Cal Worthington

[lordairgtar]

http://autos.aol.com/article/cal-worthington-famed-west-coast-car-dealer-dies-at-92/

[LDO]

I remember that guy's ads in Houston, when I was there from 1988-1992. I thought he only operated in Houston. I remember Arsenio Hall making some kind of reference to him and thinking..."Same guy?? Nah. Couldn't be".

I wonder if he was the guy being parodied in the TV ad from the Weird Al movie UHF; the "I'll club this baby seal to make a deal" ad?

Edited September 20, 2013 by LDO

[sjordan2]

I remember that guy's ads in Houston, when I was there from 1988-1992. I thought he only operated in Houston. I remember Arsenio Hall making some kind of reference to him and thinking..."Same guy?? Nah. Couldn't be".

I wonder if he was the guy being parodied in the TV ad from the Weird Al movie UHF; the "I'll club this baby seal to make a deal" ad?

Same here, I lived in Houston during that time. I know that Johnny Carson parodied him continually. He kind of set the standard for crazy car dealer commercials.

[Lunajammer]

the "I'll club this baby seal to make a deal" ad?

Would you believe this is the only out loud laugh I've had today?

[cobraman]

One of the first ads I saw on TV when I moved from Illinois to California many years ago.

[Ben]

Check out the prices of the cars in that video!!!

[slusher]

He had some wild ads. l remember seeing his ads when l was a kid from comedians...

[espo]

Old Cale had a large Chevrolet dealership in Sacramento Ca. As I understand he also had dealerships as far north as Alaska as well as So.Cal. and several others. The story I remember hearing was he was dirt poor and living in Oklahoma. He started buying and selling old cars until he was able to get a dealership of his own, and the rest is history. I worked in dealerships in the Sacramento area in the mid '80s thru the mid ,90s. From what I understand at the time he sold mostly used cars and very very few new Chevrolets at the time. Think what you like about the man, but he was truly a self made man.

[Aaronw]

If you can find a better deal, I'll eat a bug.

I don't know much about the man, but I always got the feeling from his commercials that he was poking fun at the image of the shady used car salesman. In turn the media seems to have played off of him creating even more cartoonish car dealer characters in TV and movies.

[lordairgtar]

Here in Wisconsin we have Ernie Von Schleidorn. A German immigrant, he started selling VWs and later he sold Buicks. Now he sells several lines. His tag line on TV was "Who you know wants to buy a car?".

[turn1wonder]

There was an ongoing skit on SCTV (Second City TV) that had the same type of character as Cal, but with a wife and not car sales, it was so bad it was great!

Bob

[KingSix]

you're killing me ... '71 firebird for $900 ??