Classic(ally Bad) TV Commercials: I Walk the Line… When it Comes to Clogged Fuel Injectors!
Time to jump back to the energy crisis of the late 70’s, and here to talk about your carburator in black is the Man in Black! Hello… I’m Johnny Cash!
I’d like to say this commercial went to the ad agency that was the lowest bidder, but even when Cash wasn’t at the top of the charts in the late 70’s like he often was in the 60’s, I don’t think he was a cheap hire for this spot which makes the cameo appearance a rather odd choice to say the least.
We start with the Man in Black sauntering out of nowhere to a gas station in the middle of nowhere. The man refueling his Griswold Family Truckster seems stunned to see Cash just standing there in the middle of the station, but he knows Cash means business. As soon as Cash chucks the bottle of STP gas treatment at him, the man complies and throws it right into his gas tank! Whether or not he actually believed it would help his mileage, or if he dumped it into his tank because he was afraid Cash would drink it before the day was through, is another issue for another time.
For a world-reknowned country star like Cash, he sure knows a lot about the inside of a car’s engine… even if he hasn’t filled up his own gas tank in 15 or 20 years. But the “everywhere man” shows us he’s an every day man by even closing the stranger’s gas tank cover. How nice! Now he can collect a tip from the stranger! I should try this every now and then. I think people would be more willing to give me a couple of bucks for my work instead of the oil companies with gas prices soaring.
Cash also shows us he’s a 1978 man, when he proudly tells us STP gas treatment is “easy to use” while acknowledging the woman filling up her tank behind him. That’s the way to set back the women’s liberation movement! Once you put that STP in the gas tank, go home and make me a sammich you stupid stupid woman!
So now we get to the denouement of the entire commercial, the big reason why Cash was hired in the first place. Sell the product Johnny! And he does, by saying, “STP gas treatment. It really helps… so try it.” That’s it? Try it? I guess this commercial did go to the lowest bidder… for advertising copy. The agency spent so much money garnering Cash’s services (and that gem of a jingle at the end) it had nothing left over when it came to actually writing dialogue for the client.
Somehow this commercial ended up on the cutting room floor during the production of “Walk the Line”. That’s a shame because I know Joaquin Phoenix spent days practicing the line; “It really helps… so try it!”
