Had breakfast with my buddy and fellow copywriter J., the other day at the S&W Diner in Culver City. If you know the area at all you know that despite restaurants coming and going (mostly going), S&W has been around forever.
Formerly known as Sam & Woody's, for a long time it was a lesbian breakfast place. Can I say that? In the early 90's it was half the size it is now and it catered to an all female crowd. They expanded the place, and the clientele, into the abandoned place next store. Thankfully they left it ungentrified. They still only take cash. The waitresses still address you as "hun." And perhaps because I've been coming here so long, they don't mind when I take my ceramic cup over to the Joe station and help myself to a refill.
As old copywriters often do, we spoke of the earlier, headier, and stupidly ambitious old times.
J: Can you believe the stuff we used to sweat about?
Me: I'm schvitzing just thinking about schvitzing.
I might have transposed the dialogue here, but if J wants to have the punchline, he can write his own blog piece.
The topic turned to the Worst Commercial we had ever made. Not an easy choice amongst the seemingly thousands of spots each of us had committed to celluloid. Prior to the digital age and the interwebs, copywriters produced dozens - sometimes more - spots every year. Having thought long and hard about and between bites of now overpriced eggs and sausage, J. knew exactly the spot he had in mind.
In fact he showed it to me on his handy dandy telecommunications device. I'll spare him the humiliation and withhold any clues. Mercifully, there was loud clanking of dishes from the busboy clearing the table, so I couldn't hear any of the dialogue or voiceover. I didn't need to. The limp visual gag of a man in a Ushanka hat was enough.
That was going to be hard to top. Or in these case, slide under. But my library of crap runs far and wide and deep.
Way back when, ABC asked us to brand Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday Nights as a viewing destination. This despite they had a lineup of shows that were 8, 931,457 light years from anything resembling funny. Most didn't last one year on the air. Hiller & Diller (remember that?) might have gone two.
We decided, perhaps because the budget was $20,000 for three finished spots, to shoot the three worst comedians we could find and produce three unbearably unfunny commercials. After 24 seconds of intentional banality the announcer would turn the corner with, "Looking for real funny, Tune into the ABC ______ Night of Hilarity."
Yeah, we lied. Ad people do that.
If I could find the spots on YouTube I'd gladly show them. One featured a morbidly obese comic wearing a full suit of different colored balloons. After he told a "joke" he'd pop a balloon with a long needle.
I laugh now, but wasn't laughing then. When we showed the rough cuts to the brass, Jamie Tarses and Stu Bloomberg, who patiently sat through all 90 seconds. Then, coming for air, turned to us and said, "What the hell is this?"
Because they had nothing else, they decided -- reluctantly -- to use the campaign. But because it only aired on ABC, nobody ever saw the spots.
Comedy is NOT pretty.
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