OK, this whole local craze of prominent business owners starring in light-hearted advertisements and commercials was cute when it started. But it has come time for it to STOP RIGHT NOW.
Yeah, there have always been some TV commercials starring business owners such as Cal Worthington. Cal, of course, always had his dog Spot with him in his auto-dealership commercials, but Spot was often a creature quite different from a dog, such as a pig, a bear or Al Roker.
But the local trend, in my opinion, got its start when the charismatic John Ascuaga decided to act in commercials for -- you guessed it -- Hooked on Phonics.
OK, I made that part up. He was actually a model for Tommy Hilfiger. But after that, buoyed by his success as a boxer-shorts model, he appeared in a series of commercials for John Ascuaga's Nugget.
You've seen these commercials. There's the one where he walks 427 miles or something in one day, and then there's the one where he came up for the idea for the second Nugget tower after bumping his head on his pickup and developing double vision. (However, the commercial never explained why he built the towers so dang far apart.) But undeniably, the series of commercials that really rocketed John into the stratosphere of advertising success can be summed up in two words: speech impediment.
Ever since John uttered that one word, um... well, it isn't really a word, but ever since he said it, life for Truckee Meadows commercial viewers has just been perfec.
Perfec. That's what John says, like 27 times, in one commercial. You know what happens when you look up "perfec" in the dictionary? You waste several minutes and you feel like a huge dweeb, because perfec is not a word.
Well, John's commercials started a flood. Now, for some reason, Ferenc Szony, the CEO of the Sands Regency in downtown Reno (well, it's sort of downtown Reno) has decided that he, too, must be in commercials for the Sands. And billboards. And newspaper advertisements.
You've seen these advertisements. They usually feature Ferenc in some dumb outfit, with a look on his face indicating some severe degree constipation. One recent billboard I saw, which was advertising the fact that the Sands now has a bingo parlor, featured him bald and wearing a bathrobe. It said something to the effect of "B1 with Sands bingo."
Ferenc Szony in a bathrobe? It appears someone has a case of envy for Ascuaga's boxer-modeling career, hmm?
And now, in the spirit of Cal Worthington, combined with the spirit of a bad LSD trip, local car dealers are getting into the fray. We've always had Dick Donnelly and Richard West on car commercials, showing all the telegenic qualities of rancid artichokes. But now, not only are the car-dealership executives appearing in commercials, they're trying to act, too.
The most heinous example of this involves a series of commercials with Reno Toyota owner Tom Dolan and his general manager. In one, they decide to go to a health spa and get a facial and a manicure. But in the latest one, we get to see Dolan pinned under a barbell, flailing his legs wildly, as his trusty sidekick walks away, presumably to go get some more acting lessons from Steven Seagal and Don Knotts. The camera, of course, is pointing directly into Dolan's crotch as the commercial ends, with Dolan's legs still flailing.
God, what did we Reno residents do to deserve this?
When they're showing the crotches of car-dealership executives, they have gone to far. I think that Jeff Griffin and Tony Armstrong should form a task force (including Sue Clark-Johnson, Al Roker and Bruce Breslow) right away to ensure that these commercials featuring business owners are stopped, right away.
If these commercials don't stop, who knows what could be next? I shake in fear when I imagine the possibilities. Only a total ban will be perfec to me.
Jimmy Boegle is a fifth-generation who has nothing to do with the Elian Gonzalez case, despite Jimmy's resemblance to Janet Reno. His (Jimmy's, not Elian's) (or Janet's, either) column appears here Tuesdays, and an archive of columns may be viewed at http://geocities.datacellar.net/jiboegle/columns.html.