TV Commercial Production Short Takes

TV Commercial Production can be a strange world with funny characters and odd situations. Here are four short tales excerpted from my TV commercial production book, Circumstances Beyond My Control.

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I was with a wild-assed chopper pilot one day at the 34th Street heliport waiting for the weather to clear. This guy had flown under every bridge in the NYC area and even between the two World Trade Center towers – with me on board. We were watching seaplanes taking off in the river. He turned to me and said, “You’d never get me up in one of those things.”

In the words of the great American philosopher, Flip Wilson, “Different strokes for different folks.”

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Peter Cooper was a nice guy director with whom I did a bunch of shoots for baby products. When you’re lounging in front of your TV and a Pampers commercial comes on you may smile and coo at the cute, adorable babies. What you do not see is the adjacent room containing between six and ten playpens and frantic ambitious mothers being held in check by a team of baby wranglers. Babies are even more unpredictable and harder to control than cats. And one can never be sure how long the small human will remain awake, let alone affable. So you have multiple back-up babies each of which comes with a mother and numerous accouterments. The folks who cast and attempt to control these tiny actors and their “managers” are known in the business as baby wranglers and I do not envy them their jobs. Nor can I imagine why they chose such an impossible profession.

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This one needs a setup. When I was an actor (Three Stages) I was privileged to work with Joey Faye in several productions. I don’t have room here to list all the things he taught me about comedy.

Bill Dear was a west coast director who blew into the city a few times a year and was always great fun to work with. He was responsible for the last time I saw my comedy mentor, Joey Faye. Bill directed a series of spots for Fruit of the Loom underwear and Joey played the purple grapes. Between Joey and Bill, we were all in stitches for four days.

Joey Faye, Me, Al Checco “Guys & Dolls” San Diego 1962

Joey’s wife, Judi was a “talking woman”. In burlesque comedy a talking woman is a stripper who does sketches. I don’t think Judi was ever a stripper but she was a very funny lady. On the last day of the shoot Judi met Joey at the stage and as we were standing around chatting she turned to him and, in a casual tone, asked, “Who’s on first?” The two of them proceeded to do the entire classic sketch as though holding a normal conversation. Oh how I wish I’d had a video camera! It was beyond hilarious.

I tried to find one of them doing it on You Tube but all I could come up with was this. Although Abbot and Costello made the bit famous, Joey and Judi were much funnier. It’s all in the delivery.

Here’s my comedy mentor with Dean Martin.

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Another west coast guy, Felix Alcala came to town frequently and the most memorable shoot I did with him was for Dristan. We shot it on a ninety-eight degree July day – in an ice house. The interior temperature was in the high twenties. We were constantly changing clothes; from heavy winter gear on “the set” to shorts and tee shirts outside. One would be sweating heavily and suit up while wet to go into the refrigerator. One of the strangest jobs ever. The entire crew had colds the next week.

All of us should have put in for hazard pay.

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The are but a few of the funny and sometimes bizarre stories and characters iv TV commercial production you’ll find when you click here and get your copy of Circumstances Beyond My Control.

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