Stan Freberg's Green Christmas (1958)

Gary North - December 25, 2018

Stan Freberg was a great ad man. Again and again, he successfully broke the rule: "Clever doesn't sell."

I was in awe of his comedic talents from the days of Time for Beany (1949). I watched it every evening. So did the bulk of Southern Californians, young and old, who owned TV sets. I wrote about him here: https://www.garynorth.com/public/18603.cfm.

In a 1983 interview in The New York Times, we read:

In 1956, Mr. Freberg turned his talents to advertising and produced dozens of commercials that remain classics of the comedy soft sell. In his very first ad campaign, for Contadina Tomato Paste, Mr. Freberg created the classic line, ''Who put eight great tomatoes in that little bitty can?'' Sales of Contadina soared. For Sunsweet Prunes, Mr. Freberg came up with the tag, ''Today the pits, tomorrow the wrinkles.'' For Heinz's Great American Soups he had Ann Miller and 20 hoofers tap dance atop a giant soup can. And his ad for Jeno's Frozen Pizza featured the original Lone Ranger and Tonto, plus a cast of 52 extras.

''I really went into advertising as a totally outraged consumer,'' Mr. Freberg recalled, ''although my outrage also stemmed from the evangelical attitudes of my father, who was a Baptist minister. Day after day, I sat watching the tube and listening to the radio, and I was stunned by the ineptness. So I started creating the sort of advertising I knew could reach me.''

His company was "Freberg Ltd. (but not very)." Its slogan: Ars gratia pecuniae (Art for money’s sake).

You can see a bunch of them here. But this is Christmas. He would not approve.

In this record, he satirized his new profession.