Couldn't sleep so edited Wikipedia: Nembutal [In popular culture](Section)
{{inpopularculture|date=January 2011}}
[[Philip K. Dick]]'s novel [[VALIS]] opens with the sentence "''Horselover Fat's nervous breakdown began the day he got the phonecall from Gloria asking if he had any Nembutals''". The suicide attempt of Gloria with Nembutals borrowed from the main character is the starting point of the whole story.http://naderlibrary.com/dick.VALIS1.htm In the Science Fiction film [[Sphere (film)]], Nembutals are mentioned within the context of a suicide attempt that occurred prior to the start of the film by one of the movie's main characters. In the 1957 novel ''[[On the Beach (novel)|On the Beach]]'' by [[Nevil Shute]], the Australian government mass-distributes Nembutal in red cartons for voluntary euthanasia as radiation sickness spreads south in the final days of mankind following World War III.Nevil Shute, ''On the Beach'', New York, William Morrow and Company, 1957. (See p. 296 identifying the red cartons as Nembutal). In the 1960 novel ''[[The Moviegoer]]'' by [[Walker Percy]], Kate Cutrer takes Nembutals for her depression, causing her mother to worry about suicide when she takes four at once. Famous film Actor [[George Sanders]] (1906-1972) told fellow actor [[David Niven]] in 1937, that he intended to commit suicide when he got older. In 1972, he fulfilled his promise. He checked into a hotel in Barcelona and two days later, his body was discovered next to five empty tubes of Nembutal. He left this note: "Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck." (source [[IMDB]]) In the 1979 album London Calling by the British punk/rock band The Clash the drug is mentioned in the line "Nembutal numbs it all, but I prefer Alcohol," referencing [[Montgomery Clift]] on the track, The Right Profile. Pentobarbital is referred in [[William S. Burroughs|William S. Burroughs's]] novel ''[[Junky (novel)|Junky]]'' as "Nembutal" "Nembies" and "Goofballs". In the semi-autobiographical novel, Burroughs uses it to relieve symptoms from [[heroin]] withdrawals. In the [[HBO]] show [[The Sopranos]], season 2 episode 12, [[Janice Soprano]] uses two Nembutals to sedate her mother, [[Livia Soprano]]. In the HBO show [[The Wire]], season 2 episode 10, [[Ziggy Sobotka]] references his mother's apparent abuse of Nembutal to "sleep the day away". In March 2010, the [[Public Broadcasting Service|PBS]] [[documentary film|documentary]] [[television series]] [[Frontline (U.S. TV series)|Frontline]] aired a documentary called "The Suicide Tourist" which told the story of Dr. Craig Ewert's trip to Switzerland in 2006 to commit assisted suicide (with the help of Dignitas) using Sodium Pentobarbital. He made the decision to euthanize himself shortly after he was diagnosed with [[Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis]]. A scene in the movie [[The Royal Tenenbaums]] features the line "Get me a Nembutal, would ya?," spoken by Royal, played by [[Gene Hackman]], after he collapses on the floor of a makeshift hospital room in his former mansion. An early scene in the HBO movie [[Gia]] shows Gia's modeling agent instructing her to take a Nembutal to calm her nerves before her first photo shoot. This may allude to Gia's future drug use, which caused her to contract AIDS and eventually die.