Saturday 22 September 2018

Has Jay Ward an Offer For You!

No idea was too outrageous or ridiculous to promote The Bullwinkle Show on NBC. At least in the mind of producer Jay Ward, not NBC. Ward insisted the network found ways not to promote his cartoon series.

Ward, somehow, found a way to convince United Press International to let him fill in as a columnist and make a completely bogus offer. (Hmm, on second thought, maybe it wasn’t completely bogus. Ward came up with the damndest stunts). I, for one, would welcome a Jay Ward Film Festival. Even if Smash Brugal wasn’t able to come. This made the wire August 9, 1962.

Want to Gain Stature? Order ‘Jay’s ‘Genuine Film Festival
EDITOR'S NOTE: Guest writer Jay Ward, zany producer of The Bullwinkle Show, offers to sponsor a film festival in an American City.
By JAY WARD
Written for UPI
Hollywood—With film festivals the rage of Europe these days, how would you like to have a genuine film festival right in your city?
That's right—an actual film festival in your own home town with all the trimmings: half-clad starlets, all-night parties, drunken producers—everything!
Nothing can add sophistication and stature to a town like a film festival. Look what film festivals have done for towns like Cannes and Venice. Who ever heard of those places before?
Now, Jay Ward Productions is offering any town in the United States its own film festival! Here's all you have to do:
ONE—Show an honest and sincere interest in motion pictures and buttered popcorn as an art form.
TWO—Get your city council to appropriate $750,000 to Jay Ward Productions as a token of good faith.
THREE—Redecorate your largest movie house at a cost of not less than $60,000, name it the Bullwinkle Hall of Cinema Arts, and donate it to Mr. Ward.
In return, Jay Ward will:
ONE—Visit your town himself with a galaxy of top name stars that will make your unsophisticated head spin! Irmgard Blatz, Smash Brugle, Emma Maude Hupp, Cynthia Dengue, and Fenton Burnie, to name a few!
TWO—Provide a 75-watt searchlight, without the likes of which no festival would be complete! (You supply the bulb.)
THREE—Persuade the eminent actor George C. Scott to wire your nominating committee, declining any nomination he might receive!
FOUR — Graciously accept the invitation of your town's leading citizens to spend the duration of the festival as their guest.
FIVE—Provide coveted "Golden Bullwinkle" trophies to be presented to best actor, best actress, best picture, best twister, etc. Mr. Ward will sell the trophies to the winners at the very reasonable price of $17.95, including, tax. Additional trophies will also be on sale in the lobby, for anyone who would care to buy one.
In addition, Jay Ward will offer the following great films as entries in your film festival:
"Twist at Nuremberg," "Ambush at La Dolce Vita" (Italian), "Gidget Goes Hungarian," "The 3 Stooges Meet the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse," "Tamara Tell Me True" (Russian entry), "Son of Cleopatra," "The Seventh Strawberry" (Swedish, directed by Ingmar Birdman), "Ben Hur Strikes Again!"
What will a Jay Ward film festival do for your town?
ONE—Make it famous as a mecca of culture.
TWO—Give you an excuse for getting bombed every night for a week!

2 comments:

  1. This may very well be the funniest and truest satire on Hollywood I've ever read. It rivals anything fred Allen or Stan Freberg ever wrote.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Throw in Ponsonby Britt, OBE and Elmo Lincoln's grand-niece and it's a deal!

    (Actually, I would have settled for Hans Conried.)

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