One of the OJ Jokes was “Let Hertz get you to the airport and back with an hour to kill!”
When Bill Cosby dies, how far down in the obituary will we find mention of the Jello Pudding ads?
Pretty far. I don’t think those were nearly as important, culturally. Those were also forgettable ads. OJ leaping through the airport was brilliant.
It may be difficult, for those who only really knew Simpson from the murders, and the other terrible things he did and said in the years that followed, to understand just how well-liked he was, as a celebrity, in the '70s and early '80s.
Along with Cosby and Muhammad Ali, he was one of the best-known male Black celebrities in the U.S. at that time. He was handsome, he was a major football star, and back then, he was seen as friendly and charismatic. He made a number of movies, and he was everywhere on TV: on those Hertz ads (and other endorsements), as well as a football announcer and frequent guest star on TV shows.
Hertz loved him as their spokesperson: their awareness and sales increased dramatically due to that ad campaign, and they worked with Simpson for two decades (he had traveled to Chicago to meet with Hertz executives on the night of the murders). In 1977, Advertising Age magazine named him the “Star Presenter of the Year.”
I seem to recall Karl Malden’s American Express ads were mentioned in his obituaries. Funny what resonates with the hoi-polloi.
Not that Karl Malden was in any way a controversial figure, I’m just saying if it’s a thing, they’ll talk about it.
Hey I was in college. We had a soap we watched everyday in the commons. Those girls(and a few guys) were very bitchy about it.
They went out and played Frisbee. I went to nap.
At risk of going into a tangent, I recall that the OJ Trial killed or at least crippled Soaps as they were at the time. Now network daytime programming still has a few, but not as much as before; just a lot of chat shows and game shows that can be more easily put on hiatus for writers strikes and terrorist attacks etc.
This is the kind of wordplay I expect and love on the Dope.
Kaelin sounds like the drug one might use to treat herpes zoster or nose chancres…
If Donald Trump was going to kite a fake check, why would he use his real middle initial?
No! I’m… Donald X. Trump… 
(Joking.)
“Hello. My name is Mr. Pmurt! And I come from… somewhere far away!”
His legacy remains undisturbed.
There were still newspapers in the days of the trial, and the reporter who covered the story for the local rag went to the supervisor of the local women’s shelters for a quote-- I know that sounds a little-- much-- but she gave a great one after the verdict.
“The killer-- whoever he is-- is free.”
In San Diego they did an extra edition of the paper to announce the verdict. It’s the only time in my life I can recall them doing that. (They might have done a few during the USSR coup when news was breaking so fast that CBS was doing a live west coast edition of the evening news because the east coast edition would be out of date by the time 3 hours had passed, but I was a wee lad at the time and I don’t recall.)
I definitely remember when some OJ memorabilia was auctioned, and someone purchased several items, and proceeded to burn them (yes, he obtained permission first) on the L.A. courthouse steps.
I was recovering from my second corneal transplant and was on heavy doses of Percocet. Watching the chase, I kept thinking I was watching a still photograph.
I was in junior high at the time, but the seriousness of the trial really didn’t hit home…instead, I vividly remember the chase, the jokes, and all the pop culture stuff. (I really liked the Dancing Itos.) I don’t remember it being a topic of discussion at school, but that was also the point when I spent any free time at school finding somewhere to hide and read a book.
Yep, you do not mess with the soap operas. I still get phone calls at work from Mom when something interrupts her soap opera for even a minute. (She has Paramount+, but the new episode doesn’t show up there until after 6 PM, and she must watch her soap opera with her lunch.)
I always wondered if the trial caused a future upsurge in rhyming legal summations.
“If the car was late, you must exculpate.”
“If he’s leaking brain, you must arraign.”
(Etc.)
Can she adjust to watching the previous day’s episode with her lunch?
LAS VEGAS (AP) — The executor of O.J. Simpson’s estate says he will work to prevent a payout of a $33.5 million judgment awarded by a California civil jury nearly three decades ago in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the families of Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman.
…
LaVergne, who had represented Simpson since 2009, said he specifically didn’t want the Goldman family seeing any money from Simpson’s estate.
“It’s my hope that the Goldmans get zero, nothing,” he told the Review-Journal. “Them specifically. And I will do everything in my capacity as the executor or personal representative to try and ensure that they get nothing.”
And the title of Most hated executor goes to