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In 1964 we (Y&R, San Fran­cisco) had Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. John Emmerling, Ralph Price and I were assigned the Racing Tire Division, because it was a small budget. We were in San Angelo, Texas at Goodyear’s Oval Test Track with A.J. Foyt hoping to set an oval track speed record on Goodyear Double Eagle Passenger Tires. In those days, we had news­paper and magazine ads at every major paper and magazine in the country with one piece of infor­mation missing…The exact speed if the record was made. Foyt succeeded at 204.6 mph, but called from a two way radio when he was out of sight. Soon, a pickup truck left to tow the race-​​car back, as we were told the car had broken down. Soon it appeared and the Double Eagle Tires were in excellent shape, and the record had been set. All the national media folks went imme­di­ately to phones to give their publi­ca­tions the correct speed record, and the next day the ads ran all over the country. The next evening (the day after the record was set) we were told over setup drinks at a San Angelo Bar that we should go out back and look in the pickup truck bed that was covered with a tonneau. We did and there were four Double Eagle Tires in shreds. They had been destroyed at the speed Foyt was driving. It was too late to stop the ads, as they had already run in all the major news­papers. That year Double Eagle Tires blew out all over Texas where people drove their Cadillacs and Lincolns at very high speeds on the back roads.

Richurd Somers

Well, there was this time in the late 1960’s, when I was in Omaha, Nebraska doing a T.V. commercial for that renowned product Bux Corn­rootworm Insec­ticide. This was part of the array of bene­ficial farm products that were being produced by Chevron Ortho products (and we wonder why the Autism rate increase so dramatically).

I was there with Larry Duke (a genius art director and later Levis Poster, etc. Illus­trator). Our chosen actor for our commercial was Pat Buttrum (Gene Autry’s former movie side kick). Mr. Buttrum was currently appearing in a T.V. series called Green Acres (starring Ava Gabor, etc.). It was about city folk who buy a farm. Their neighbor was Pat Buttrum. So we figured he was perfect to sell Bux to the farming community.

We went to dinner the night before the “shoot” and across the restaurant Mr. Buttrum spies an old friend, singer “?” Robert Goulet — who was appearing at that great Omaha venue, The Aksarben Theater (that’s Nebraska spelled back­wards, get it?). So the two of them wander off to partake of way too many drinks.

Cut to the next day, when we stop to ask some farmer on a dirt road for direc­tions to one particular corn field in an area of corn­fields as far as you can see in any direction. As the farmer is pointing, Pat Buttrum opened the back door of the car and puked on that poor farmer’s shoes. We could only imagine how proud the farmer must have felt when he went home tracking vomit into the house and proudly announcing that Pat Buttrum from Green Acres puked on his shoes not more than10 minutes ago.

I won’t go into the video cameraman’s concern with color adjustment saying, “there must be some­thing wrong with this equipment.…I can’t get that green cast out of Mr. Buttrum’s face”. It was that green of someone who’d been up drinking all night. And I won’t elab­orate further by discussing how many chickens Mr. Buttrum sat on when making himself comfortable sitting on those bags of Bux Corn­rootworm Insecticide).

Todd Miller