And Now, a Gag From Our Sponsor

By Gordon M. Henry

In real life, Shadoe Stevens is a dapper and thoughtful man who left a job as a disk jockey to go into the more lucrative field of advertising. But to millions of TV viewers in California, Texas and Arizona, he is Fred Rated, the wild-and-crazy huckster who has appeared in some 800 commercials for the Federated Group, a Los Angeles-based electronics chain. In Stevens' wacky TV career, he has impersonated The Honeymooners' Ralph Kramden and Miami Vice's Sonny Crockett, played a man who gets attacked by rabid frogs and even starred as a Santa Claus who turns into a werewolf. His public appearances at Federated stores attract hundreds of autograph seekers. Most important, since his TV debut in 1982, Federated's sales have surged 80%, and the 16-year-old company has grown from 15 outlets to 60. Says Marketing Vice President Gary Tobey: "He's made us seem like a more fun place to shop."

The success of Fred Rated and other weirdos like him has spurred more and more regional businesses to peddle their products with commercials that are goofy, whimsical and sometimes downright obnoxious. One of the pioneers in the field is Crazy Eddie, the New York-area consumer-electronics chain with the pitchman who raves about "insane" prices and "Christmas sales" in August. Instead of copying the slick style of the ad factories on Madison Avenue, local advertisers churn out low-budget affairs that they often write and produce themselves. Nothing is too ridiculous if it catches a viewer's attention: announcers attack water beds with chain saws or dress up like gorillas and yell, "You'll go bananas!" In some cases, these homemade off- the-wall routines have caused a company's business to increase 100% or more virtually overnight. Says Burton Manning, chairman of the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency: "Silliness sells when you're trying to get an ad to cut through the clutter." To keep viewers from wandering into the kitchen during the station break, many businesses are relying on skits that might have been staged by a bunch of sixth-graders. An ad for Bobby Gray Volkswagen-Mazda in Jackson, Miss., features nine car salesmen in matching sweatshirts, khaki pants and tennis shoes who stage an arrhythmic song-and-dance routine in the middle of an empty football stadium. While three of the performers pound out a funky beat on keyboard, drums and guitar, the other six do an out-of-step side-to-side shuffle. In between refrains, the various salesmen sing rap-style verses in which they boast about their prowess on the showroom floor.

Often the boss himself will grab the limelight and ham it up. Barry Ross, 43, owner of Houston's Superior Waterbeds, was watching a disk jockey tape a spot for his firm seven years ago when he got frustrated with the hireling's laid-back style. Recalls Ross: "I wanted an irritant to wake somebody up during the early morning." He grabbed the microphone and began wildly shouting out lines. "When the engineer played it back," Ross says, "it sounded so good that I told the deejay to go home." In one zany Fourth of July ad, Ross dressed like a firecracker and blew up in a "sales explosion!"

Calvin Worthington, 65, a Los Angeles auto dealer, wears a cowboy hat in his ads and parades around a car lot with animals ranging from pigs and tigers to hippos and elephants, each of whom he refers to as "my dog Spot." Wayne Greenstein, 32, and Brother Marc, 34, whose family owns Coronet juvenile furniture in Westbury, N.Y., have appeared in commercials since 1980. One of their popular spots features the Greensteins sitting in baby cribs and musing about a "talking orangutan." Customers routinely barge into Coronet demanding to see the TV stars, and trendy Manhattan nightclubs such as Danceteria, Chuckles and the Comic Strip have hired them to perform the orangutan skit onstage. Chortles Wayne: "We've become cult figures."

Businessmen often save large sums of money by creating their own commercials instead of hiring an outside firm. In some cities, a store owner who writes and acts out his own 30-second spot can produce it at a local TV studio for $100 to $300, in contrast to the $2,000 to $4,000 charged by a professional agency. Alan Saks, owner of Chicago-based Saxon Paint & Home Care Centers, says that were it not for his self-made ads, he could not compete with Goliaths like Sears. Says Saks, 58: "It's a competitive business. The independent has to do what he can do."

Despite their relative cheapness, goofy ads often deliver spectacular results. James McIngvale, 35, owner of Houston-based Gallery Furniture, was struggling to survive when he launched a madcap campaign in 1982. Although lacking in broadcast experience, McIngvale ad-libbed spots in which he blabbered as fast as he could for 55 seconds and then, in the last five seconds, leaped into the air holding a cluster of dollar bills while shouting, "Gallery Furniture really will Save! . . . You! . . . Money!" Since he first went airborne, McIngvale's sales have soared 1000%. Says he: "It saved the company."

Many owners enjoy acting like bozos on the boob tube, but for others the commercials are strictly business. Auto Dealer Worthington insists that if his antics did not pay off, he would never set foot near a TV camera. Says he: "I am not an extrovert by nature. I should get an Academy Award every time I do one of those ads."

With reporting by Scott Brown/Los Angeles and David S. Jackson/Houston