Kent (cigarette)
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Kent is a brand of cigarettes, first to introduce smoke filters in 1952. From March 1952 until at least May 1956, the Micronite filter in Kent cigarettes contained a form of asbestos. [1]. Kent now uses charcoal filters (a form of activated carbon).
The brand is a propriety of British American Tobacco Nassi group.
The brand is named after Herbert Kent, a former executive at Lorillard Tobacco Company.
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[edit] Cultural references
- In the documentary, The Beatles: The First U.S. Visit, the Beatles overhear a Kent cigarettes radio commercial, expressing sarcastic interest in it:
- Radio Announcer: Looking for a filtered cigarette that really satisfies?
- Paul McCartney: Looking for one?
- Radio Announcer: One that will give you the pleasure you want in smoking.
- Paul McCartney: I am, yes.
- Radio Announcer: Well, look no more. There is a cigarette that gives you the satisfaction you are looking for today.
- Paul McCartney: Which one!?
- Radio Announcer: Kent!
- John Lennon: KENT!
- Radio Announcer: ...with the exclusive Micronite filter.
- (Kent "Satisfies the Best" theme song plays and John Lennon whistles along.)
- They are smoked in the film Good Night and Good Luck.
- The brand was the sponsor of The Dick Van Dyke Show.
- They are mentioned in The Dead Milkmen song "If I Had a Gun" ('Would I start smoking Marlboros, would I stop smoking Kents?").
- They seem to be the grease that is needed to make anything happen in Communist Romania in the film 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.
- Also in Cristi Puiu's 2004 Short Film – Cigarettes and Coffee (Un cartuş de Kent şi un pachet de cafea).
- In the Tom Waits song "The Ghosts of Saturday Night," from his 1972 album The Heart of Saturday Night, a solitary sailor "Paws his inside pea coat pocket/for a welcome twenty-five cents,/And the last bent butt from a package of Kents."
[edit] Advertising
In 1965, the Ray Conniff Singers had a hit song called "Happiness Is", which listed various examples of things that make people happy ("To a preacher, it's a prayer-prayer-prayer / To a Beatle, it's a 'Yeah-Yeah-Yeah'" and so on). The same group, or a soundalike group, produced a series of commercials for Kent that were written to the same tune and style, with the punch line always being, "To a smoker, it's a Kent."
[edit] Health risks
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For more details on this topic, see Health effects of tobacco smoking.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
[edit] References and notes
- ^ Cancer Research 55, 1 June 1995
