Many years ago while working for TV Guide, I had the pleasure of Jack Paar’s company for a large chunk of an afternoon. For those of insufficient age, Paar was NBC-TV’s late night talk show hit (1957-62) whose heart-on-his-sleeve approach to blather was likely to be the imperative subject next day around the office water cooler. Those were, of course, the days before coffee became our social glue.
Paar gave early indications of an unusual approach to humor when he found himself on duty as Orson Welles broadcast his infamous “War of the Worlds via CBS affiliates including Cleveland’s WGAR. Wishing to reassure listeners, Paar intoned: “The world is not coming to an end. Trust me. Have I ever lied to you?”
The locale for my meeting Paar was at a resort in Puerto Rico where the magazine was holding an annual convention. The guy who had hired me, Maurice Condon, had worked salad days with Paar at the Cleveland outlet and the three of us had lunch prior to the humorist’s scheduled gig before the magazine’s management and sales force. Parr was to judge a spur of the moment crab race on the beach, an emceeing event he eventually scotched reasoning, as I recall, that there is little humor in bugs entertaining drunks on a beach.
During lunch I told Paar I had heard while growing up in Cleveland his words of comfort following Welles’ broadcast. Later on, Paar told a story I later heard on one of his TV broadcasts. Set in Biblical times, it involved a highly attractive Egyptian lady of the evening whose beauty had caught the attention of a foreigner unable to speak her language. The two stood on a dusty street in Cairo and it became clear their difficulties in communicating seemed overwhelming when the woman took off a slipper whose sole revealed a carved inscription. Returning the slipper to her foot, she left the man who began looking around for someone who could explain the inscription. Successful, the man began following the street walker’s footprints and the slipper’s message: Follow me. Paar then observed, “This makes advertising the second oldest profession.”
While there is evidence of advertising on cave walls created 4,000 years ago, it first appeared in this country in 1841 in Philadelphia, the result of efforts by a forerunner of N.W. Ayers & Sons, interestingly enough the agency that represented TV Guide back when. Nothing of enormous impact happened until radio came along followed by the great change maker, television.
It was while working for TV Guide in Kansas City that I made a friendship with Bill Zimmerman who managed a radio station located down the hall from my offices. He soon decided that I should co-host “Calling Hollywood” on KUDL and soon I was making broadcasted phone calls to people like Jonathan Winters, Richard Crenna and Richard Chamberlain. It was at the station that I once wrote a commercial I’m told is still discussed among Cowtown U.S.A.’s radio folk. It had interesting origins.
My secretary’s first marriage had produced a son who, on a downer following a divorce, had arrived in town having taken a job with a Saab agency. Donald was looking for a way to impress his newly acquired management. Doreen thought I might be of some help so I examined the Swedish-made automobile in search of some sort of marketing edge that would lend itself to a radio commercial.
I checked the car out and saw some appealing things. My office at that time had a couple of people with theatrical experience and it was with them in mind that I wrote a spot. My commercial dealt with a young couple in the back seat of a Saab conversing while some very sexy Otto Cessana music played in the background. Zing went the strings of their hearts. The spot’s copy focused on the two talking at cross purposes with the young man in a very romantic mood while she was much more interested in the car’s interior.
“Oh, look dear,” said the sweet young thing noticing a four-wheel drive feature, “there’s no hump on the floor.”
The young man responded by observing: “My dear, there is nothing as un-civilized as a hump on the floor.”
The commercial became so popular that people would call the station to find out when the “hump on the floor” spot would run so they could hear it. While public service spots run free of charge, the 60 second “hump” spot in no way qualified yet it may be the only commercial in the entire annals of broadcasting to run without cost. Station manager Zimmerman, delighted with my prank, gave the spot a free ride. I don’t recall whatever happened to my secretary’s son.
Surprisingly, not one call, postcard or letter of condemnation was ever received. Zimmerman and I figured it was simply a matter of its content being over the heads of those who might complain. Either that or KUDL’s audience was dramatically less than what the surveys told us.
A KUDL historical footnote: The station is one of three K.C. outlets to fire then rock deejay Rush Limbaugh. Last I heard, KUDL was a religious station.
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