He was in commercials with a hippo, a snake, a tiger, a gorilla, Shamu, a bear, and a raccoon. Probably a 100 other creatures.
Calvin Coolidge Worthington, who was born in Oklahoma in 1920 and spent his childhood mired in poverty.
Cal dropped out of school at 13 and, after working as a water boy on a road crew, signed on with the Civilian Conservation Corps, blazing trails in what would become Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado.
Keen on becoming a pilot, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1942 and flew B-17 Flying Fortresses on 29 bombing missions over Germany. He left the military with the rank of captain, a Distinguished Flying Cross and hopes of becoming a commercial pilot, but lack of a college degree disqualified him.
How anyone can be a military pilot, an officer at that, and not be welcomed to fly for an airline, is a god damn shame on the commercial airline industry and America for not supporting a vet that bombed the Nazis.
Mr. Worthington sold a lot of cars — more than a million of them, by his count — and at his peak in the 1960s ran an empire of 29 dealerships from San Diego to Anchorage.
Through the 1960s he was the top-selling Dodge dealer in the United States. He overextended, however, and the oil embargo of the early ’70s hit hard. To supplement his income he sold motorized pogo sticks and flew a helicopter, delivering live traffic reports to radio stations.
He rebounded, selling $200 million to $300 million worth of cars annually in the ’80s.
Like so many rich car dealership owners, he was married several times, and divorced every time.
If you need a better car, go see Cal.
For the best deal by far, go see Cal.
If you want your payments low, if you want to save some dough,
Go see Cal, go see Cal, go see Cal.
Maybe you need a station wagon, go see Cal.
If your wife has started naggin’, and your tail pipe is a-draggin’
I probably say 10 thousand of his commercials over the years. At one time he said every used car had 4 new tires and new battery. And he did sell a lot of cars believe me. Him and Ralph Williams. Both actually had celebrity status back then and appeared on late night shows like Johnny Carson's show.
ReplyDeletehttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SrF9PzuHQtY
ReplyDeleteI'm only familiar with him from a movie called Into the Night with Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Pfeiffer, there's a scene where a guy is going through a hotel room and a Cal commercials is on. Cal is on a biplane I think.
ReplyDeleteThis guy was a REAL car salesmen. He pulled out all the stops to get you to buy from him, and it worked. An observation. The tiger has been defanged and declawed. That's crewel.
ReplyDeleteI agree, I noticed that the cat had no teeth, and thought twice about posting that image, but came to decide that I'm not here to hide the truth about how carnival animals were treated, having their fangs and claws removed, that simply was the norm, and it was done to chimps, gorillas, etc also. Carnivals were very cruel to their animals, and because they were on the road, no one from the govt stayed on the case, and it took over 150 years of horrible inhumane treatment to pass before some elephants finally went crazy often enough, and orcas, to kill enough humans, for the world to get a serious hostile view of the situation, make movies, and get some govt oversight to make it illegal to have orcas at Seaworld, and elephants in carnivals.
DeleteI might be wrong, as I haven't been to any of these in decades, but that is what I recall learning in the news.
I'm against declawing household cats too. I've had two cats myself, and my mom had a couple when I was a kid, and I know that those claws will do some damage around the house, but there are things that must be accepted as just coming with the territory when adopting pets, or having kids. You stuff will get damaged. But you don't need to declaw the cats. Or dogs. Or kids.