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| Stan Freberg |
Comic genius Stan Freberg recently passed away. His
multi-faceted career included Radio, Records, and Movies. But
his most successful venture was advertising. He was the man who
introduced humor to commercials.
I'm
not sure if he ever tried selling ice to Eskimos, but he was
very successful selling prunes.
Freberg
figured that one selling point was the fact that Sunsweet had already
removed their pits. His ad proclaimed that another improvement
was on the way: "Today the pits, Tomorrow the wrinkles!"
And,
of course, the famous ad proclaiming that "Nine out of 10
doctors prefer Chun King Chow Mein. Then the camera pulls back
to show nine Asians in White Doctor Coats..........and one white guy
(Stan Freberg himself)
You
probably remember his 1951 soap opera parody "John and Marsha"
in which the two actors only utter each others first names...each
time feverishly emoting. Yes, that was Freberg.
And the 1953 take off on Dragnet, titled, "St. George and the Dragonet."
However, none of his "failures" were mentioned. He didn't have many, but one was pretty spectacular; his campaign for Pacific Airlines.
Freeberg convinced the airline CEO that a lighthearted spoof of the public's fear of flying would be just the thing to convince people to "Fly Pacific Airlines."
This
first thing he did was take out a full-page ad saying:
"Hey
there! You with the sweat in your palms. It's about time an airline
faced up to something. Most people are scared witless
of flying. Deep
down inside, every time that big plane lifts off that runway, you
wonder if this is it, right? You want to know something, fella? So
does the pilot, deep down inside."
Flight
attendants passed out "survival kits," which consisted of a
lucky rabbit's foot and a security blanket.
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Freberg had plans to paint the planes like trains, and play train noises over the loudspeakers, but he and the CEO of the company were fired before that could happen.
Shortly after that the airline went out of business and sold out to Air West.
Freberg passed away in Santa Monica, California at age 88.
His motto, printed on his business cards read,
Ars Gratia Pecuniae, Latin meaning "Art for money's sake."
-Ed
Freberg passed away in Santa Monica, California at age 88.
His motto, printed on his business cards read,
Ars Gratia Pecuniae, Latin meaning "Art for money's sake."
-Ed
