Who's *your* Ralph Williams?

You’ve all seen them, groaned about them, HATED them, and (admit it!) loved to hate them. Cripes, there are even TV shows these days that glorify them.

What are they? HORRIBLE local-business television ads/advertisers. You know the ones… some old fart with a bad rug and worse teeth pimping his cheesy neighborhood strip mall vacuum cleaner repair shop, middle-aged car salesmen standing next to their doddery old mothers trying to move a 1982 Leadmobile with a leaky transmission, “cute” children gobbling up various unrecognizable and scary-looking take-out food items from the local Chinese restaurant, Coke bottle-bottomed-glasses-wearing dweeboid freaks in ill-fitting plaid suits trying to sell you some whatever insurance, you get the jist.

Back in the day when I was growing up in Southern California… Yea! even before Cal Worthington - who is also a local boy, of whom most other locals are STILL embarrassed despite his success - there was [cue lights, cue camera, cue HTML font-size coding] Ralph Williams of Ralph Williams’ Ford. [HTML font-size coding off] OMG.

He was a short, nearly-bald, squish-faced fireplug of a man. He could talk a blue streak, you could barely understand a thing, it was all so run together – he’d cram info about eight cars into a 30-second spot (generally starting with the creampuffs, and working his way down to the less expensive, less desirable models), AND give you complete directions how to get there, to boot. (Cheech and Chong immortalized him perfectly as “El Monte Slim,” if you want to get a feel for what I’m talking about.) He came off like a sideshow barker for the most part, but he looked pretty tough and not a guy you’d want to cross (I’m sure he had business associates named Vinnie). He was always giving away crap to lure folks in – toys for the kids, free wiper blades, air fresheners, etc. Ralph was a pretty big local boy for awhile there, but along came Cal Worthington, who took Ralph Williams one step further… straight to local TV-commercial hell!

For better or worse, ol’ Ralph’s patter remains forever emblazoned upon my brain:

HI THERE! friends and neighbors! This Ralph Williams from Ralph Williams’ Ford, saying ‘COME ON DOWN! We got some great deals in used cars that you can drive home today! Right here we’ve got a BEAUTIFUL 1961 Ford Fairlane [or whatever, is there a ’61 Fairlane?!?]. Just LOOK at the shine on that gorgeous vehicle, it’s got ONLY 92,000 miles on it and BRAND NEW TIRES all the way around. Drives like a dream! We’ve road tested her and cleaned her up JUST for YOU for the low, low, UNBEATABLE price of $1,700! But if you can’t afford THAT fine used vehicle, don’t worry, because we’ve got HUNDREDS of fine-quality used cars here at Ralph Williams’ Ford, in EVERY price range. Here’s another BEAUTY on display here at the Ralph Williams’ Ford Used Car Lot…

Tell us about your Ralph Williams.


StoryTyler
“Not everybody does it, but everybody should.”

Poor Ralph was the Salieri of Southern California car dealers. I faintly remember his balding head briefly emerging from behind Cal Worthington’s enormous shadow on daytime TV. How can you compete with a 10 ton dog named Spot who looks just like an elephant? I mean, Cal would eat a bug to sell you a car! Showmanship is everything in the car biz.

Hey, not to hijack you or anything, but during my first trip to LA in (yikes!) 1980, I experienced Cal Worthington for two weeks, every fifteen minutes whenever the TV was on. (“It’s Cal Worthington, and his dog Spot!”) I don’t know how you all survived.
But Ralph Williams. Reading your recollections of his spiel made me realize this was the man upon whom The Firesign Theater based the immortal 'Ralph Spoilsport ’ on the opening of “How Can You Be In Two Places At Once (When You’re Not Anywhere At All)”

Could this be so?

Oh, and to add to this thread, here in NYC we had ‘Crazy Eddie’ in the person of Jerry Carroll, originally a deejay on WPIX-FM in the early 1970’s. Crazy Eddie was an electronics chain that was started Brooklyn by Eddie Antar and his brother. The early ads were on radio, and to save money, they weren’t taped, they were read by the deejay (or news announcer, depending on time of day.)
Jerry Carroll was a character, loud, brash, a 1970’s rock station deejay. He read the ads with such enthusiasum (with a tagline of "Crazy Eddie, his prices are INSAAAAAAANE!) that when the store started making money and doing TV spots, Carroll was hired, and made hundreds of commercials, always seen standing behind a counter, surrounded by stereos, et al, with his arms stretched toward the camera. The camera now, had a slightly fisheye lens; probably a wider angle lens than necessary, shot very close to the actor, which gave a bizzare effect overall. These ads ran for years (hundreds of them, all different, all the same, until Eddie Antar was indicted for a number of things and the chain went south. Jerry Carroll was so associated with the stores that people thought HE was Crazy Eddie.
Any way, I for one am glad that nightmare is over.


If it jams, force it; if it breaks, it needed replacing anyway.

Although I’ve never had the privilege of hearing the Firesign Theater’s version, I’ve been told that the opening of “How can you be…” is indeed based your friend and mine, Ralph Williams from Ralph Williams’ Ford!

I’m remembering another (radio) ad with rapid-fire delivery from my LA days - I think it was for a chain of audio equipment stores. All I remember is the announcer listing off a string of cities where the stores were located: “North Hollywood, Pasadena, Whittier, somewhere else, somewhere else, AND the City of Orange at Tustin and Katella!”

Or did I dream this?


StoryTyler
“Not everybody does it, but everybody should.”

Are you by any chance thinking of “Fred Rated”, the huckster for the Federated Group (stereos) played by DJ Shadoe Stevens?

I seem to remember Santa Monica and San Bernardino being in the list, too.

It could very well be. I recognize the name Shadoe Stevens, but don’t particularly associate him with this ad… just remember the long list of cities and can’t believe how lame it is that this is still stuck so firmly in my head after all this time (we’re talking 20-some years)!


StoryTyler
“Not everybody does it, but everybody should.”

Well on a similar yet not the same note…

In Tucson we had several characters… the one that always stands out to me is Madeline Garish of Sechuan Omei Restaurant… The woman could barely speak English, and what she did know how to say came out sounding like she’d not totally recovered from a stroke. She’s sort of slur her way through a mumbled description of her restaurant with “plenny a parkeen” on “eessa spee-way”… you had to see the commercials about 15 times just to make out what she was saying, and the whole time you just hoped she didn’t keel over dead while she said it, she looked about a million years old. Every time we’d look at each other and say “WHY WHY WHY does she insist on doing her own commercials???”

And then there was the popcorn-haired “glamour geezer” wife of Sam Levitz that did all their commercials from a little bubble in the upper right hand of the screen…

Oh, and Holmes Tuttle and Jim Click were the two rival hillbilly car dealerships … I heard through some of my previously-imprisoned-drug-dealing-friends that Jim Click was also a coke dealer but I have no confirmation :wink:



“it’s all real”
“I KNEW IT!!!”
O p a l C a t
www.opalcat.com

Before the days of infomercials, I used to stay up late at night and watch Cagney films on WGN. They had only one sponsor at that hour – Joe Rizza Ford. Every commercial slot was the same Joe Rizza ad several times in a row. I would hear this all night long:

Number one! Number one! Joe Rizza Ford is number one!

[hijack]

In the Firesign Theatre’s Big Book of Plays, which has scripts to most of the stuff in their first four albums, they discuss the transformation of Ralph Williams into Ralph Spoilsport:

And an excerpt:

Guy comes in and test-drives the car; when he turns on the radio, Ralph’s commercials are on every station. And then there’s a bit of Zeno’s Paradox with the highway exits, but that’s another story.

[/hijack]

Sorry to hijack your thread, Story; you can have it back now… :slight_smile:


“Living in this complex world of the future is not unlike having bees live inside your head.” - F. Scott Firesign

Connecticut, every 20 minutes.

Bob.

As in Bob’s Discount Furniture. The most evil man ever to grace the television screen. Its enough that I will change the channel when he comes on with his “I dare you to find a lower price on this (bed, sofa, chair, etc)…” Absolultely hate the man.

At home in Southeastern Mass, we have Furniture City with the most annoying kids yelling “Furniture City’s package pricing!” Not as bad as Bob, but still pretty damn poor.

Must be something with those low budget furniture stores.

Jeremy…

Nobody ever calls me after they’ve done something smart.

In the Detroit Metropolitian area, we are treated on a regular basis to Mel Farr commercials. Mel Farr is a former NFL player who used his earnings to buy a chain of automobile dealerships. It’s not so much what he says, it’s the fact that he wears a cape and flies around like Superman in his commercials that really gets you.

Shadowfox

“The dead have risen, and they’re voting Republican!” - Bart Simpson

Oh thanks, Shadowfox. What is it with the Michigan contingent tonight? Two people from our fair state hang it up on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," then Milossarian starts the “Torture Your Fellow Dopers” thread, and now this.

So not only do I have a bunch of songs that I hate running through my head like the Jukebox from Hell, there’s commercials between the songs.

“Mel Farr, Superstar, for a far better deal…”

I think I’m going to go sit in the corner and whimper quietly now.


Changing my sig, because Wally said to, and I really like Wally, and I’ll do anything he says, anytime he says to.

Gawd, I know! “If you need a better car, go see Cal! For the lowest price around, go see Cal!” ARUGH!! Take solace in knowing you weren’t suffering alone. (I told you the locals aren’t particularly proud of the man… :wink: ) In fact, Cal was originally chosen by my high school administrators to deliver the commencement speech at my graduation (a man who never graduated high school, I might add – but I digress). The students would have NOTHING of it. We voted him down unanimously!

Oh yes, that’s him all right! I think I need to hear this for myself. :::note to self - pick up a copy of "How Can You Be In Two Places At Once…”:::

:::SPLORT!::: [Archie Bunker voice]Awww, jeeeezzzzz…![/voice]


StoryTyler
“Not everybody does it, but everybody should.”

Maybe it’s the bad ads. I remember two throroughly obnoxious ones:

Ollie Fretter of Fretter appliance: “I’ll give you five pounds of coffee if I can’t beat your best deal.” I don’t drink coffee!

Mr. Belvedere of Belvedere Construction: “We do good work.”

On the other hand, there was the old Matick Chevy commercial:

Man with microphone, near vehicle with Matick insignia: “Excuse me, ma’am…”

Women with sacks of groceries: “Is this a commercial?”

“I know it sounds crazy, lady—”

“Crazy Lady?!? Crazy Lady panty hose? I can’t believe it! I just bought some! Let me tell you all about them…”

Shadoe Stevens (the male pal in CBS sitcom “Dave’s World” from a few years ago) definitely was Fred Rated in the Federated ads, and quite an amusing fellow he was too. I remember him doing a “Miami Vice” take-off in one ad. I have always thought that those ads more pivotal in his career.

I remember the first time I saw Ralph Williams - it was ages ago. My dad and I were watching TV, Ralph came on, and my dad made some comment about how Ralph had a lot of guts coming back to LA. Apparently (according to my dad, a native Angeleno) Williams had gotten into some sort of trouble years earlier, had cheated people, fraud, something like that. And there he was, back again, like nothing had ever happened. I guess people had a short memory, or my dad had an extremely long one.

I don’t know if my dad’s memory served him correctly, or not. (But my dad generally had a good memory for such things.) But I never could see one of Ralph’s ads without thinking about what my dad had said about him. Hell if I’d ever buy a car from him!

Now, what’s with this “Crazy Gideon” guy? With his thick accent, and those cheezy ads for his electronics stores? He amuses me no end.

The guy who just died that played in all the “Ernest” movies, Jim (can’t remember his last name now) did a series of commercials for Pine State Milk here in North Carolina. “Vern” was his buddy that he always helped, but you never saw Vern. They were cute for a while but then they started getting stuipd.


I’ve learned that if someone says something unkind about me, I must live so that no one will believe it.

Ty, you’ve probably seen this Bay Area one…The guy’s name is “Paul” (I think) from the Diamond Center and all his commercials are horrible! One of the worst ones is when he’s singing “I’m a credit man…” to the tune of “Soul Man” and his poor employees are forced to sing along and hoist him into assorted dance poses. UGH!

Another guy I hate is the Shoe Pavillion guy who whines "If you didn’t get your shoes at Shoe Pavillion – You PAAAAIIIID too much!


We struck down evil with the mighty sword of “teamwork” and the hammer of “not bickering.”

What a great post! And to think, I almost didn’t read it because I didn’t know who Ralph Williams was.

When I lived in Tulsa we had Linda Soundtrack and her insaaaaaane prices, but then Doc Rock came in to town with his big new image. All the sales persons wore lab coats. They had a really bitter ad campaign going on for a while.

In Dallas we had Westway Ford (I think) and the owner would wear those huge clown glasses covered with glitter and dollar signs.

Finally, in Oklahoma City there’s two ads that I still remember watching as a child. B.C. Clark Jewelers because their annual anniversary sale came right in time for Christmas shopping. I can still sing their jingle. “…so give the gift that’ll give and give… at B.C. Clarks… Anniversary sale!” The other is Tall Paul from Paul Meade Insurance. “…call us and we’ll take care of you, five eight four, one five four one.”

New and Improved
Enright3

Also in L.A., we have the Adee plumbing guy, Jack Stephan. The same ad, with a “plumber” in a bad wig correcting various mispronunciations of his name (“Jack Stephanski,” “Jack Stephanovich,” etc. Hilarious, huh?) has been running since the dawn of time, or at least since the dawn of color TV.

There’s also the “bedspread king,” who appears to be about a hundred years old. The ads end with a shot of this wizened little man in a pile of bedding with a crown on his haggard head. Seriously creepy.

Catrandom

John Rush: Whoa! You sent me spinning through a serious time warp! I remember all of those commercials, even the “crazy lady” one!

Here in Flint, we’ve got Al Kessel. He owns a bunch of grocery stores. Well, he doesn’t own them any more–he just sold them to Kroger’s (they used to be Kroger’s anyway, but that’s another story).

Al likes to make commercials. They’re not really corny, actually. They’re obviously local–not slicked up in any way. Al’s got a friendly voice, and he always gives you the old Kessel’s slogan, “We’re with you!” Makes you feel kind of warm & happy about buying groceries from him.


Changing my sig, because Wally said to, and I really like Wally, and I’ll do anything he says, anytime he says to.