I remember a story he told late one night while a guest of Tom Snyder's "Late Late Show" about one of the television commercials he produced over the years.
The cigarette brand Lark had a series of commercials in which they drove down the street in a truck with the sign "show us your Lark package" on the side and edited together the results from those who complied. The audio for same was the William Tell Overture. Freberg satirized the ciggie spot in the commercial he did for Jeno's Pizza Rolls, except it was set at a fancy dress reception and the concept was "show us your pizza roll". The audio was the William Tell Overture. Near the end of the commercial, two Madison-Avenue types in grey pinstripe suits, brandishing cigarette packs looking suspiciously like Larks, tell the host of the party they want to talk to him about his choice of music. Pan right, and there are Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels, in costume as the Lone Ranger and Tonto, with Moore telling the ad men "funny ... we wanted to talk to you about the same thing." (Tonto: "Pizza roll, kemosabe?") The spot was a big hit, except that CBS wanted a waiver from Silverheels about playing a "stereotypical Indian" before they would air it. Freberg's response? "But he's Tonto!" Nevertheless, the network insisted so he trotted over to Jay's house to get the waiver. Silverheels' response? "But I'm Tonto!" The punch line: At the time, CBS owned the syndication rights to the Lone Ranger television series. The commercial was included on the VHS videocassette in the Stan Freberg box set Rhino released some 15 years or so back, which also had four CDs of his commercial releases (including "The United States of America") and some of his radio advertising work. -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to tvornottv@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to tvornottv-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to tvornottv+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
