The Affari Edge Blog

So I’m searching every newspaper and media website on the planet trying to find something to blog about this week. I inevitably go to YouTube and look for the commercials and newscasts from one of my new favorite websites, www.birminghamrewound.com. And ooooooooh brother did I find one for you!

It is safe to say that this is probably one of the worst “do it yourself” commercials in the history of television. As for this spot, a little insight on my relationship to Birmingham, Alabama. I attended the University of Alabama in nearby Tuscaloosa from 1995-1999, earning my degree in May 2000. Since Tuscaloosa only has so much to offer, Birmingham was the “big city” you’d escape to if you had enough money for the drive. So I get a kick out of “old school” Birmingham stuff simply because in my opinion Birmingham (and most of the state of Alabama) is still 15 years behind the rest of the world. That’s what makes the spot for Dick Reese Organs more entertaining… it was actually ahead of its time!

In the 1990s when I lived in Tuscaloosa, I saw my fair share of bad commercials, most of them advertising Jim Skinner Ford (”Where a hundred dollars says we’ll beat your best deal… REGARDLESS!”) . And I have to admit there were quite a few low-budget cable commercials that don’t fare much better than Dick Reese Organs. However, this one is so classically bad, I’m proud to make it my first entry.

First, let’s take a look at Mr. Reese. It’s quite obvious WKRP’s Herb Tarlek advised Mr. Reese on his wardrobe. I know, I know… it was 1977… but I actually have that same pattern on my sleeper sofa right now. And now I’m curious… does the belt match the shoes? One thing’s for sure, Mr. Reese has a ready-made tourniquet in that fat-ass tie of his if someone should get a limb severed from a falling organ.

The other notable visual quirk about Mr. Reese is it appears he hasn’t had his V-8 today. Why the hell is he leaning over like that? Perhaps his tie, or more likely his intense comb-over, is making him top-heavy. Or maybe he’s so nervous about appearing on camera, he’d had too much to drink and requires a group of stage heads to prop him up at his feet. Whatever the case, just the visual gaffes make this commercial worth the watching. But the real treat is the audio portion of this fine commercial.

The thick Alabama accent is nothing to me, simply because I heard it for years when I lived there, and for most of my life since I grew up in Florida. But this guy sounds like he has a sock in his mouth, or maybe he ate his skinny tie earlier. First he muses, “Dyoo been thinking about buying an organ”, (That’s Alabamese for “If you”) then he’s got a “DEAL FOR YOU!” The “beautiful” Yamaha organ “reg-uh-lee sell” for $1195. Now is that supposed to be “regularly sells” or “regularly selling”? It gets better when Reese informs us that this week “it priced” at $895. Then it only gets stranger.

After Reese tells us about how we’ll never get a two-keyboard organ (with one-finger play) like this again, the shot of novocaine administered to him just before the taping of this commercial takes effect. He garbles his way through the remainder of the spot before BOTCHING THE NAME OF HIS OWN COMPANY! Hey Dick! It’s “STUDIOS”, not “SUE-DEE-OHS”! Sadly it doesn’t appear Dick Reese Studios is in business any longer, although since he probably inspired Phil Collins to write “Sussudio” with his mush-mouth commercial, I can see why he would have closed up shop 20 years ago with all of those royalty checks.

So there you have it my friends, a look back at a classically bad commercial. One which birminghamrewound.com notes played “late at night”. I can’t imagine why!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 20th, 2007 at 2:49 pm and is filed under Classic(ally Bad) TV Commercials. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.