Under the Influence, Part I

While there are plenty of guesses as to what was the world’s second oldest profession, I, Pinky Tourette – cultural curator pro tempore, ex parte, al dente – can state with infinite assurance that the correct answer is pimps. Also known as agents, promoters, pitchmen, publicists, representatives, flacks. Take a close look at those cave paintings in Tassili n’Ajjer and Bhimbetka and Kakadu National Park – those are nothing more than primitive ads. Inspect carefully and you’ll discover they’re promoting Loana’s Mudhut of Pleasure, Og’s Mastodon Steaks, Groo’s Stick-Sharpening-While-U-Wait.

We are, after all, a consumer species. And while naked consumerism really only requires two things – a supplier and a recipient – we’re hotwired from Genesis to insert a third component: the pimp. The party that siphons points off the transaction, preferably while doing as little as possible to earn it.

One popular guise for pimpdom is, of course, advertising. Og’s steaks may be seriously delicious, but without publicity who’s gonna know? Well, slap a flashy painting up on the communal cave wall depicting a buncha guys surrounding a mastodon and then enjoying a tasty grilled meal… now you’ve got something. Before you know it, Og is rolling in turtle shells or cow-chips or broken toenails or whatever’s the current coin of the realm.

Except Og’s got no talent with that cave painting stuff, so he gets Draper to do it, for a cut of the toenails. Meanwhile Groo has been watching attentively and sees Og’s business taking off so he hires Draper to advertise his stick-sharpening biz and immediately sees a bump in sales. Soon Draper sets up an office in a cave with a panoramic corner view, and before long a rival promoter gets into the act on the other side of the valley. Boom, pimpdom is rocking.

Jump cut to the 20th Century. In the earliest days of radio, direct advertising wasn’t permitted. No biggie; pimps circumvented the ban by attaching the sponsor’s name to the program itself: the Champion Spark Plug Hour, King Biscuit Time. The practice later continued into television where, if the sponsor didn’t own the entire network (e.g., the DuMont Television Network), they were right up there in the title of the shows: the Jell-O Program (with Jack Benny), Texaco Star Theatre (starring Milton Berle), the Chase and Sanborn Program (featuring Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy), General Electric Theater (hosted by Ronald Reagan), Hallmark Hall of Fame, Schlitz Playhouse, Ford Television Theare, Philco Television Playhouse.

Down in the Delta, key blues musicians landed their own radio programs, on which they pitched their sponsors’ products, including B.B. King for Pepticon (“good for whatever ails you”), and Sonny Boy Williamson for King Biscuit Flour and Sonny Boy Corn Meal, with an illustration on the bag of Sonny Boy sitting on a giant ear of corn.

By that time, product advertising was not only permitted but ubiquitous. Radio comedies or dramas would break for commercials with announcers touting the benefits of the sponsor’s product, like “Waxy” Harlow Wilcox for Johnson’s Wax on Fibber McGee & Molly, or young Myron Wallace breathlessly extolling the virtues of Coca-Cola on Spotlight Revue (featuring Spike Jones and his City Slickers), long before he changed his handle to “Mike” Wallace and became a venerated newscaster.

Alternatively, shows would create a fictional pitchman, like “distinguished heating expert” John Barclay, plugging sponsor Blue Coal during The Shadow, or Madame X, who – I kid you not – interviewed people about their shitting habits during the Ex-Lax Big Show. Even Popeye got into the act, getting his steroid boost on radio not from eating spinach, but by gobbling Wheatena.

Over on TV the trend accelerated. On the Jack Benny show, cast member Dennis Day shilled for Texaco, Frank Nelson for Kodak, Don Wilson for Jell-O, Rochester for Lucky Strike. Harry Von Zell served as pitchman for Carnation on Burns & Allen and for laxative Sal Hepatica on the Fred Allen show. (Audiences back then clearly suffered from chronic poop problems.)

The hosts themselves got into act with Bob Hope praising Pepsodent, Arthur Godfrey talking Texaco, Groucho promoting Plymouth. Dwarf Johnny Roventini, who at 47 inches and 59 pounds had somehow found national fame as the “world’s smallest bellboy” at the New Yorker Hotel, became Johnny Phillip Morris, selling cigarettes to the I Love Lucy audience (and retaining the role for decades after the show folded).

Cartoons got into the act in a sugary way with Bugs Bunny touting Tang, while Bullwinkle & Rocky sold cereals for General Mills, Yogi Bear and Quick Draw McGraw touted Kellogg’s, and the Pink Panther pitched for Post.

Which brings us full circle back to Og and his prehistoric neighbors, Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble. Back in the early b&w days the cartoon duo dipped their bare toes in the pimp pond by cutting commercials for Winston Cigarettes and Busch Beer.

And with that we’re out of space for today. Come back soon for part II of this historical hysterectomy and perhaps I’ll actually get around to making a point. But don’t count on it.