Classic(ally Bad) TV Commercials: Hey Buddy! Buy This Car or I Bust Your Kneecaps!
In 1980, it was safe to buy from Safe Toyota and Safe Subaru in Brooklyn. It was probably unsafe to cross these guys…
Wowee wow wow! The acting is this commercial makes “My Cousin Vinny” look like “Gone With the Wind”! First we hear from Joe Manfredi, the owner of the dealerships, spit his lines out like he was going to split your skull if you didn’t buy one of his cars. Then he brings on his version of “Barker’s Beauties”, a collection of oh-so-80’s goodness we shall call the “Manfredi Meatballs”. I should refer to them as “cheese balls” because of their acting, but I’m all about alliteration.
So we cover all the bases with meatball one getting the line, “great prices” out pretty well. Meatball two goes all-Brooklyn with the line, “terrific sair-vis!” in that stereotypical New York accent. Meatball three pushes us over the edge with the great, and Brooklyn-thick, “afford-uh-bull lease-ang!”. Seeing that this may not sell cars extremely well, Manfredi ups the ante with super star power… 80’s style!
In 1980, most of America still cared about soccer thanks mostly to the success of the North American Soccer League and in particular the New York Cosmos and their star player Pele. But with Pele long gone from the team and attendance slipping a bit from the team’s glory years in the late 1970s, Manfredi goes with his Italian brother Giorgio Chinaglia as his spokesperson. Although Giorgio was one of the most famous soccer players in the world, and he continues to provide analysis for the World Cup every four years, he was one of the least-like players on the Cosmos.
Still, the Cosmos won the Soccer Cup that year, and Manfredi had a bonafied star selling cars from (then) two of the crappiest car companies in the world. Nowadays Manfredi still sells cars, and he does it well as the head of the Manfredi Auto Group in New York. He’s a great rags to riches story of an Italian immigrant finding his niche in cars at the right time. It’s a great story, with one classic(ally bad) commercial as part of it!
