be,” he concludes.

Broadcast Schedule
			CHAMPAIGN/SPRINGFIELD WBUI (WB) July 12 7:30 p.m.   July 19 1 p.m.       WCIA (CBS) July 20 5 p.m.   July 27 5 p.m.   BLOOMINGTON/PEORIA WMBD (CBS) July 12 4:30 p.m.   July 20 12:30 p.m.       WYZZ (FOX) July 16 9:30 p.m.   July 19 1:30 p.m.   ROCKFORD WTVO (ABC) July 11 6:30 p.m.   July 20 6 p.m.       WQRF (FOX) July 12 9:30 p.m.   July 19 9:30 p.m.