Prof takes engineering to the television screen

David Pope was typecast. But if anyone else is considering the jump from academia to prime-time, acting lessons are apparently not necessary. There is is only one qualification that must be met. You have to look "like a professor." "It goes back a year or so," said Louis Brandsdorfer, creative director for Al Paul Lefton and Co., PPL's advertising agency. "For an educational approach . . . we wanted to convince a professor to work with us." Brandsdorfer said an executive in his company lived next door to Materials Science Professor Charles Graham, who recommended Pope for the part. And Brandsdorfer said Pope was perfect. "During our talk, our producer stood up and said, 'He's perfect. He looks like an engineer,' " he said. Pope said the spots discuss a new method of energy transfer in which heat is generated and stored in bricks during non-peak hours and is used during peak hours to save costs. The professor said he has not heard a lot of feedback from members of the University community, primarily because the spots do not run in Philadelphia. According to Brandsdorfer, the spots are on cable television in the central-eastern portion of the state -- the area covered by PPL. "The spots run on local cable in the area and on CNN," Brandsdorfer said. But Pope said that his friends from the suburbs have mentioned the ads to him. "I received a letter from an attorney I know in Scranton," Pope said. "He closed the letter with, 'P.S.: It's difficult to have breakfast in Scranton without seeing your face. You've become a star.' " Brandsdorfer said that Pope seemed nervous at first, but acted like "a natural." "It was great," Brandsdorfer said. "He was perfectly natural. It was done is his office, which is pretty large, but we filled it up with people and equipment. He seemed a little nervous so we let him read it few times. That's what we usually do for people who haven't acted before." "We offered him a recording contract, but he turned us down," he added. Pope said that he was paid "a few hundred dollars," for the ads, but added that he "won't get rich," doing them.

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