We’ve been looking for this ad for the better part of five years. It’s been a Holy Grail of sorts, the source of countless internet searches, a few frantic calls to extremely confused corporate offices, and a largely ineffective sifting through of the internet. For the most part, we’d forgotten about it completely after giving up toward the end of last season to look for something easier to find like the West Virginia Mothman or Rick Reilly’s hymen.
This is another installment in life’s multi-part lesson about how to get what you’re looking for, and the answer is the same as ever: stop looking. Someone posted it to Youtube in April. The legend around the ad is that Bryant was supposed to say “Call your mama,” but then ad-libbed the last line, and thus sending South Central Bell’s stock through the roof and countless men running crying to the phones in a rush to obey the commands of the Man-Pope of Alabama.
At long last: The South Central Bell Ad where Bear Bryant demands that you call your mama.
The man could sell bacon in Mecca and bicycles to quadraplegics.
Mark Richt as a pitchman is a bit of a mixed bag in terms of execution. His best work probably appeared in the Michael Mann-esque slo-mo of his Ford truck commercials, a controversial piece of work given the deep, ongoing dirty war between Ford and Chevrolet factions in the deep South, and one for which he’s undoubtedly suffered. (”I’m sorry, coach, but this is Chevy country, and if you listen hard enough you can hear Fords rusting at night. My son can’t go to your school.”)
His most moving and complicated work, though, was initially panned for what audiences saw as a mumbling, incoherent performance in “Carpets of Dalton 2: The Restapling.”
Sometimes, the audience leads the artist; but in their best work, artists force the audience on a journey they might not want to take, a dark and intensely personal Dantean descent into a hell of their own making. (more…)
We’re officially on record as thinking that naming a Bo Schembechler-themed merlot is sacrilege enough to wake the dead into a punching rage, though it’s hard to be enraged about much of anything when the schedule for SEC games has been leaked (blanket allegedlys here.)
We at EDSBS, however, love making a cheap buck as much as anyone else, and therefore pitch the following beverages to the masses. Consider yourself a little focus group, if you will: tell us how you feel about these beverages on a scale from “would drink out of [IMPOSSIBLY ATTRACTIVE FAMOUS PERSON'S ASSCRACK]‘ to “would not drink with a loaded blunderbuss held to our heads.”
Sylvester Croom’s CRÜM. Smooth. Strong. Those who hold on fourth and one, hold CRÜM.
Hey! There’s no such thing as a yellow tailed gator! Salvaged from the scrap heap of the past by reader Jon, Coach JR delivers his most compelling performance as a pitchman in this ad for Osmose Yella Wood. The jungle clearly brings out the best in the coach:
And if you don’t believe the J.R. Ewing/ Steve Spurrier comparison Kanu’s been trying to convince us of for years, then watch this and tell us you couldn’t see this scene working just as well with a visor and Phil Fulmer in the Cliff Barnes role.
Credit goes to two people for this find: commenter hunglikehussain, and the Auburner, who went to the trouble of capturing Tommy Tuberville’s epic performance in a Golden Flake commercial that suggests Auburn football players run fast because someone is beckoning them towards an open bag of Golden Flake potato chips. (For the record: in certain cases, we believe this could be completely true, as in the case of Kenny or David Irons.)
Mesmerizing! Tommy Tuberville doesn’t even have to be in the same moment and place to hypnotize you with a bag of potato chips: all he need do is call, and you will hear his plea from across space and time.
P.S. Just because we’re having fun with Sir Charles today over at the Sporting Blog, a few Auburn relevant quotes from barkleyquotes.com that should convince you not only that Charles is one of the great bon vivants of our time, but also confirm any and all stereotypes about SEC and Auburn athletes and academics:
“When I was recruited at Auburn [university], they took me to a strip joint. When I saw those titties on Buffy, I knew that Auburn met my academic requirements.”
Those titties. An area of study no young male college student can fail to appreciate.
Urban Meyer’s sales skills are among the worst we’ve ever seen in coaching commercials–they’re downright Fulmer-esque, down to the cue-card missile lock of his eyes to the awkward fist pump he employs about halfway into this abortion of an orange juice ad.
The good thing: he’s actually improved from year one. There’s a jewelry store ad lurking somewhere out there that, if it saw the light of day, would make James Lipton jump headfirst off the nearest tall building.
Screw Obama, Hillary, and McCain: for true bipartisan effort, slug a vote down for Woody Hayes, whose brain in a jar should be put on a ballot this election season. The lifelong Republican (white guy with an anger problem? GOP? No!) stumps for Ben Espy, a former Columbus City Councilman and Buckeye grad…and, gasp!, a Democrat.
That’s cross-the-aisle work right there, sirs and madams. And don’t call him a commie, because he will rise from the dead to punch you in your face, punk. (HT: SBB.)
EDIT/UPDATE/ETC. WBGV reported this first, no WVSports, who confirmed the story, most likely from the same source. As with any of these stories, be ever skeptical, but with Petrino’s rain of back-daggers on Tuesday, perhaps Nick Saban and agent felt the need to flex their skills just to show the new kid in town who the real tiger-style master is.
Real men react unpredictably. According to sources of the Dallas Morning News, Paul Johnson visited SMU yesterday, officially making the Navy head coach linked to more jobs than Chopper Read. With Georgia Tech and Duke already eyeballing him, Johnson looks to be in the cat bird’s seat. (Hat Tip: Dave W., via email)
We approve. The 50-year old head coach has guided Navy to a 46-25 record, including five straight bowl appearances. More than that, though: he’s a real man’s ranter – a from-the-gut, I could give a shit about pussies who don’t share my world view, kind of guy.
Which begs the question: which job would expose him to the most obnoxious press corps? The football scenes at Duke and SMU are pretty tame these days, so we’re going to throw our endorsement behind Paul Johnson to Georgia Tech. After six years of too nice for his own good Chan Gailey, we imagine Johnson being an excellent main course to follow the Chan-Man aperitif (7.5% alcohol, natch).
In any case, we’ll be quietly rooting for Johnson to wind up some place where he gets a chance to shoot from the cuff. We think his rant ceiling approaches STFU levels of disdain.
“Coach, any comment on the fans who think you’re too hard on the players?”
If he brings up any soft shit about bowl traditions… slap him. It’s not uncommon for a bowl apologist / playoff antagonist (your choice) to yammer on about what bowls mean to our great tradition and civic pride.
To which we say – Paul Johnson style – “Shut the fuck up.” As the Sports Business Journal explains in great detail, any notion that the current bowl system serves anything other than profit is simply nostalgic wishcasting:
Those numbers, plus projections for the bowls that don’t file as nonprofits, combine to make the bowl system a $400 million industry. Not bad for a collection of 32 football games that covers a three-week period.
“The whole model of doing business has changed,” said Keith Tribble, athletic director at the University of Central Florida and CEO of the Orange Bowl until 2006. During his 13 years at the Orange Bowl, he helped generate revenue growth from $8 million to more than $30 million.
“You really have to be aggressive with your marketing and sales, of both tickets and sponsorships,” Tribble said. “We ran it like a business, like a major corporation. That’s how we found the dollar value in it.”
If money is the name of the game, the last feeble arrow in the playoff haters’ quiver is that the regular season contests would lose a great deal of importance. As a fan of a Texas team which dropped its first two conference games before winning five straight, I can assure you that our season finale would have taken on a great deal more importance if there was a playoff berth – as opposed to a Fiesta or Orange Bowl appearance – at stake. Adding a playoff would make create more meaningful games, not fewer. For every Michigan-Ohio State 2006 that you lose, you’d pick up a dozen more meaningful games among teams fighting on the fringe for a playoff berth. [/preach]
He’s old. Still. Since Joe Paterno seems hell-bent on dying while coaching on the sidelines and all, the College Football Hall of Fame went ahead with his induction now. Actually, they did so in 2006, but Paterno was nursing a broken leg at this time last year and wasn’t available for the ceremony. Feel free to insert your own “hang ‘em up” joke here. We’ve come to believe that the well is – for all intents and purposes – dry.
Does this story make me look fat? Via Cal blog The Band Is Out On The Field comes this controversial story, in which we learn that quarterback Nate Longshore was more seriously injured than he and his coaches led on throughout the season:
Yesterday at a pre-Armed Forces Bowl press conference, coach Jeff Tedford admitted that, contrary to previous team reports, the injury was in fact more serious, something he has known since the injury occurred.
Aside from the ankle sprain, Longshore also suffered a chipped bone somewhere in the back of his ankle which has caused him continuous discomfort. Longshore has only missed one start since the injury and continues to play on the bad ankle…
Asked why he did not decide to sit Longshore in favor of the more mobile Kevin Riley, Tedford said that he has deferred to his veteran quarterback on those decisions. He has asked Longshore on several occasions if the injury has caused his poor fourth-quarter performances, and each time, Longshore maintained that it does not. (emphasis mine)
Cal fans are torn whether Tedford is deflecting heat from Longshore or just an idiot not keeping both hands properly on the wheel. We obviously don’t claim to know, but that Tedford star sure has lost a lot of its shine, hasn’t it?
Just because. There was at least one request yesterday for more “physical comedy.” Though we don’t claim to be as rubber-necked as Orson, we’re populists at heart.
Show me your scruples… If you weren’t quite convinced that this whole BCS system is a giant, steaming pile of elephant dung, you will be once you get through the coaches ballots. Among my favorties:
**Lllloyd Carr – the 4 L version – voted his Wolverines 21st, a full ten spots ahead of their actual ranking. Oregon, the team Lloyd could not stay within 30 points of at home, is not on his ballot at all.
**Dennis Franchione, apparently not content to fuck one football program in the ass, sent a parting shot to Hawaii, ranking them 22nd. Hal Mumme, seeing the team he wished he had, voted the Rainbow Warriors #1.
**Tommy Bowden threw darts at his ballot. Oklahoma landed in the 10 spot, four behind… Missouri. Mkay.
**The lone moralist in college football? Mack Brown, of course. Every coach except the Longhorns’ voted their team higher than their actual finish. As noted at DC Sports Blog: “The most stark moral offenders are: Lloyd Carr (10 spots difference), Mike Bellotti (8), Chris Petersen (6), Mike Riley (5), Randy Edsall (5), Tommy Bowden (5), Mike Leach (4), Ron Zook (4) and Phillip Fulmer (4). Frank Beamer (3) didn’t quite make this cut, but he was the only coach to vote Virginia Tech No. 2, meaning he tried to put his own team in the title game and no one else did.”
**Howard Schnellenberger? Marching to his own beat. USC is ranked behind… Boise State?
Crazy Requires Charisma Hawaii coach June Jones says Tim Tebow is a “system quarterback” and his own gunslinger Colt Brennan is college football’s best player. (HT: Wiz) Lord knows this blog couldn’t survive without all the feet coaches lodge in their mouths, but I’m a firm believer that if you’re gonna take the plunge into the abyss of absurd quotes, you gotta do so with charisma. Think pirates.
June Jones?
HU-man. RO-bot.
Brian Cook suicide watch: day 13Page 6 gossip columnist Michigan blogger Brian Cook has battled through games of footsy with both Kirk Ferentz and Les Miles. Now… Ball State’s Brady Hoke? MGoBlog suggests this is Hoke putting his own name into the Big Program Job Search channels, but Occam’s Razor suggests a far simpler, more logical explanation: Tressel!
Your uniforms match my penalty flag. Oregon State may have gotten the last laugh, but not without a valiant fight from the officials, who tried oh so hard to keep the Ducks in Saturday’s Civil War. And as Oregon State blogger Building The Dam points out, that may not have been much of a coincidence. Eugene officiating conspiracies: not going away any time soon! You gotta love it.
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Orson Swindle and Stranko Montana are two men pushing thirty who should know better than to run a college football blog, but evidently don't. Both graduated from the University of Florida, and both agree that college football is far too important to be left to the professionals.
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