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Celebrities on PSAs

earshot

earshot

In the last year, I've begun watching Perry Mason. After reading info about its actors, I discovered William Talman (the D.A. on the show) recorded a couple of anti-smoking PSAs shortly before he died of cancer. He may have been the first actor to cut an anti-smoking PSA.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmjRkpge-jk

I recall Yul Brenner's anti-smoking PSA from when I was growing up. Then I got to thinking about others who have done all sorts of appearances for worthy causes. Whenever I see something mentioned about a Y.W.C.A., I remember a Lucille Ball PSA about that organization.

Anyone with their own memories of actors appearing in public service announcements?
 
Talman filmed the PSA six weeks before his death. He had volunteered to make the commercial after reading that the American Cancer Society had problems getting actors to appear in their anti-smoking PSA's because they figured cigarette companies wouldn't consider them for endorsements.

A year later, Tony Curtis did one (after also quitting cigarettes), along with Charlton Heston, and Lon Chaney, Jr.--who already had lung cancer.
 
The PSA's with William Talman were shot specifically to be shown after his death. They ran them in some movie theatres as well as on TV. The PSA's with Tony Curtis were withdrawn after he got busted for weed.
 
Curtis got busted in April 1970 at Heathrow Airport in London. At the time, this was the amusing contrast in sentencing for possession of marijuana in England: the maximum was 10 YEARS in jail or a fine of $2,400 (not sure what that was in pounds) or both. I'm gonna guess he got something close to the latter.
 
I found the CSU PSA on youtube and retrojunk.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jt73g1vr8E


I have that PSA of CSU on VHS in spanish, I should tell you that it's over 25 years, on the VHS tape I have recorded on said 88, the 1st commercial break was for the Immigration Services of Houston, Texas, where they explained that their offices will be open till midnight on 5/4/88. I assume that it's was from early 88, the station where it was recorded was on KXLN.


Here is the spanish version of "You gotta be ready"


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0p2zBdscPfM


In the spanish PSA, they had different celebrities, only Mr. Roake remained in that PSA.
 
earshot said:
At the risk of hijacking the thread I started, I had another observation about the Mason series. MeTV shows them twice a day. Right now, they're on the '57 season and the '64 season. It's amazing how much Raymond Burr aged in just that short period of time.
Click to expand...

Considering he was the title character and they produced 211 hour-long episodes in the first seven (of nine) seasons, it probably shouldn't be too surprising.

Now back to PSA's:

I recall Tony Randall doing one for Myasthenia Gravis (an eye disease). One of the reasons I remember it is that you could tell he had filmed it on the set of The Odd Couple, but yet it was still being shown (often late at night) for years after the show had ended.
 
I remember one with Art Carney urging people to give up drinking
(he had a long battle with the bottle but found a solution in always
keeping a pack of cookies or crackers handy; the sugar content cut
his craving for alcohol).
 
The late Jim Jordan (Fibber McGee and Molly) did one for AARP in the 1970's..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcD3AN2BcYM

Jordan did two other known TV appearances..One on a Chicago area TV Game Show in about 1963(Watchable in the Museum of Broadcast Communications Archives, and A Chico and The Man episode from 1976-"Old Is Gold"
 
BD Sullivan said:
I recall Tony Randall doing one for Myasthenia Gravis (an eye disease). One of the reasons I remember it is that you could tell he had filmed it on the set of The Odd Couple, but yet it was still being shown (often late at night) for years after the show had ended.
Click to expand...

Back to smoking, I also recall Tony doing a PSA for the cancer Society, also on "The Odd Couple" set, talking about the joys of being an ex-smoker.
 
I recall Jim Jordan in a commercial for his old sponsor, Johnson's Wax, in the early '70s. He was also the voice of Orville in Disney's "The Rescuers."

And I caught a "Rifleman" rerun wherein the McCains met a fast-talking snake oil salesman; the way he delivered his spiel reminded me of Fibber McGee, and I thought it might have been Jim Jordan... no, it was Bob Sweeney, who played Fibber in the short-lived 1959 TV version of "Fibber McGee & Molly," and later directed "The Andy Griffith Show" and other programs.

Back to the topic, I do recall the Yul Brynner PSA. Larry Hagman did a few Cancer Society PSAs, including the one where he wore a red rubber band on his wrist; he said that snapping the band helped him fend off the urge to smoke.
 
Larry Hagman did a few Cancer Society PSAs, including the one where he wore a red rubber band on his wrist; he said that snapping the band helped him fend off the urge to smoke.
Click to expand...

He also did one in character as J. R. where he was holding one of those little battery-operated fans, and he pointed it toward the camera and said, "Come one step closer and I'll blow you away."
 
I remember a lame slapstick comedy one done by Dick Van Dyke telling one and all... I think... not to put water onto a grease fire. Then he gets hit in the face with a big bucket of water. He just stands there, takes is and starts wringing out his tie or something.

I remember seeing the anti-smoking one with the actor who played "Hamilton Burger" on "Perry Mason" when it was first on.
 
rnigma said:
Larry Hagman did a few Cancer Society PSAs, including the one where he wore a red rubber band on his wrist; he said that snapping the band helped him fend off the urge to smoke.
Click to expand...

There's a backstory to that one -- the rubber band trick was a winning entry in a 1981 contest sponsored by the Cancer Society, in which participants write a letter, explaining how they quit. The winner of that contest was Janet MacAinsh, a mother of eight from Howell, Michigan, whose rubber band method earned her an all-expense-paid trip to Hollywood and a dinner with Larry Hagman. The source of this was a 1982 book of Michigan trivia, "Michillaneous", by Gary Barfknecht.

johnbasalla said:
I remember a lame slapstick comedy one done by Dick Van Dyke telling one and all... I think... not to put water onto a grease fire. Then he gets hit in the face with a big bucket of water. He just stands there, takes is and starts wringing out his tie or something.
Click to expand...

Dick Van Dyke has done a series of "Learn Not to Burn" PSAs for the National Fire Prevention Association for several years, from the late-1970s through the end of the 1980s. Several of these, from the late-1980s, are on YouTube.

johnbasalla said:
I remember seeing the anti-smoking one with the actor who played "Hamilton Burger" on "Perry Mason" when it was first on.
Click to expand...

The aforementioned William Talman.
 
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