That time we were filming on a porno set

Today's post has a little bit of everything: celebrity-adjacency, pornography, self promotion and tangy lime chile sauce.

It begins last Thursday when I decided to walk my dog over the California Grooming, best pet groomers west of the Delaware River. My dog Lucy had been shedding like an alpaca in heat. The hair had been clumping up in corners all along our hardwood floor. It had gotten so thick it was choking our poor little Roomba™.

As I was about to enter the little store on Overland Ave, just an 1/8 of a mile from my home, there was a man approaching from the south with two large Aussie Shepherds. That man was none other than Joel Murray, Bill's younger brother seen on the right.

"Hey, I know you."

"You do?"

"We worked together. Years ago. You did the voiceover for our El Pollo Loco commercials."

"Oh hell yeah. I remember those. That was a fun campaign. What happened to that?"

It was at that point our dogs started growling and nipping at each other and I didn't get to elaborate on the unexplainable fuckwadian stupidity that governs the boardrooms of corporations all across this once great nation.

I won't bore you with the story, but I will take this opportunity to beat my chest. Because in the ONE year that we had El Pollo Loco, our work resulted in a 13.1% annual sales increase. Plus or minus all those other accounting terms like EBITDA, amortization, cost of doing business, etc, etc. 13.1%!!!, and yet they decided they'd rather work with some hacky boutique shop in Torrance.

And yes, I realize the words boutique and Torrance have no business being in the same sentence.

Even more amazing is how we got to such stellar results. You see after we won the account, we were told the production budget for the entire year was little more than $250, 000. Moreover, because of the constant need to promote specials and menu items, El Pollo Loco needed to be on the air all the time.

Fast forward to my partner John Shirley and I at the studio of Terry Heffernan, one of the best food shooters in the business, at his spacious studio in Potrero Hill in San Francisco. There, we spent 36 hours shooting chickens and chickens parts on Fire Department approved indoor grills.

In between MEDIUM TIGHT SHOT LEGS and THIGHS and EXTREME TIGHT SHOT BREASTS, Terry took the opportunity to point out the rather large and vibrantly painted green door at the back of the studio. He went on to tell us that this was the very studio where the famous Mitchell Bros. shot Marylin Chambers in her 1972 porn classic Behind the Green Door. (Don't forget to scrub your browser history)

Anyway, with an entire library of chicken-on-a-grill footage, this is where the talented Mr. Murray comes in. The writing staff at Y&R, myself included, wrote hundreds of scripts. And Joel Murray, younger brother of Bill, recorded close to 75 spots, most of which aired during Jeopardy.

Sadly, those spots are buried in a storage locker somewhere in Pacoima.

But I did take the time to re-record some of the scripts when I was pursuing, naively, a career in voiceover work.

I still get a kick out of this incredibly simple but effective work that despite its poor resolution still holds up today.