Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - Joe Sedelmaier Tribute

Episode Date: June 6, 2026

This week, we pay tribute to one of the greatest commercial directors in the ad business.You may not know the late Joe Sedelmaier by name, but you certainly know his work.He directed the famous “Fast Talking Man” ad for FedEx and a landmark commercial for Wendy’s that contained the line “Where’s the beef?”I did several commercials with Sedelmaier, and he kicked me off the set of my own commercial once. It’s a great story.We know you want to listen to all the ads in this show. On the off-chance you don’t, subscribe ad-free here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Alka-Seltzer will. What a relief. You're under the influence with Terry O'Reilly. When I landed my first big-time job as a writer at an advertising agency, I quickly realized there was a definite pecking order. The senior creative people get to do most of the television commercials. Meanwhile, the creative people at the bottom of the ladder, like me, were given low-level print ads, coupons, and the odd radio campaign. But a few months after I joined the ad agency, there was a big television assignment for Fiberglass Pink Home Insulation.

It was one of our biggest clients, and Fiberglass only did one television commercial a year, so it was important. The senior creative people were struggling to come up with an idea the creative director liked, and the deadline was fast approaching. So one day, I asked the creative director if I could take a swing at it. He stared at me for a moment, then said, I want to see ideas by 10 a.m. tomorrow. The next morning at 10 a.m. sharp, we all went into the boardroom, and the senior people presented their latest fiberglass commercial ideas. The creative director didn't like any of them.

Then I swallowed hard, stuck my hand up feebly, and croaked out my idea. When I finished, there was a long pause. Then the creative director said, I like it, which shocked me down to my socks. The client ended up liking it too, and before you know it, my little idea was shot by a famous director out of Chicago. In the ad, a couple saves enough to buy an absurdly small, mall cottage. The title of the commercial was Edna.

More than two million Canadians have insulated their homes with fiberglass pink home insulation. Here's what one particular couple did with the money they saved. We saved enough for a down payment on what we think is one heck of a lovely summer place. As you can readily see, I named the house after my wife. Her name is Edna. What you do with the money you save is your business. Our business is making sure you do save money. Fiberglass Pink, do it for the money you save. Months later, I was at an advertising award ceremony.

I was sitting at the very back row up in the balcony because I was a junior writer. I was a nobody in the ad industry, and that's where nobody sat at ad ceremonies. When it came time to hand out the gold award for the best television commercial of the year, the presenter said the gold award goes to fiberglass pink for the commercial titled Edna. I couldn't believe my ears. I also couldn't go up to accept the award because, as you know, I was stuck in the back row of the balcony. It was still thrilling. But here's what you need to know.

The commercial may have been my idea, but the commercial may have been my idea, but the reason that ad won the gold award was because of that famous director. His name was Joe Settlemire, and there's never been anybody like him. Joe Settlemire was one of the greatest commercial directors of all time. His work was so distinct, it may have been the only identifiable style in the history of TV commercials. Joe was a character. He demanded total control, insisted on very specific, casting, and he once kicked me off the set of my own commercial.

Recently, Joe Settlemeyer passed away at the age of 92. His work is legendary, and so was the man. You're under the influence. Joe Settlemeyer Jr. was born in Orville, Ohio in 1933. He came to Chicago in 1950 as an aspiring cartoonist. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1955. When he graduated, he got a job as an art director at several ad agencies,

including Young and Rubicam and J. Walter Thompson. And it was at Thompson that Settlemeyer got his first taste of directing. One day, the creative director asked Settlemeyer if he would like to take a shot at directing a commercial for Chun King Foods. So, Joe filmed a demo commercial using a show. people from the ad agency, not actors. When the ad was shown to the president of Chun King, he loved it and wanted to air the demo as is. That was the start of Joe Settlemyer's directing career. The big difference between Joe's commercials and all other commercials was the fact he never used actors.

Joe Settlemire used real people he would spot on the street. His performers were school teachers, retired actuaries, and typewriter repairman. Joe looked for character. In a 30-second commercial, there is no time to build character. It has to be there already. And those were the faces and voices Joe searched for. Settlemeyer hated the plastic people you always see in commercials.

He was often accused of casting, quote, ugly people, which he took offense to. In Joe's eyes, these were regular people, the kind of people you would see at supermarkets, airports, and malls. They weren't a freak show. To Joe Settlemeyer, the beautiful Hollywood people were the freaks. Joe had a very specific point of view when it came to humor. For one thing, he had no time for funny lines,

which may sound odd for a director famous for comedy, but Joe felt that casting and the show felt that casting and the movie, the situations created the humor. So a straight line delivered in an absurd situation by just the right person could be hilarious, while the line itself wasn't funny on paper. He also told me one time that if you put people into an absurd situation, they will struggle to maintain their dignity. And that, to Joe, was always funny.

Because Joe only cast regular people, people, they didn't come with a bag of acting tricks. That usually meant Joe had to spend twice the amount of time trying to get the best performance out of them. The way he did that was with line readings. In other words, Joe would recite the exact line to them and ask them to parrot it back. A professional actor would have stormed off the set, but Joe wasn't working with experienced actors. His performers were all amateurs, and all had a similar feel when they'd delivered their lines. They were stiff and nervous. And Joe captured that nervous stiffness on camera. It was his secret sauce. Joe's commercials won every possible award in the advertising industry.

He literally won hundreds and hundreds of trophies. I remember standing in his lobby one day when a courier came in to deliver a package. He looked around at all the awards on the walls and said, so you guys make trophies here. The commercial that put Joe Settlemeyer on the map was for Southern Airways in 1975. In the commercial, a man flying on a rival airline enters a plane. The first-class passengers are having a party,

eating lobster and cracking open champagne bottles. The man can't believe his luck. Then a flight attendant looks at his ticket. Second cabin, please. When the man walks past a curtain separating first class from economy, he can't believe what he sees. It looks like steerage. There are no seats, sad people dressed in peasant clothes or sitting on the floor,

a live chicken walks by, and he is offered gruel from a bucket. Southern Airways believes that no man should be subjected to the indignity of being labeled or treated like a second-class citizen. Which is why, when you get on a Southern jet... Hi, Mr. Gil, sit anywhere you like. You'll find no curtain separates the peasants from the nobility. No one takes the leg room from you and gives it to someone else. On Southern, there's only one class of service, and it isn't second.

It was hilarious. Nobody had ever seen a commercial quite like that before. The humor was in the casting and the same. situation. From that point on, Joe Settlemeyer got very busy. Casting sessions with Joe were always amusing. He would have a parade of regular folks come in, all nervous amateurs, all with interesting faces or voices. A great example of that casting was for a commercial for Alaska Airlines. In this ad, people sit packed like sardines in economy.

Many airlines offer reduced rate fares. Unfortunately, that's not all they've reduced. It makes you wonder, what's next? When a man gets up to go to the washroom, he discovers the airplane has pay toilets. The sign on the door says, 50 cents, exact change only. He looks in his wallet and only has bills.

As he hops from foot to foot crossing his legs, he starts a desperate search for change. I'd appreciate it. Do you have four quarters for a dollar? Anybody have two quarters for a dollar? Yes, miss, do you have two quarters for two dollars? Two quarters for five dollars, please? Oh boy, I'd appreciate it.

On Alaska Airlines, we have low fears too, but you'd never know it by the way we treat you. It was classic Settlemeyer. Again, a slightly absurd situation, but not so absurd that you couldn't relate to the fact that airlines charge you for all. almost everything these days. Another classic Settlemeyer commercial was for K. Jewelers.

In this ad, a young man in his first day on the job at a jewelry store is being taught a lesson about markups. I think I understand. New man. You buy the diamond of $200, mark it up to $3,000, and discount it to $2,000. Correct. An $1,800 profit. That's a business. So when you mark it up, you're so far up that when you come down,

You're still up. Up. Up. Correct. Up. That's the business. Why not mark it up to $4,000? Ethics.

At K jewelers, we guarantee the honest value of your diamond for a lifetime. In writing, when you do business at K, we don't give you the business. Again, great casting, great voices, and an insight you can't argue with. When we come back, Settlemeyer puts FedEx on the map. If you're enjoying this episode, you might also like Only in Advertising, stories from the Front Line from our 2022 season. We tell the story of two competing beer companies who chose to shoot their commercials in another country for secrecy, then ended up shooting on the same beach, on the same day in Australia. Hilarious. You'll find it on your favorite podcast app. Joe Settlemeyer's fame landed him on the cover of Esquire magazine.

He was profiled in Forbes and was interviewed on 60 Minutes. His fee per commercial was between 45,000 and 60,000 U.S. He was one of the highest paid directors in the business. When an ad agency met with Joe to discuss a potential commercial, he charged $10,000 for the meeting. If Joe liked the idea, that $10,000 would be a business, be applied to the cost of the shoot. If Joe didn't like the idea, the 10K was non-refundable.

It was an interesting strategy. Settlemeyer charged big cash for the first meeting because it was a way to keep cowardly boring clients away. See, Joe Settlemire had a violent allergy to stupid, boring advertising where everyone's smiling and saying things about a product that no sane person would ever utter in a million years. Settlemyer's early commercials for Federal Express were legendary. A journalist once said that Settlemire was as important to FedEx as its trucks and planes. Here's the most famous of the many FedEx commercials Settlemeyer directed. Joe cast John Machita Jr., the world's fastest talking man. In this

commercial, Maschita plays an absurdly busy executive. We see him on the phone, we see him, him interviewing someone, we see him taking a meeting. Okay, unit's travel plans. I need to be in New York on Monday, L.A. on Tuesday, New York on Wednesday, L.A. and Thursday, New York on Wednesday, L.A. and Thursday, New York on Friday, on New York on Friday, got it? Got it? Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it. Well, sir. I think on my feet. I think on my feet. Excellent. I think on my feet. Yes, sir. I'm going to start on Hector. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. And in conclusion,

and in conclusion, Jim Bill, Bob, Cawread, Loddardt. Business is business. And as we all know, in order to get something done. In order to get to work. So, PEDA. P.D. You did a bang up job. I'm putting you in charge of Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh. I know it's perfect, Peter. That's why I pick Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh's perfect.

Peter, may I call you Pete? Call me Pete. There's a Mr. Schnitler here to see you. Tom's to wait 15 seconds. Can you wait 15 seconds? I'll wait 15 seconds. Congratulations on your deal in Denver. Dave.

I'm putting you down to deal with Dallas. Don is it a deal? Do we have a deal? It's a deal. I got to go. I got a call coming in. Hi, Doc. Just dealt with Don't.

In this fast moving, high pressure. Get it done yesterday, world. Aren't you glad there's one company that can keep up with it all? As the commercial ends, a FedEx package arrives on his desk right on time. Again, notice there are no funny lines. The humor isn't in the fast-talking man. It's in everybody else trying to keep up with the fast-talking man.

In the ad world, television commercials are first drawn out on storyboards, shot by shot. Joe hated storyboards. He believed commercials evolve and change through the process, and storyboards were too static. Joe was not only the director, he was the cameraman, too, extremely rare in the ad biz. He also edited the commercial, chose the music, and directed the voiceover.

In other words, he controlled the entire process from that first meeting to the finish commercial. But even within that demand for total control, he was open to happy accidents, which resulted in maybe his most famous commercial of all. One day, Settlemyer was shooting a commercial that took place in a barbershop. A man was sitting in the barber chair, and Joe decided it would be funny to have a manicurist working on his hands.

Except he hadn't cast a manicurist. But across the street was a lady's hair salon. So Joe sent an assistant over to see if one of the hairdressers could play the part. The assistant came back with a tiny, older, lady named Clara Peller. When she was introduced to Joe, she said, How you doing, honey? Settlemire could not believe that big voice came out of that tiny little lady.

While Clara didn't have a speaking part in this ad, Joe knew he had to find another commercial to put her in. That commercial would turn out to be for Wendy's. The commercial was titled Fluffy Bun. The idea was to have three older ladies ordering at a rival restaurant and being presented with a hamburger inside a ridiculously gigantic bun. Settlemeyer thought the gigantic bun was trying too hard to be funny. So he made the bun just slightly bigger than normal,

but he made the patty the size of a tunie. Then he cast Clara Peller. It certainly is a big bun. It's a very big bun. Big fluffy bun. It's a very big fluffy bun. Where's the beef? Some hamburger places give you a lot less beef on a lot of bun.

Where's the beef? At Wendy's, we serve a hamburger we modestly call the single. And Wendy's single has more beef than the whopper or Big Mac. At Wendy's, you get more beef and less bun. Hey, where's the beef? I don't think there's anybody back there. You want something better. You're Wendy's kind of people.

Where's the Beef is not a funny line. until Clara Pellar says it. Interestingly, the original line was, Where's All the Beef? But Clara had emphysema and had trouble getting through the line. So Settlemeyer shortened it to, Where's the Beef? Tiny change, big impact.

That commercial was said to have increased Wendy's revenue 31% in 1984. It became a cultural phenomenon. How do you know when a commercial becomes a cultural phenomenon? When a presidential candidate quotes it in a televised primary debate, here's Walter Mondale criticizing rival Gary Hart.

When I hear your new ideas, I'm reminded of that ad. Where's the beef? Yeah. That line is still quoted to this day over 40 years later. When we come back, Settlemeyer kicks me off the set

of my own commercial. At the beginning of this episode, I was telling you that Joe Settlemeyer directed the first big award-winning television commercial I ever did. I produced several other fiberglass pink commercials with him, and there's a very funny behind-the-scenes story about one of those ads. We were shooting the commercial in Chicago. The idea was that a couple saved enough money by insulating with fiberglass pink that they could buy a small, absurdly small swimming pool. Then they filled the pool with every single one of their friends. You couldn't squeeze one more body into it. A hilarious visual.

We're asking Canadians why they're choosing new fiberglass pink home insulation. Firstly, we saved enough to help us by this lovely, lovely new swimming pool, which we can also share with a few of our closest friends. Secondly, because pink passes the test. We've invited the Bonnard's friends to help demonstrate that test. that the best insulation can bounce back for maximum savings. New fiberglass pink. Do it for the money you save. To shoot the commercial, we rented two suburban backyards in Chicago.

In one backyard, we dug and built the small pool. The other backyard was for equipment, makeup people, wardrobe, and a place for us agency people to stand and watch. My art director partner had an ambition to become a director. one day, so he kept hovering very close to the camera. He and Settlemeyer started stepping on each other's toes. I guess it really bugs Settlemire. So he told our creative director that he wanted the creative team off the set.

When our creative director came to tell me we were kicked off the set, I was a bit surprised, mostly because I hadn't been on the set yet that morning. So I took our art director for a long walk down the surprise. Bourbon Street and told him we were kicked off the set. He was furious and was ready to create a scene except for one tiny thing. The CBC was there, filming the making of a commercial for a segment to be aired on the journal with Barbara Frum. So we tried to keep the fact we had been kicked off the set a secret from the CBC folks.

We knew that if the CBC caught wind that the creative team had just been banished from the set of their own commercial, it would become the story. It was just too juicy to ignore. Meanwhile, our art director was furious with our creative director for letting Settlemeyer kick us off the set in the first place. Of course, the creative director was just trying to desperately keep the piece while CBC was filming us filming. If you've ever seen people arguing in heated whispers, you get the picture. CBC kept looking over to see what the kerfuffle was, and when they did, the creative director and art director would stop arguing,

smile, and wave. Then when the CBC turned back to Settlemeier, the arguing would start again in full, vain-bulging whispers. It was hilarious, in hindsight, but it doesn't end there. The argument continued throughout the entire shoot. The CBC crew would occasionally look over. smiles and waves. Then, back to whispering with flared nostrils.

The argument between the art director and the creative director continued in the airport the next day, this time at full volume. Airport security did a slow walk by us. It continued on the plane on the way back to Toronto. When we got back, our art director quit, or was fired. It was hard to tell which came first. Then the next day, he picked up the phone, called the journal and let them in on the whole mess.

That created DefCon 4 panic at our ad agency because we knew if the CBC added the fighting and firing to the story, we would probably lose the fiberglass account because it would just be too embarrassing. Our creative director called the journal asking if we could see the segment before it aired. He was told we would see it when the rest of Canada sees it. So on the appointed night when the journal was to air the fiberglass segment, we all gathered in a rented hotel suite to watch our agency lose our biggest client on national television.

We all stood there in front of the TV, drinks in hand, like we were at awake. Then the journal came on, and the segment wasn't there. Instead, they aired a story about plus-size people doing yoga. our segment had been bumped to the following week. Picture the moment, our entire agency standing in a hotel suite in silence watching people doing yoga. Comedy Gold. When it finally did air the following week, to our shock and amazement,

the journal didn't touch one scintilla of the whole firing fiasco. They completely ignored it. Instead, they built the entire segment around Joe C. Settlemeyer. Our commercial was just a footnote. Making commercials people actually enjoy watching is hard. Making one that gets them to buy is a fine art. The journal Susan Heretta found out how one master does it. Settlemire's story was better than our banishment from the set

fighting on the airplane fired over the commercial story. That's how interesting Joe Settlemire was. Joe Settlemire was my favorite commercial. director. And even though he did kick us off the set once, I liked working with Joe. On shoot day, he didn't want annoying interference. I could appreciate that. Let the man do his job, and he always delivered. He once said, I don't like to get chummy with anyone. It makes you bend. I can attest, he was not chummy. But Joe was an astonishing commercial director. His work was so distinct, so singular, so watchable. He was a one-man genre. When he was inducted into the

Advertising Hall of Fame, they called Joe a craftsman in a world of salesman. Go to his website, settlemire.com, and watch his body of work. There is also a wonderful documentary about Joe there. Rest in peace, Joe Settlemeier. You added a lot of beef to the advertising world. We were lucky to be under your influence. I'm Terry O'Reilly. This episode was recorded in the Terstream Mobile Recording Studio, producer Debbie O'Reilly, chief sound engineer Jeff Devine, theme music by Casey Pick, Jeremiah Pick, and James Aiton. Tuneage provided by APM music.

Follow me at Terry O'Influence. This podcast is powered by ACAST. Terry's top slogans of all time. Number four, Avis. We're number two, but we try harder. See you next week.