Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - SNL & Commercial Parodies (Encore)

Episode Date: February 20, 2025

During SNL's recent 50th anniversary special, it showed a montage of their famous commercial parodies. Here’s an episode that talks about those and many others - and how SNL influenced the ad writers of my generation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly. You may know me as the host of Under the Influence, but my passion is The Beatles. And I'm hosting a new podcast series called The Beetleology Interviews. I get to talk to people who worked with The Beatles and love The Beatles and people who write about The Beatles. And their stories are surprising and so very interesting. The Beetleology Interviews. Give it a listen today.

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Yes, Airplane had a love theme and a lot of other surprising elements that made it the fourth highest grossing movie of 1980. While Airplane spoofed the disaster movies of the 70s, like the Poseidon Adventure and Towering Inferno, it was actually a parody of a very specific film from 1957 called Zero Hour. Put yourself in this man's place.

Aboard a transcontinental plane, suddenly half the passengers, including your own son, are struck by a paralyzing deadly illness. And then in the midst of the panic and confusion, the stewardess tells you to come forward to the pilot's compartment. This is what you find. A pilotless plane running wild in a stormy sky. Can you fly this airplane and land it? No, not a chance. You're the only chance we've got.

Zero Hour was written by Arthur Haley, which was an adaptation of a teleplay he wrote for CBC in 1956. While Haley would go on to write Airport, which started the 1970s disaster genre, it was Zero Hour that would inspire Airplane. The writers of Airplane, Jerry Zucker, David Zucker, and Jim Abrahams, were performing in a sketch comedy troupe they had founded called Kentucky Fried Theatre. The trio would tape late night television shows to watch the commercials and would write parodies based on the ads. One night, while scanning for commercials, they unintentionally taped Zero Hour.

Jerry, David and Jim thought the film was a perfectly structured script and were amused at how overly dramatic it was. Using Zero Hour as a template, they wrote a parody of the movie. They lifted the plot, many of the character names, and even the exclamation mark after Zero Hour. They called it Airplane! The script was so similar to Zero Hour, as a matter of fact, the writers took the precaution of buying the remake rights in order to avoid copyright infringement.

The script writing was hilarious. But the real magic of Airplane was in the casting. The writers, who also directed, hired a cast of stone-faced actors known only for dramatic roles. They included Leslie Nielsen, who had portrayed the doomed captain in the Poseidon adventure, Robert Stack, who had starred in one of the first ever disaster movies, The High and the Mighty, in 1954, and Peter Graves from Mission Impossible and the disaster movie SST Death Flight. Airplane contains some of the most quoted lines in Hollywood

history which is even more amusing when you realize they mirror the 1957 disaster movie. Here's a moment from Zero Hour where a young boy is brought up to meet the pilot in the cockpit. Joey, here's something we give our special visitors. Would you like to have it? Thank you. Thanks a lot. You ever been in the cockpit before? No, sir. I've never been up in a plane before. And here is the airplane version.

Joey, we have something here for our special visitors. Would you like to have it? Thank you. Thanks a lot. Sure. You ever been in a cockpit before? No sir, I've never been up in a plane before. You ever seen a grown man naked? Then there was Leslie Nielsen, who had only played dramatic roles for 30 years. He delivers maybe the most quoted line from the movie.

Can you fly this plane and land it? Surely you can't be serious. I am serious. And don't call me Shirley. When Nielsen was asked how it felt to be cast against type, he said he had been cast against type his whole career until Airplane. In his heart, he was really a comedian. Airplane was made for 3.5 million dollars and grossed over 200 million worldwide. It is considered one of the best parodies of all time. While the writers of airplane began spoofing commercials in the mid-70s,

the genre predates them by 20 years. Parody commercials have been the backbone of such cultural institutions as Mad Magazine, The National Lampoon, and Saturday Night Live for as long as we can remember. Some spoof commercials are created just for the laughs, while others are sharp critiques of questionable products over zealous advertising claims and self-congratulatory corporations. There is an art to spoofing commercials and the best ones not only influence popular culture, but the advertising industry as well. under the influence.

When industry roared back to life after the Second World War, so did Madison Avenue. Advertising in the 50s was mostly hard sell and shameless. There was very little wit or nuance, and corporations waxed on about themselves in breathless detail. That, of course, made advertising ripe for parody. Enter Mad Magazine. ["Dreams of a New World"]

Mad magazine was created in 1952. More precisely, Mad was launched as a ten-cent comic book. It poked fun at popular culture, big business, shady politicians and hypocrisy. Mad did its first ad parody in 1954. It was a takeoff on the Rhine Gold beer campaign of the time, featuring the fictitious Pot Gold beer. The copy spoke of the refreshing never-filling taste of Pot Gold, then takes a hard write into parody saying, Taste schmaste, Pot Gold gets you drunk, so get potted. That parody ad established a style and an attitude Madd would take forward from that point on. As David Shane, ex-associate editor for Madd, says in his book titled Madvertising,

the magazine's writers didn't have to travel far to get a bead on advertisers. The address of the Maddices was 485 Madison Avenue. The first rule of a parody ad, according to the Mad editors, is that the original ad has to be well known. Readers have to know what you're spoofing. The second rule for a successful parody ad is that it must trick viewers at first glance into thinking they're looking at a real ad.

So Mad Magazine was faithful to the original ads in layout, photography, and typeface. Mad was so exacting, it would occasionally get letters from angry parents scolding the magazine for accepting tobacco advertising when so many of its readers were children. The editor would write back, pointing out that tobacco ads were scathing parodies and that the joy of reading MAD magazine was actually reading the magazine. In the 50s, around the same time MAD transitioned to a magazine format, Crest Toothpaste with Floristan launched its Look Mom, No Cavities campaign. Not long after, mad readers saw a nearly identical ad with the headline Look Mom, No More Cavities.

But a closer examination revealed that the toothpaste was called Crust Gum Paste with Fluid Steel. The Norman Rockwell illustration of the smiling teenager was actually by Norman Rock and Roll, and the smiling boy had no teeth. The copy said, Crust gum paste takes the place of teeth by coating them with a hard white enamel finish. Even the fine print was parodied. The usual guaranteed by good housekeeping seal was replaced with guaranteed by good house wrecking. Spoofing even the tiniest elements was the key to making a parody ad work. If you can picture a cover from Mad Magazine in your mind you probably

see its gap-toothed mascot Alfred. Newman, smiling on just about every issue since 1956. But Alfred actually predated MAD. Many early black and white ads from the 19th century actually featured the Gap Toothed boy. It was almost as if he was some kind of clip art anybody could use. He appeared in ads for sodas, patent medicines,

and even mince meat pudding. The first editor of MAD began incorporating the then unnamed Gap Tooth Ad Boy in various spots all over the comic and later the magazine. A few years later, the magazine realized it had something big on its hands and placed an ad in the New York Times to find an illustrator to fully render the kid, now formally named Alfred E. Newman. An illustrator named Norman Mingo answered the ad and drew the Alfred we all know today. Mingo was 60 years old when he drew that face in 1956. He had just retired from a career in advertising.

While Mad Magazine was famous for not accepting any advertising for 40 years, it actually did accept ads in the beginning. In the comic book days, Mad ran the same ads for novelties like X-Ray Specs and Sea Monkeys that you saw in the back of regular comics. Then in issue number 21, it decided to spoof its own advertisers, which it did on its cover. Mad's advertisers were not happy. But most of the magazine's revenues were from newsstand sales, so founding publisher William M. Gaines didn't really care. That's when he decided to drop advertising altogether.

His rationale? Mad could spoof everyone if it was beholden to no one. For the next four decades, Mad would parody print ads, television commercials, and billboards with impunity. It created features like half-truths in TV ads, where it would spoof companies like Airlines, who promised to get you there on time, but didn't promise to get your luggage there at the same time. Mad had another recurring spoof called ads we'd like to see. So when Jaritol was running this ad in 1972, My wife's incredible. She took care of the baby all day, cooked a great dinner, and even

went to a school meeting. And look at her. She looks better than any of her friends. She takes care of herself, gets her rest, does her sit-ups, watches her diet, and to make sure she gets enough iron and vitamins, she takes Geritol every morning. Makes me take it too. Take care vitamin, she takes Geritol every morning. Makes me take it too. Take care of yourself. Take Geritol. My wife, I think I'll keep her. Mad did a spoof Geritol commercial

of a man hugging a woman saying, "'I love my wife. "'She's a good mother. "'She cleans the house. "'She does the cooking and the wash and the shopping. "'She never complains. "'Yep, I love my wife. Too bad she doesn't look as good as my girlfriend here.

By 1974, MAD circulation peaked at over two million readers. Eventually, MAD's black and white format started to look outdated. The parodies suffered because the ads it was spoofing were all in full color. But to print a color magazine meant expensive inks and glossy paper. There were only two choices. Charge more for the magazine

or start accepting advertising. Mad looked to Saturday Night Live, who did many commercial parodies, yet accepted advertising, and no one ever accused SNL of holding back. So in March 2001, Mad went color and began taking on advertisements. It took a while for readers to adjust to the decision, but Mad proved the advertising didn't hold it back.

Meanwhile, over at the National Lampoon. And we'll be right back. I co-founded a production company in Toronto many years ago. When we needed to find a new person and needed to find that person fast, there was just no way to do it quickly. But you are lucky. You get to use Indeed. Stop struggling to get your job post seen on other job sites. Indeed's Sponsored Jobs helps you stand out and hire fast. With Sponsored Jobs, your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates so you can reach the people you want faster. How fast?

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For a limited time only, under the influence, listeners get $25 off their best selling Carver Mat Frame when you use the code INFLUENCE. That's AuraFrames.com, A-U-R-A-Frames.com. And don't forget to use the code INFLUENCE so they know we sent you. Terms and conditions apply. Hey, you're a Canadian podcast listener, and that makes you important to us. We'd like to know more about you, what you think of this podcast, and the other podcasts you'd like to hear. So we put together a super brief survey we'd like you to fill out, complete it, and we'll

give you a chance to win one of three $100 Amazon gift cards. That way we can say thanks for your opinion. Just go to mypodcastsurvey.ca and have your say. That's mypodcastsurvey.ca. The National Lampoon magazine was started by three Harvard graduates in 1969. Like Mad magazine, the Lampoon used humor to skewer pop culture. Parody was its best weapon, but it also used cutting edge wit combined with crass humor along with the occasional nudity thrown in. Unlike Mad, it depended on advertising revenue,

but parodied the advertising industry with abandon. In one of its most famous spoof ads, it parodied the popular Volkswagen advertising of the 60s. Using the same layout, the same typeface, and even the VW logo, the ad played off an actual commercial that said Volkswagen's were so airtight, they could float. The Lampoon's ad showed a VW floating in a murky lake with the headline,

If Ted Kennedy drove a Volkswagen, he'd be president today. The ad was a sharp jab at the infamous he'd be president today. The ad was a sharp jab at the infamous 1969 Chappaquiddick incident, where Ted Kennedy drove off a bridge and the car had sunk, drowning passenger Mary Jo Kopeckne. Volkswagen sued the Lampoon over the ad, demanding $33 million for the unauthorized use of its logo. Lampoon publisher, Maddy Simmons,

shrewdly issued a press release stating the magazine was being sued, which prompted the issue to sell out. In the end, the Lampoon had to issue an editorial statement acknowledging the lawsuit in the next issue, it had to promise to tear out the page in question in all unsold issues, of which there was next to none, and the printing plates had to be destroyed. Volkswagen eventually withdrew the suit. And interesting to note that Ted Kennedy never sued.

The lampoon continued to push the envelope, especially with its outrageous covers. In one issue, it ran a cover with a photo of a baby in a blender. The Christian Coalition took exception to the magazine in general and the cover in particular and wrote to all the Lampoon's advertisers threatening a boycott. The companies pulled their advertising. That was the beginning of the end for the national lampoon. Tired of ordinary television? Don't touch that dial.

SCTV is now on the air. When SCTV hit the air in 1976, John Candy and company did dozens of parody commercials. For example, it parodied the weird matchbook advertising of the 70s that promised exciting careers. Are you stuck in a low-paying job going nowhere? You'd like a good job, you say, but you're so unskilled and uneducated that you don't even know what a good job is?

Hi, I'm Don Mayer, and for just one cent, that's right, the cost of an ordinary book of matches, I can direct you to top money-making professional careers that you probably didn't even know existed. Why you could be an industrial plumbing investment counselor. That's right, a lot of people are investing big bucks in industrial plumbing, and they may need your advice. And who do you think cooks the meals when systems analysts get together to negotiate their big contracts?

You could, as a systems analyst arbitration chef. Meanwhile, over at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York... It's Saturday Night Live! the not ready for primetime players were busy spoofing ads. In one of the most famous from season one, Dan Aykroyd parodied the ubiquitous Ronco commercials of the era that seemed to pitch a new kitchen gadget every week. How many times has this happened to you?

You have a bass. You're trying to find an exciting new way to prepare it for dinner. You could scale the bass, remove the bass's tail, head and bones, and serve the fish as you would any other fish dinner. But why bother now that you can use Rob Coe's amazing new kitchen tool, the Super Bass-O-Matic 76. Yes, fish-eaters, the days of troublesome scaling, cutting and gutting are over. Because Super Bass-O-Matic 76 is the tool that lets you use the whole bass

with no fish waste without scaling, cutting or gutting. Here's how it works. Catch a bass, remove the hook and drop the bass. That's the whole bass into the Super Basso-Matic 76. Yes, it's just that simple. Wow, that's terrific bass. SNL never missed an opportunity to hoist Madison Avenue on its own petard. Like when a Marquis commercial said its ride was so smooth, a jeweler could split a valuable

diamond in the back seat. Cartier Jewelers of New York is about to risk a rough diamond that could be worth $125,000 in a unique test. Their man, Joseph Raffel, will attempt to split the stone while riding in this new Mercury marquee. Saturday Night Live parodied that commercial brilliantly. Instead of splitting a diamond to prove how smooth the car was,

a rabbi performed a circumcision. A luxury name and a luxury ride at a middle range price. Impossible. We've come to Temple Beth Shalom in Little Neck, New York and a luxury ride at a middle range price. Impossible? We've come to Temple Beth Shalom in Little Neck, New York and asked Rabbi Mayer Teflitz to circumcise eight day old Benjamin Cantor while riding in the backseat of the elegant Royal Deluxe Tube. Performing circumcision is a demanding time for a man.

It requires a sure hand and a steady cutting surface. This is an actual demonstration. It requires a sure hand and a steady cutting surface. This is an actual demonstration. Our speed, 40 miles an hour. The stylish Royal Deluxe II rides smooth because we build it right. And every new stylish Royal Deluxe II offers a standard equipment, power front disc brakes. Perfect. You may never have to perform a circumcision in the Royal Deluxe II. And if you do, I assure you, you'll agree with Rabbi Douglas.

It's a beautiful baby and a beautiful car. Royal Deluxe II, a beautiful car. The Rabbi was played by the late, great Marv Goldhar. Marv was a Toronto actor and we did dozens of commercials together. He told me once that Lorne Michaels had asked him to join the SNL cast in 1975, but Marv had turned him down, thinking the show would never last.

Oy vey. But my favorite SNL parody commercials were for the first citywide change bank. Bank advertising has a habit of patting itself on the back for supposedly bending over backwards for their customers. It's a hard claim to swallow. Banks meet Patard. I needed to take the bus, but all I had was a $5 bill.

I went to First Citywide and they were able to give me four singles and four quarters. We will work with the customer to give that customer the change that he or she needs. If you come to us with a twenty dollar bill, we can give you two tens. We can give you four fives. We can give you a ten and two fives. We will work with you. I went to my First Citywide branch to change a 50. I guess I was in kind of a hurry. I asked for a 20, a 10, and two 5s. Well, the computers picked up my mistake right away, and I got the correct change. We've been in this business a long time. With our experience, we're going to have ideas for change combinations that probably haven't occurred to you. If you have a $50 bill,

we can give you 50 singles. We can give you 49 singles and 10 dimes. We can give you 25 2 bill, we can give you 50 singles. We can give you 49 singles and 10 dimes. We can give you 25 twos. Come talk to us. We are not gonna give you change that you don't want. If you come to us with a $100 bill, we're not gonna give you 2,000 nickels, unless that meets your particular change needs. We will give you the change equal to the amount of money

that you want change for. Our business is making change. Hilarious. And we'll be right back. with best feeling, saying I do. Who wants this last parachute? I do. Daily Jackpots, a chance to win with every spin and a guaranteed winner by 11 p.m. every day. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem, call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca.

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Eventually, the advertising industry began spoofing commercials, which led to an interesting legal case. Back in 1983, Duracell ran a television commercial showing dozens of pink toy bunnies, but only one had a Duracell battery. Duracell batteries can make fun times last a lot longer. If you put Duracell batteries into one toy and ordinary carbon batteries into all the others, you'd find that after just a few hours of continuous use, the ordinary batteries give up. But Duracell batteries keep going. Then Energizer did a parody of that bunny commercial, saying Duracell batteries keep going. Then Energizer did a parody

of that bunny commercial saying Duracell hadn't invited Energizer to the playoff. It featured a pink Energizer bunny pounding a drum. For years you've seen some commercials where one battery company's toys outlast the other toys so you may have assumed their battery outlasts even Energizer batteries. Fact is Energizer was never invited to their playoffs and today's Energizer won't be invited either. Why? Because no battery lasts longer than Energizer. From that point on Energizer created a long-running series using the pink bunny it had co-opted from Duracell. The campaign idea for the now Energizer bunny was as follows.

First there was a commercial for Energizer. Then the next commercial would come on for a seemingly unrelated product, and the Energizer bunny would suddenly appear pounding a drum because its batteries just kept going and going and going. Energizer would go on to create over 120 commercial in a commercial parodies for the bunny. Still going, nothing outlasts the Energizer. They keep going and going. Then a strange thing happened in 1991. Coors created a commercial that featured airplane star Leslie Nielsen in a bunny suit pounding a drum while parading

across a supposed beer commercial from another company. You're not just looking at a beer. Far more. The ultimate refinement of the Brumeis design. The finest grains. They choice is grown. Coors Light, the official beer of the 90s, is the fastest growing premium light beer in America. It keeps growing and growing and growing. Energizer sued Coors over that commercial, saying the beer ad constituted copyright and trademark infringement. Follow the math on this.

Energizer had parodied the original Duracell commercial, had co-opted the Pink Bunny from Duracell, then ran a campaign with the Bunny invading a long series of parody commercials, and now was claiming the Coors parody was a copyright infringement of their parody. Eventually the court sided with the beer company, saying the Coors ad was a valid parody of Energizer. The reason? Leslie Nielsen wasn't a toy and he didn't run on batteries.

The interesting thing about parody commercials is how they affected the advertising industry. My generation of ad writers grew up reading Mad Magazine and National Lampoon, and we were die-hard Saturday Night Live fans since the first show in 1975. It influenced our take on advertising. We couldn't write commercials where Madge tells you you're soaking in dishwashing liquid. We found that too absurd. So, the advertising my generation created was self-referential. We made fun of cliché advertising slogans and stereotypical commercial situations. We would parody hard sell ads and make fun of overly sentimental ads. I remember submitting a humorous commercial where a father doesn't recognize his own son because he's been working too much overtime.

My creative director didn't like the humor. He said it was too dark for his tastes. It was generations colliding. He was pre-Saturday Night Live. I was post. In other words, parody commercials didn't just lampoon the ad industry, they influenced the ad industry. And influenced the ad industry. And for the better, I might add.

That's why parody commercials are not just fun and delicious, they're surely necessary. And don't call me Shirley when you're under the influence. I'm Terry O'Reilly. This episode brought to you by Mattel's fabulous new Dick Tracy snub-nosed 38 pistol and special belt holster. You loved it as a kid, you trust it as a mother. Under the Influence was recorded at Pirate Toronto. Series producer, Debbie O'Reilly. Sound engineers, Keith Ullman and Jeff Devine.

Theme music by Ari Posner and Ian LeFevre. Research, Gillian Gora. Follow me on Instagram and Twitter at TerryOinfluence. See you next week. to win with every spin and a guaranteed winner by 11 p.m. every day.