You guys… really? They’re making electronic paper now? First, there was the E-ink cover of Esquire’s 75th anniversary issue, with its flashing text embedded into a printed page.

And now Advertising Age is reporting that electronic ink and other “printed electronics” have started appearing on in-store displays in the Chicago area.

A cardboard cutout with a video in the middle doesn’t seem that crazy to me. Here’s the section of the Ad Age story that blew my mind:

Even for hardened marketers, it’s hard to get past the gee-whiz factor. “It’s just incredible what they’re doing,” said Tom Owen, director of in-store merchandising for Henkel of America (formerly known as Dial Corp.), when Nth Degree executives showed him an 8½-by-11-inch sheet of paper running a video snippet from the original “Star Trek” series. (Moving newspaper photographs in Harry Potter movies come to mind.)

A piece of paper with a movie on it? Harry Potter’s magical newspaper on my stoop?

This could lead to some really cool stuff. I mean, I’d love to have an animated comic book.

But advertisers could also go ape shit over this technology. Oh, who am I kidding? They will go ape shit over it. And then a walk down C-Town’s frozen food aisle will be like a weekend in Vegas. The Boca Chik Patties will dance on their cardboard packaging. The Native American lady on the Land o’ Lakes container will sing about the freshness of her butter. Zac Efron will appear on an individual serving of cottage cheese, singing about how sexy it is to eat healthy snacks.

Meanwhile, stillness and silence will become hot commodities. People will spend a fortune to stay at a hotel  where the toilet paper doesn’t have an accent.

Part of me wishes this innovation would disappear, but there’s probably no stopping it. I just hope it gets used sparingly–lest some crazy person snap because the T.V. dinners won’t stop screaming.