cs2532aa@unm-cvax.UUCP (03/28/85)
About eight months ago, a new clothing store called "GERMER'S" rolled into
town here. The place started out in a large yellow tent, and about 3 months
later moved into a horrendously ugly yellow building. The store gets a lot
of attention around here because of its loud, offensive (to some) commercials
featuring some guy who yells a lot and throws things at the camera. In one ad
that ran for a weeks or so, he had his head shaved on camera -- about a month
later he shaved the heads of two women, etc. etc. Really stupid stuff.
Now, I heard a rumor that this outfit hops around the country, opens a store,
raises a little hell, and then skips town (not necessarily in any illegal
sense) after about a year. Is this true? The cities I heard that they have
been in before are St. Louis and Fresno.
Any horror stories about the outfit are welcome, and even encouraged. The
number of people who are sick and tired of this place and its asinine ads
is overwhelming, but as one of the local tv station managers says, the tv
stations can't really decide NOT to sell the guy advertising time.
.rne.
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Real World . . Ernie Longmire / 311 Don St. SE / Los Lunas, NM 87031-9405
UUCP . . . . . {{purdue,cmcl2,ihnp4}!lanl,ucbvax}!unmvax!unm-cvax!cs2532aa
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"Be stiff!" -DEVOron@brl-tgr.ARPA (Ron Natalie <ron>) (03/30/85)
> later moved into a horrendously ugly yellow building. The store gets a lot > of attention around here because of its loud, offensive (to some) commercials > featuring some guy who yells a lot and throws things at the camera. In one ad > that ran for a weeks or so, he had his head shaved on camera -- about a month > later he shaved the heads of two women, etc. etc. Really stupid stuff. > Sounds like Crazy Eddie's ad team in advanced stages of their disease. -Ron
doug@terak.UUCP (Doug Pardee) (04/01/85)
> but as one of the local tv station managers says, the tv > stations can't really decide NOT to sell the guy advertising time. As far as I know, that station manager is lying. Except for the "equal time" provisions, stations certainly can (and indeed are required to) control whose ads appear and what the content is. Here in Phoenix we have a little furor going on because a local station neglected to pre-screen a commercial. The ad was aimed at children, and asked them to phone a "976" number. 976 numbers are a marketing device whereby the local Bell company bills each caller on behalf of the company which has the number. In the immediate case, each time a child called the number, Mountain Bell added $1.85 to the kid's phone bill, passing most of that on to the holder of the 976 number. Some "latchkey" kids had run up >$50 in extra charges for their parents to pay. The commercial ran four times before the station manager was warned by another station to "watch out for" those commercials. They no longer are being aired by that station, and all other stations in the area have refused to run them. -- Doug Pardee -- Terak Corp. -- !{hao,ihnp4,decvax}!noao!terak!doug
pagiven@drutx.UUCP (GivenP) (04/02/85)
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In response to some netters' observations of lunatic Germer's
advertising:
I thought I left moronic TV ads back in New York when I moved to
Colorado Springs. WRONG-O buckeroos. Germers is based in Colorado
Springs and Pueblo (both Colorado) and has been there for at least
5 years. I guess that wacko got his training at the Crazy Eddie
School of Pithy and Intellectual Salespersonship.
There is a T-Shirt shop in Colorado Springs that sells "I HATE GER-
MERS COMMERCIALS" shirts, if you *really* want to express your
irritation (other than staying away from the store).
It has been said that the purpose of advertising is to get the con-
sumer to remember a name. The obnoxious method of shouting a mes-
sage, accompanied by nitwit antics must be effective, eh? We're
discussing it, aren't we?
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Given {ihnp4, houxe, stcvax!ihnp4}!drutx!pagiven
AT&T Information Systems Laboratories
11900 N. Pecos, Rm 1B04, Denver 80234 (303)-538-4058
-----------------------------------------------------------------terryl@tekcrl.UUCP () (04/05/85)
>I thought I left moronic TV ads back in New York when I moved to >Colorado Springs. WRONG-O buckeroos. Germers is based in Colorado >Springs and Pueblo (both Colorado) and has been there for at least >5 years. I guess that wacko got his training at the Crazy Eddie >School of Pithy and Intellectual Salespersonship. >.... >It has been said that the purpose of advertising is to get the con- >sumer to remember a name. The obnoxious method of shouting a mes- >sage, accompanied by nitwit antics must be effective, eh? We're >discussing it, aren't we? Hoo, boy, you haven't seen obnoxious until you see a Cal Worthington commercial, or Tom Campbell who used to do some commercials for Cal Stereo in the LA area. Really obnoxious, whining voice. Anywas, Cal Worthington has about three or four BIG car dealerships in the LA area, and not only are his commercials obnoxious, they're moronic, too!! Some are of Cal with his "dog Spot", which was just about everything in the world except for a dog, like an elephant, a tiger, a chimp(or a monkey), etc. When I went to Berkeley, I thought I'd seen the last of Tom Campbell, but lo and behold, Cal Stereo must have Chapter 11'ed themseleves, `cause he was up in the Bay area doing commercials for a local stereo chain there. Then there was Ed Barbera(sp?) who had a furniture outlet of some sort that looked like it sold really cheap and chincy furniture!!!!He became so famous that someone wrote a song about him, titled appropriately enough "Ed Barbera" sung to the tune of the Beach Boys "Barbara Ann"!!! The song did him justice!!
bjorn@dataio.UUCP (Bjorn Benson) (04/06/85)
Cal Worthington is not just limitted to California... He's opened a car dealership in Federal Way, Washington!! This blight on society must be stopped! Call out the National Guard, the Army, the Navy... anyone!! Next thing you know, Cal will run for president and Spot for vice-president.
iln@drutx.UUCP (NewcomerI) (04/09/85)
I used to live in Colorado Springs and grew to truly enjoy Germer's commercials. In fact, they're one of the thing I found that I missed when I moved. The commercials have lost some of their zip since the late Doug Germer no longer participates, however. Just give them some time. Soon you too will grow to love Germer's!
brooke@nmtvax.UUCP (04/09/85)
In article <> terryl@tekcrl.UUCP writes: > >>I thought I left moronic TV ads back in New York when I moved to >>Colorado Springs. WRONG-O buckeroos. Germers is based in Colorado >>Springs and Pueblo (both Colorado) and has been there for at least >>5 years. I guess that wacko got his training at the Crazy Eddie >>School of Pithy and Intellectual Salespersonship. > Hoo, boy, you haven't seen obnoxious until you see a Cal Worthington >commercial, or Tom Campbell who used to do some commercials for Cal >Stereo in the LA area. We've had Cal Worthington on my hometown (Alamogordo) cable for at least ten years. I kind of like him. I really like the biplane stunt. We've had Germers for a while now, too. This is really bad. I wish they really had shaved the guys' head to the bone (like the prices they were advertising) instead of just to the scalp. Crazy Eddie: The name speaks for itself. Seen him on WOR. Obnoxious as all get out. -- J. Brooke King in Socorro Funland ... ucbvax!unmvax!nmtvax!brooke Any thoughts or non-thoughts expressed here are not necessarily those of NMIMT.
john@sol1.UUCP (john) (04/16/85)
In article <630@dataio.UUCP> bjorn@dataio.UUCP (Bjorn Benson) writes: > >Cal Worthington is not just limitted to California... He's opened a >car dealership in Federal Way, Washington!! This blight on society >must be stopped! Call out the National Guard, the Army, the Navy... >anyone!! Next thing you know, Cal will run for president and Spot for >vice-president. ARGGHH! I'd forgotten all about Cal. (Moved to Nebraska from So. Cal. 1 1/2 yrs.ago NOBODY should be allowed to purchase up that much air time! It got so I dreaded watching the network he was on no matter how good the movie was. One of those spots of his has got to eat him sometime! [ Take what I say in a different way ] [ and it's easy to say ] [ that this is all confusion ] John Korsmeyer @ THE SOLUTION EMAIL: {akgua,ihnp4}!sol1!john
terryl@tekcrl.UUCP (04/19/85)
>>Cal Worthington is not just limitted to California... He's opened a >>car dealership in Federal Way, Washington!! This blight on society >>must be stopped! Call out the National Guard, the Army, the Navy... >>anyone!! Next thing you know, Cal will run for president and Spot for >>vice-president. >ARGGHH! >I'd forgotten all about Cal. (Moved to Nebraska from So. Cal. 1 1/2 yrs.ago >NOBODY should be allowed to purchase up that much air time! It got so I >dreaded watching the network he was on no matter how good the movie was. >One of those spots of his has got to eat him sometime! As the one who posted the original article about Cal Worthington, let me offer my deepest regrets that he is now in Washington. Myself having moved from So. Cal. to the "Great Grey In The Sky" five years ago, I naively assumed he was still in the LA area. Again, my deepest regrets, and yes, call out the National Guard and "NUKE CAL WORTHINGTON!!!"
guy@anasazi.UUCP (Guy Finney) (04/24/85)
> >>Cal Worthington is not just limitted to California... > > >ARGGHH! > >One of those spots of his has got to eat him sometime! > > "NUKE CAL WORTHINGTON!!!" Take heart! He opened a dealership here in Phoenix some years back, ran thousands of obnoxious ads on local TV, then went broke and moved away. This may have been due in part, however, to the fact that we already had a Cal-clone named Tex (oh Gawd, his sons have dealerships now, too), so Cal actually looked like the copycat. Now we have another one, too; the "Loan Arranger" who wears a white tux & mask and leads a masked donkey around. Sigh. -- Guy Finney {decvax|ihnp4|hao}!noao!terak!anasazi!guy