Even snopes.com didn’t answer this one. California used - car dealer Ralph Williams–a competitor of Cal Worthington–had one of his salesmen make a TV commercial for his business in San Bruno in which the salesman used salty language and insulted his employer–and supposedly got fired. What’s the deal with this?
While we’re at it: Fuck you, Baltimore.
You call that Salty?
This is just an opinion from two geezers still in broadcast:
I showed that commercial to a friend several years ago (he’s a TV salesman upstairs).
We both said “Could this be real?”
About that time (it looks like late 60’s) he was doing sports on the local ABC TV station and I was doing Country at a local radio station. We concluded that, hey, we were in the broadcast media, and if that commercial actually aired we would have known about it. It would have been in the trades and media people would be buzzing about it. And whatever TV station aired it would have been in really hot water with the FCC for not yanking the cord on that thing early into it.
Also, those things were generally aired live throughout the night and not video taped. And in the background you can hear the location crew laughing (rather than being horrified). AND the guy doing it would have had hell finding another job.
Out FWIW opinion? It was taped as a joke. Perhaps it would be shown to the owner at a party after a few drinks were served. Perhaps it would be spirited back to the station for some private ha-ha’s. But we don’t think it really aired.
Just an opinion.
Count me as another old broadcast geezer who believes it was a joke.
We used to do fake commercials, fake newscasts, fake sportscasts, etc. all the time. They were great fun at Christmas parties. Even the sponsors laughed (after they had enough booze.)
Here’s what probably happened. The car dealer is doing multiple commercials through the night during the late-night movie, so the station’s production crew is out there with him for hours. At some point they either have a couple of drinks or they just get bored and the used car salesman starts popping off. Someone says “Boy, that would be a hell of a commercial,” and they either tape it on the scene, or transmit it back to the station on closed-circuit and it gets taped there.
For another example of how something like this happens, check out the Turboencabulator.
I could use more descriptive words…:rolleyes:
Semi-obligatory Firesign Theater reference.