2003 DECEMBER 3 #337
Volkswagen '79 - Beetle Love / Lookin' To You
I really dig trade show records. Ever since Stan Freberg produced his epic-length commercials, such as "Omaha!" for Butter-Nut Coffee, which used a full orchestra, chorus, cast and one of the most wonderfully implausible plots to be unleashed in advertising to date, I have been a fan of musical commerce.
I found this at a garage sale and it's chock full of nuts, the heavenly coff...I mean, chock full of information; character bios, descriptions of the songs and from the back cover, it would appear this is a soundtrack, not just a record of company-related songs. Either that, or the scenery and costume folks went through a lot of unnecessary trouble for an LP! The plot is that Wally Samuels is a frustrated VW dealer, who needs encouraging.
The book and lyrics are credited to David Blomquist, (fresh from "The Chevrolet Experience" (1977), according to John K. Fitzpatrick's "Oddball Auditorium"),http://home.teleport.com/~jfitz/music/oddball.html
The partial cast:
Wally Samuels - Merwin Goldsmith
Miriam Samuels, Wally's wife - Martha Danielle
Carol Samuels, their daughter - Nancy Salis
Brad Evans, a happy VW dealer - Ted Pritchard
From the notes:
"...Wally and Brad...headed for the local disco. There, Wally got another surprise - Miriam and Carol were working as waitresses. Thoroughly dismayed, Wally began to long for the "good old days" and his sentiments were reflected in a fifties-style ballad...
BEETLE LOVE
Miriam and Carol persisted in encouraging Wally to future and consider the important changes that were taking place. There were joined by the disco crowd in...
LOOKING TO YOU"
I don't know if the disco crowd had any lawyers in it, concerned about the similarity of "Looking to You" to the Bee Gees' "Staying Alive"
If you simply MUST know the ending of this story, Wally's wife and his staff throw him a surprise celebration for fifteen years of being in the VW business and was ""moved by their spirit".
I can't help but wonder if his wife and daughter are still working at the disco, though...
- Brian Phillips
TT-3:52 / 3.6MB / kbps 44.1khz
(Image courtesy of Brian Phillips)