http://www.fool.com/News/mft/2004/mft04112209.htm

I don't know whether the company paid for it or how much. All I know is it should have, and even if it did, it didn't pay enough. I refer, of course, to last week's episode of NBC's The West Wing.

here's a summary of the show:

The world is running out of oil because GM makes a gas guzzler called the "Hummer" that kills little fuel-efficient cars. We should nonetheless all buy shares in ChevronTexaco because Americans love gas guzzlers. Plus, if we try to develop hydrogen fuel cell cars manufactured with Ballard's technology, they will explode like the Hindenburg. The only alternative to the above scenario is for every man, woman, and child in America to immediately sign onto a waiting list to buy a Prius at their nearest Toyota dealer.

The Prius, as a normal-looking car available only in hybrid form, gets tapped to play poster child for the whole hybrid movement.

That's not just free advertising, folks. It's advertising that money can't buy. When everybody talks about you as if you're the only game in town, before long, you are.