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I recall that Ralph Williams' TV commercials in LA were about evenly divided between himself and Chick Lambert, who was his General Manager, I believe. There are urban legends on the internet about that "ad" in the You-Tube clip - that it was actually broadcast over the air, and that Chick was "angry" at Williams.
First, I don't think that ad was ever broadcast - the FCC would have flipped out at the profanities. I assume Chick and the crew had been taping commercials for awhile that evening, and were blowing off some steam by doing a fake ad for fun. They were probably rollilng on the pavement in laughter. I'm also confident that it never occurred to Chick that somebody would actually tape it, or that the tape would be preserved.
If old Ralph saw it, I doubt he was amused, given that Chick announced that Ralph came to the Bay Area to "rape each and every citizen."
Note the dog Storm siting on the hood of that Country Squire wagon. Storm provided the genesis of Cal's "dog Spot."
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Hot Hits
Guest
Hi Friends. Amazon has a book with some great Ralph Williams stories. It is On Sale!
http://www.amazon.com/California-Department-Transcript-Supporting-Pleadings/dp/1270525956
Ralph Williams Ford, Inc. v. California Department of Motor Vehicles U.S. Supreme Court Transcript of Record with Supporting Pleadings Paperback – October 29, 2011
by MILTON LINDER (Author) , EVELLE J YOUNGER (Author)
Be the first to review this item
http://www.amazon.com/California-Department-Transcript-Supporting-Pleadings/dp/1270525956
Ralph Williams Ford, Inc. v. California Department of Motor Vehicles U.S. Supreme Court Transcript of Record with Supporting Pleadings Paperback – October 29, 2011
by MILTON LINDER (Author) , EVELLE J YOUNGER (Author)
Be the first to review this item
Everybody thought those spots were live. Virtually never...at least in L.A. The expense of the crew and equipment at all hours and on weekends would have eaten any profit from the ads.
They'd tape a week's worth in a day, usually starting in the afternoon, so some would be in daylight and some would be nighttime.
People buying the illusion would rush right down and try to buy that Country Squire to find it was already gone. Eventually, fine print was added: "Cars subject to prior sale".
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They got Ralph for so many violations. Odometer rollbacks were just the beginning.
He'd take good tires off trade-ins, sell them and put on re-caps or factory rejects.
Cars left his lot without wiper blade inserts because he'd pull them and sell them in his parts department and sometimes forget to put trashed ones in their place.
Newer batteries would be taken out, sold and replaced with ones that might last another day or two.
Ralph wrote the book on crooked car dealing.
Unbelievable! Recycled wiper blades. That's take crookedness to a new level of cheapness.
I used to wonder how used car dealers got away with odometer rollbacks. About 1962, my parents traded in their 55 Chevy wagon for a used (but newer) 57 Chevy sedan at the Tujunga Chevrolet dealer. I checked the wagon on the car lot one day about a week later, and looked in the window at the odometer. The car had magically shed about 40,000 miles.
Didn't anybody ever blow the whistle on these crooks?
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Sure. That's how Ralph eventually wound up without a dealer's license and ultimately in jail.
But it took a while. Rolling back odometers wasn't a crime in California until the 50s or very early 60s, and then it was hard to prove.
The automakers introduced the "tamper-proof" odometer (it would turn red if it had been rolled back), but in those days, almost all odometers were five digits (reading to 99,999)...so guys like Ralph would just turn them forward from 80,000 to 30,000.
Now, odometers won't accept that, either, so there's a market for gauge clusters from low-mileage wrecks. It's not common, the penalties are big and they'll get you on local, state and federal charges, but there are guys out there.
Check out the link below. I was engaging in a bit of LA car dealer nostalgia, and remembered that Jack Poet Volkswagen used to do funny commercials on the radio. They hired an announcer that did a good Ralph Williams impression (Ralph had a slight speech impediment), and had him say ridiculous things. I recall:
"Each and every moving part on each and every car is fully guaranteed...for as long as it works.'
"We have an affordable payment plan -only $100 down, and $100 a month...for the rest of your life."
So googling a bit, I found this 1969 Jack Poet TV commercial, done by members of the Firesign Theatre. Warning: the bit toward the end with the guy in the sombrero could be considered a bit racist by current standards.
http://archive.org/details/Firesign_Theatre_Podcasting_003
"Each and every moving part on each and every car is fully guaranteed...for as long as it works.'
"We have an affordable payment plan -only $100 down, and $100 a month...for the rest of your life."
So googling a bit, I found this 1969 Jack Poet TV commercial, done by members of the Firesign Theatre. Warning: the bit toward the end with the guy in the sombrero could be considered a bit racist by current standards.
http://archive.org/details/Firesign_Theatre_Podcasting_003
"If you can find a better deal, I'll eat a bug," was another of Cal's challenges. I wonder if anyone took him up on that.
Back in the early 60's when Cal owned a Dodge dealership in Huntington Park, my dad, who owned a commercial photography studio in the south bay area, would photograph color slides of new and used cars that Cal's sales department wanted featured on TV that evening. My dad would photograph the cars in the morning, rush the film down to a local photo lab where it would be ready by 4:30 that afternoon. He would then drive the slides over to one or more of the independent stations (like KHJ-TV, KTLA or KCOP) where they would be loaded into a slide chain and aired that evening. He did this several times a week. Of course, at some point in the mid to late 60's, Cal dispensed with the slides and went with either a live TV remote or videotape.
But I don't know of any other local advertiser who understood the power of television and how to effectively use it better then Cal Worthington.
Back in the early 60's when Cal owned a Dodge dealership in Huntington Park, my dad, who owned a commercial photography studio in the south bay area, would photograph color slides of new and used cars that Cal's sales department wanted featured on TV that evening. My dad would photograph the cars in the morning, rush the film down to a local photo lab where it would be ready by 4:30 that afternoon. He would then drive the slides over to one or more of the independent stations (like KHJ-TV, KTLA or KCOP) where they would be loaded into a slide chain and aired that evening. He did this several times a week. Of course, at some point in the mid to late 60's, Cal dispensed with the slides and went with either a live TV remote or videotape.
But I don't know of any other local advertiser who understood the power of television and how to effectively use it better then Cal Worthington.
All this talk has reminded me of one of the funniest movies I've ever seen... "Used Cars" starring Kurt Russel and Jack Warden circa 1980. Anyone else know it/like it?
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Thomps2525
Guest
You like funny movies? You came to the right place, my friend! Here, have a cigar. You don't mind if my put my arm on your shoulder, do you? Listen, I can make you a good deal---no, make that a great deal---on a clip from the very movie that you asked about and it's guaranteed to be funny. No other dealer can make that offer. Whaddya say?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQiTRQTiMGY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQiTRQTiMGY
Yes - Used Cars was hilarious, but like most acting, it's mostly exageration. I sold new cars for awhile in the early 90s, and I can tell you that any sane person visiting a car lot would run screaming from a salesman like Kurt Russell's character. The best salesman in the Mazda dealership I worked in was a dour little Syrian guy named Samir ("Sam," naturally) who was actually kind of unfriendly to his customers ('victims'). My speculation was that he was so non-salesman like that they let their guard down. He was a great closer, and could sell the ocean to a surfer...and for top dollar too. He was making $150,000 a year in 1991.
I remember those old "CAL WORTHINGTON AND HIS DOG SPOT!!" commercials from when I was a kid growing up in L.A. Back then, I found his "dogs" (which of course were always an elephant, a giraffe or a bear--anything but a dog) funny, but as I grew up, they just became idiotic.
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Thomps2525
Guest
"Idiotic"? Are you referring to the commercial where Worthington was taunting an alligator and almost got bit? Or perhaps the commercial in which he was riding on the back of a hippopotamus? Hey, can you think of a better technique for convincing people to come buy a car than riding a hippo?
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