THE SECRET THAT WIKILEAKS DIDN'T TELL, BUT I WILL

I just found this out. Remember the Man from Glad, the dashing white clad and white-haired, jet pack-traveling hero of 60's and 70's homemakers with too many leftovers?

How about perky Josephine the Plumber, who told 60's and 70's homemakers to clean there sinks with Comet?

What people don't know is these two TV commercial icons were secretly married in the late 60's/early 70's. From this union a child was born. The baby was a girl.

Like her mother, she is terminally perky, overly enthusiastic and wears too much red lipstick. Like her father, she wears white and has a thing for different modes of transportation.

Yes, you guest it. FLO FROM THE PROGRESSIVE COMMERCIALS IS THE DAUGHTER OF THE MAN FROM GLAD AND JOSEPHINE THE PLUMBER!!!

Remember that you didn't hear that from WikiLeaks, you heard that from Desdinova the Super Villain of the Ozarks!!! Mwu-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

PARENTS IN THE OZARKS ARE ANAL FASCIST

I'm hearing commercials on local radio for a company called Federal Protection. They are a home security firm, which is okay. What I find ludicrous about their ads is the claims that they can text you when "the kids get home from school." They also will "notify you" if someone "opens your liquor cabinet." This is probably used by the same goofy Ozarks parents, who have Net Nanny on their computers and block MTV and the Cartoon Network on the television. Probably these people have the Ozarks spanking fetish.

Trust me on this folks, I could have used a good stiff drink when I got home from school.

Of course, an opinion, like this one, is why I'm considered the Super Villain of the Ozarks!!! Mwu-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

TIME OUT FOR A COKE

I haven't had time to post anything. If your are wondering, I've heard too many rumors about why KSGF fired Vincent David Jericho to go into them at the moment. Personally, I'd rather post the truth than conspiracy theories or sleazy innuendo (I know you are disappointed in me).

However, I thought lets take some time out and share a Coke, or at least at vintage Coke commercial from 40 years ago. It is part of "The Real Thing" campaign. This jingle is by the Fortunes, who performed most of "the Real Thing" jingles. They were the British pop band who had hits with "Here It Comes Again" and "You've Got You're Troubles." These jingles paved the way for their more upbeat hits of the 70s "Freedom Come, Freedom Go" and "Here Comes That Rainy Day Feeling Again."



PUNCH UP YOUR RESUME WITH 70s PORN CHIC

An out-of-work copywriter named Lawson Clarke came up with a great way to attract attention to potential employers. Ad Age's Bob Garfield reports that Clarke created a 70's porn themed website showcasing some of his best work and his half naked body. The site, malecopywriter.com, looks like a Playgirl centerfold with Clarke posing on a bearskin rug with his "best work" displayed on a neo-Panasonic portable TV. When you first arrive on the site the TV is playing, what appears to be, an old "Sign-Off" tape. Maybe that is what this blog needs to attract readers - a picture of me naked.

I'M TOO COOL FOR FACEBOOK

Everywhere you go, you hear someone talking about Facebook. Most of what I have heard about Facebook was more positive than about MySpace. Also I was hearing this from people in my age group and older people as well. That should have been a tip off right there as to what it was. Facebook is boring and dull. It is like someone said "How can we make a website like MySpace more like a Polk Directory?"

My twin brother decided to start a profile since our high school class is getting a reunion together on Facebook (I might show up). I noticed that unlike MySpace that Facebook seems to be very anal and uniform. Then I looked at a few profiles and noticed they were not as much fun to look at as the MySpace profiles. There was NO MUSIC. What is a profile page with out your favorite Metalica song?

People on Facebook have to use their real names not fun monikers like on MySpace. I was on there for an hour and didn't see any pictures of drunk, single girls with there skirts stuck in the waistband of their pantyhose dancing on a table.

I believe Facebook was created for people too boring and dull to be on MySpace. It is for overachievers who seem to see everything as a part of their status. There are people on Facebook telling how much money they make, how good their grades were in high school, how much many cars and houses they own, how many kids they have, how many wives and concubines they have. Too many guys who list themselves as Republicans on there.

Granted, unlike MySpace, I didn't find any photos or profile of former male classmates in drag ("Hey, I don't remember this chubby blonde girl in my class - Omigod! That's Tommy Farquar.")

I think I'd rather be on MySpace because it is more like a fun college party and Facebook is like a bad Chamber of Commerce meeting. Of course, opinions like these are what make me the SUPER VILLAIN OF THE OZARKS!!! Mwu-HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Desdinova Looks at the Super Bowl Ads

First off I realized there was another ad from last years Super Bowl I found more offensive than the PETA ad that NBC turned down: That stupid puking E-Trade Baby. He is also always on TV while I'm trying to eat. He was back twice this year and even more obnoxious. I can't believe people said they liked those ads.

I notice many people are saying they hated my favorite ad which was from Telaflora. It was the woman who receives the "flowers in the box" that hurl insults at her in front of her co-workers. I think I must be the only one who got the joke. The moral is "Women shouldn't date guys are too cheap to send fresh flowers." We were supposed to sympathize with the woman. Many reviewers thought the advertisers point was "lets make fun of a unattractive woman." It was the opposite, it was making fun penny-pinching jerks who don't appreciate their girlfriends/wives. My favorite line in the ad was when the talking flower told the woman "Nobody wants to see you naked." At the end, a geeky co-worker tried make her feel better by saying he'd like to see her naked, but she didn't want to hear it.

Desdinova's other favorites: Bridgestone ads featuring hip-hop astronauts and Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, Pepsi's ad with Bob Dylan and Will. I. Am, Denny's poking fun at IHOP's promos and gangster movies, Bud Light's budget meeting and the one with Conan O'Brien, Coke Zero's homage to the 70's Coke ad with Mean Joe Greene, Hulu's ad with Alec Baldwin plotting to take over the world (Alec Baldwin running the world WOULD BE COOL), CareerBuilders with the naked co-worker and the punching of a koala bear.

THE ADS DESDINOVA NEVER WANTS TO SEE AGAIN: E-Trade baby (I can't stress this enough), Cars-dot-com's "David Abernathy" who should have been punched out like the koala in the CareerBuilder ad, Go Daddy (Is there a point to those?), Sobe (WTF?), Castrol (chimps are a Super Bowl ad cliche), Sprint's Roadies and ALL OF THE CAR COMPANY ADS SUCKED BIG TIME (especially that Audi ad)!

AdAge has a page where you can re-watch those the Super Bowl ads.

PETA Ad Was NOT As Offensive As That Planters Ad Last Year

I saw the PETA ad NBC turned down over at Ron Davis' Chatter blog. I didn't find it offensive. I thought it was pretty cute. Besides it wasn't as offensive to me as the one from Planters last year with this ugly girl in it (above) that all the guys chased. Why? She smells like Planters Peanuts. How does she get to smell like Planters Peanuts? She RUBS THEM ON HERSELF. GAG! The last image we see of her, she is walking down the street pulling her panties out of her crack.

Some Right-wing wackos would say that it is demeaning to men. Actually, there are some guys out there who are not very evolved and would be attracted to a girl because she smells like peanuts. Trust me, I've answered the phones at Jock 98.7. As a man, I'm not offended (because I'm not a guy like that).

It's the whole "ugly-girl-smells" idea then throw in "the wedgie factor" and this is just in bad taste. Bad part this ad played long after the Super Bowl and USUALLY WHILE I'M EATING. GAG!

BTW, I've seen a photo of what this girl really looks like and she is kind-of cute.

Remembering Mr. Roarke & Number Six

On Wednesday, actor Patrick McGoohan and Ricardo Montalban died. McGoohan was 80 and Montalban was 88. Montalban was probably best known to people of my age as Mr. Roarke on Fantasy Island. Every week he greeted a plane load of guest with "Smiles, everyone, smiles." He also was the spokesperson for the Chrysler Cordoba where he spoke of "fine Corinthian leather."

He also portrayed the villains Santine on Man from U.N.C.L.E and Khan on Star Trek and the movie Star Trek 2: Wrath of Khan.

McGoohan was the star of the British spy show called Danger Man. In this country, Danger Man was called Secret Agent and had a theme song by Johnny Rivers. After Danger Man/Secret Agent, McGoohan played the same character John Drake as Number Six in The Prisoner. The Prisoner was a short-limited series which was almost psychedelic in nature. Before Danger Man/Secret Agent, McGoohan was in Disney's Scarecrow of the Romeny Marsh series.

In tribute to McGoohan, I've provided a link to Johnny Rivers performing "Secret Agent Man" on Late Night with David Letterman in the 80's (Good Grief Dave was young!). Notice that Paul Shaffer's keyboard arrangement is based on the Danger Man theme.

Gay Xmas on Park Central Square in Springfield, MO 1959

I had to post a bit of this Woolworth's ad from a 1959 Springfield News Leader. I was hoping to see how many people's heads exploded. I bet some will write the News Leader, upset that they printed a "gay" back in the 50's. I bet this will get the phones on KSGF buzzing (the fine folks over at KWTO-AM have better things to do this week).

I should note that as mentioned in the Cranks post, women's panties were a dollar and Milk of Magnesia was sixty cents. I should also mention to Busplunge that the item he got a kick out of was a brand name, Child's Razor Blades, not childs razor blades (For little shavers?).

Lebanon Daily Record 1959: Mr. Magoo Gives Stag Beer For Xmas

From a December 1959 Lebanon Daily Record. I find the unusual because we have not only the idea a beer for a Christmas gift being given by a cartoon character, but the ad is in the newspaper of a town the only recently started allowing liquor sales in grocery stores.

Springfield News Leader 1959 - Whiskey for Christmas

The Springfield News Leader and Daily News were filed with hard alcohol ads in the 50's. There seem to be a push to give them as gifts at Christmas time.

1959 XMAS in Springfield News Leader

These ads are from Christmas time 1959. They're for a chain of drug/variety stores called Cranks that were in Springfield. We hear about how "perfect" the 1950's were for family values.

These ads feature the use of "Xmas." I also notice that these stores in the 50's ran specials every week on women's panties and Milk of Magnesia. I wonder if there was a connection.

The Good Old Days?

This is a real ad. Lysol did advertise itself this way. It sounds painful to me.

But Virginia Is For Lovers & We Are The QUEEN CITY

MSNBC has a story about how the governor of South Carolina and others are upset about these ads which appeared around the time of the Gay Pride festivities in the U.K. and elsewhere. A state tourism employee resigned over this. I doubt any gay people wanted to visit Civil War battlefields in South Carolina. There is also the language barrier because this turned off many junior high kids who read "South Carolina Is So Gay" and thought "South Carolina is boring stuff my parents would like."

Personally, I think Amro Worldwide should partner with Springfield Convention and Visitors Bureau. The posters can read "THEY DON'T CALL US THE QUEEN CITY FOR NOTHING!"

Embarrassing Banner Ad

Some ads on news websites and blogs are to advertise things related to the content. Adland has this rather amusing screen capture from CNN.com. Ooooppps!

FCC's Adelstein May Believe In the Existence of Talkola

I have mentioned here before that I believe that talk radio host accept payments by right-wing PACs to push certain issues to prominence. I have dubbed this practice "Talkola" after "payola," which I believe was not a real problem but the reaction of a bunch of cranky old men in the 50's to rock and roll. I've convinced one of my co-workers of this. He told me he has given up listening to talk radio because all of the host talked about the same topic for more than a month.

Now All Access reports that FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, in a speech to the National Conference for Media Reform in Minneapolis over the weekend, suggested the same thing. Only he isn't talking about PACs, he is suggesting that the Bush administration was behind the positive spin given to the Iraq War by talk radio as well as the news media.

"According to news reports, analysts who disagreed with the information given to them lost access," ADELSTEIN asserted. "This comes in the wake of new revelations that network executives pressured news reporters to develop Administration-friendly angles when we were heading to war. Today, I commit to you that I plan to demand a real and thorough investigation. We need to determine, without delay, whether the DoD violated the laws we enforce against payola.

"These rules prohibit anyone involved with preparing broadcast or cable programs from accepting anything of value without disclosing it to the public," ADELSTEIN continued. "This is not just a question of journalist ethics and integrity. It is the law. The war in IRAQ is clearly a controversial issue of public importance. The American people have a legal right to know when the government is sponsoring the source that is purporting to provide objective analysis."

Adelstein also mentioned that it is illegal to use federal funds for propaganda purposes. "The federal anti-propaganda and payola laws are grounded on the principle that the public is entitled to know who seeks to persuade them so they can make up their own minds about the credibility of the information presented," he said. "The public has a legal right to know that people who present themselves to be independent, unbiased experts and reporters are not shills hired to promote a corporate -- or governmental -- agenda."

Adelstein continued, "It is time for us to curb the excesses of commercialism, as CONGRESS intended," he declared. " We need to ... develop new rules to clarify that sponsorship identification has to be clear and understandable. It should not be buried in a compressed crawl at the end of a show that would take a magnifying glass to read. "We need to fight thinly disguised payola fueling homogenized corporate music that leaves no room for local and independent artists. We need to fight video news releases masquerading as news, with public relations agents pushing agendas that squeeze out real news coverage and local community concerns. We need to fight product placements turning news and entertainment shows alike into undisclosed commercials. And we need to fight rapacious advertisers preying on the unsuspecting minds of our young children."

Here is a transcript of the speech. It is great reading.

It May Be Un-PC but Is the Only Entertaining Ad on Springfield Radio We Have

A few days back, the Springfield News Leader ran a LTTE complaining about the Heritage Chrysler radio ads. For those of you who have not heard these ads (they have actually been around for about two years or more) they feature a chant that sounds like "Song of Hiawatha," the Hamms Beer jingle of the 50s ("From the land of sky blue waters"), and "Running Bear" run through a blender. The name of the car dealer is sung to a tom-tom drumbeat and flute in a mock Native American pronunciation (HAR-I-TOGGEE). The writer of the LTTE said this was un-PC and bordered on racism.

I’ll admit the first time I heard it I thought it was un-PC and a stereotype of Native Americans. However, I liked it because IT WAS NOT THE TYPICAL SPRINGFIELD RADIO AD. It was not a dry read with out background music, sound effects or any excitement. It also wasn’t the car ad featuring one heavy metal chord played over and over while announcer yells. Best of all, it was not one of those horrible jingles that seem to pollute this market like VD – the "I remember the good old days when every thing was better." BARF!

I used to produce promos for the company I work for. I quit after some complaints. They mainly came from a former co-worker, a former employee at the station, the people in the sales department and a doofus e-mailed stuff like this "Tak dat promo off. Me no like it. Mike ______" (He changed his name ever time but kept Mike). I got in trouble for making a promo where a one of the talk show host blew up a caller to one of the talk shows. I got in trouble for imitating Jim Rome and poking fun at one of the host for saying he didn’t like Jim Rome. I got in trouble for making fun of another station’s promo using a snippet of Stan Freburg’s "Point of Order." I made a promo that never made it to the air. It was a parody of 2001: Space Odyssey and it was nixed it had monkey sound effects in it ("Screaming monkeys might upset listeners" I was told).

On the other hand, I had listeners who recognized my voice from these promos and gave me complements saying they enjoyed my work.

Like I said, I agreed that the Heritage Chrysler ad is un-PC, but it falls into a gray area Political Correctness. This ad seems to evoke the romanticized Native American of Longfellow, James Fennimore Cooper and the "Keep America Beautiful" ads of the 70s (pic above). It doesn’t seem to show a negative John Ford "bloody savage" image or stupid image from F-Troop, but still un-PC is un-PC.

My problem is CAN WE NOT BE MORE CREATIVE WITH RADIO ADS! I used to remember some great stuff being produced around here. We need to produce ads that look toward the future and not back at the good old days. No more ads that sound like the radio equivalent of a Penny Power ad. Use monkeys, sirens and explosions, funny jingles and humor but MAKE ADS THAT ARE ENTERTAINING!

Of course, an opinion, like this one, is why I'm considered the Super-Villain of the Ozarks!!! Mwu-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

That Song in the Axe Commercial

If you've seen the Axe Commercial where the guy imagines every girl he sees in their underwear, you've heard this song. It is by one of the most overlooked rock bands of the 60s (at least by oldies/classic rock radio) - the Seeds. They were sort of viewed as the United States answer to the Rolling Stones. Sky Saxon certainly tried to sound like Mick Jagger. The late Lester Bangs said what made their only Top 40 "Pushin Too Hard" great was it escentially "Louie Louie" only faster and reduced to two chords from three.

Back in 1979, Nobody Noticed This Ad

1979 was the time of Donna Summer, The Knack, Kansas and Blondie on the radio, The Hulk, Mork and the Dukes of Hazzard on TV, Apocalypse Now, Rock and Roll High School and "10" at the movies.

It is also when Pakistan International Airline ran this now chilling ad, offering service to New York City, in a French magazine. Thanks to Ad Land for this spooky piece of nostalgia.

Back to the Studio

It has been a long time since I featured an ad for the Studio from the Springfield Daily News. This is January 1978. The Opening of Misty Beethoven, directed by Radley Metzger, is considered a masterpiece of adult film (for what ever that is worth).

I had to include the other ad as an example of how things have changed in Springfield. I'm not sure if this is the motel that was at the corner of Glenstone and Kearney when I was a kid or not. There were several motels that advertised adult films on their signs. I guess that has been replaced by Continental Breakfast and free WiFi. (Sorry about the quality. The microfilm machines at the Library Center are lousy.