Spray the Bear

As the advent of television broadened the range of advertising's influence on the American public, the ad men became the glamorous elite of the corporate world. In this compulsively readable, anecdotal memoir, author Walter W. Bregman gives the reader a delicious glimpse into the rarified world of advertising in its heyday. The brilliant bad boys of advertising who lubricated every business deal with alcohol not only made the products of Procter & Gamble, Vick's, and Gallo household names, but also became the behind-the-scenes authors of popular culture. In a flow of colorful stories, Mr. Bregman describes successful campaigns for terrible products (Wally Cox as the pitchman for Salvo tablet laundry detergent), Redd Foxx's indirect endorsement for Ripple wine and why the consumer public never saw a polar bear in a commercial for crystal-clear Joy. The book's one hundred and fifty plus anecdotes include stories about such well-known public figures as Ted Kennedy, Jesse Jackson, Peter Ustinov, Alice Faye, Raquel Welch and many others. This crisply written, interesting series of essays will evoke many memories for anyone who watched television during the sixties through the eighties and explains why the years covered were truly the "golden age of advertising".