It’s seldom that a voice talent becomes famous or even known by name.  A couple that come to mind are Mel Blanc, probably the greatest cartoon voice guy ever (Bugs Bunny et all) and Don LaFontaine.  You’ve heard his work.  He invented and popularized the movie trailer genre that generated so much excitement about new movies by saying, “In a world….”  Yeah, that guy.

Long after LaFontaine’s death, we still hear the impact of his work each time a new show is announced on TV.  Of course, the guys doing television imaging aren’t as good as LaFontaine and most of them seem to be trying too hard.  They’re all using that low, whispery, baritone gravel voice that drags the trailing end of a phrase out too long and sounds like they are trying to sneak up on you.  It’s gotten out of hand and it’s really annoying.  Just tell me what the show is and I may watch it.  Your sneaky, scary, over-excited and over-acted voice will have zero effect on whether I watch a show or not.

Believe me, I understand and appreciate the value of good voiceover work as much as the next guy.  I don’t want to be one of those guys that quotes studies but studies have shown that an ad with a British voice can be forty percent more effective in an American market.  Not surprisingly, an American accent does the same in a British market.  I get it, the right voice can make a big difference.  A British accent is good for perfume, fashion or jewelry.  Toilet paper, not so much.  I don’t care if you do use some cute euphemism in reference to a person’s posterior.  Calling an ass a “bum” doesn’t make it any more pleasant to hear about your product wiping it.

We’re all so used to having Sam Elliot sell us trucks that we have become conditioned to believe that anything manly has to be presented with a deep bass voice.  It worked well for Ram Trucks but Firestone failed miserably with their ads.  They intended to convey a sense of masculine identity associated with their auto parts.  Instead, the male voice talent adopted a vocal affectation that sounded forced, creating a cartoonish, caricature of what was supposed to be a manly voice.  He added too much spice and ruined the chile.  It’s not like cowbell.  You can never have too much cowbell.

I don’t do a lot of voiceover work any more.  Most of what I did was during the time that my radio show was still on the air and sponsors would ask me to do their commercials.  Even though I have closed my production company and scaled my studio back by quite a bit, I am still very active in making fun of advertising that deserves it.  Won’t you join me?  Toss in a comment about the ads that bug you and while you have your fingers on the keyboard don’t forget to like, share and subscribe.  More later, TTFN.

On the consumer side of things, we would all rather just fork over the ninety-nine cents for the ad-free version of our favorite app and not be interrupted or annoyed by the unsightly commercials that would otherwise cover the cost of the app.  Those of us on the production side of things however, like the revenue those ads generate.

Advertising makes the world go around.  No business happens unless somebody buys something.  Nobody can buy anything if they don’t know it exists.  It is advertising that fixes that problem.

Naturally, those who have products to sell want their advertising to be as effective as possible.  Enter “Retsyn.”  Let’s discuss.  You remember those old ads for Certs.  “It’s a breath mint.”  “No, it’s a candy mint.”  Not surprisingly, the government deemed it to be a candy for tariff purposes since candy was taxed differently than oral hygiene products.  Cadbury, the makers of Certs, eventually got the decision overturned in an appeals court legally making Certs a breath mint.

Take that, you arguing couple on the commercials who told us Certs has Retsyn.  What the hell is Retsyn, you say?  Well, I’ll tell ya.  Retsyn is a trademarked name for a combination of copper gluconate, partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil, and flavoring.  Wait, what?  That’s just candy!  Are you telling me that Certs has candy in it?  Yep, that’s about the size of it.

But here’s the cool part that gets us back to our point.  They called it Retsyn and once you knew that Certs had Retsyn in it, you were less likely to settle for just any breath mint that contained some lesser ingredient.  It occurs to me that the Retsyn two step was incorporated in a couple other ads we’ve seen lately.  Consider The National Sleep Foundation for instance.  Who would want a pillow that wasn’t endorsed by those folks?  And don’t overlook The National Vitamin Council that put their seal of approval on those vitamins that we now know are the best ever.

Yeah, I think we can all agree that the aforementioned foundation and council are just the new Retsyns.  They are all just a figment of some Madison Avenue genius’s imagination.  Do they have any effect on you?  Have you seen any others that we need to make fun of?  Don’t keep it to yourself.  Jump in and tell us about it while you’re liking, sharing and clicking the RSS button and as always, go forth and do clickwise.  TTFN

Yes, that’s the opening salvo you’ll hear on any interview with celebrities, sports stars and pundits of every ilk.  Lesser experts being interviewed on local news magazines usually start out  with, “exactly,” as the first word in answer to the initial question.  The only time you will hear something other than that will be when a news reporter is asking an eye witness to give an accounting and you will invariably hear, “I seen it.”

My theory on the consistent bad grammar of eye witnesses is possibly that they are selected specifically for their inability to structure a grammatically correct sentence so as to not shine brighter than the reporter.  (This is where I put in the part about that being a joke and urge my many friends in the media to not send me any hate mail.)

As far as the verbal ramp-up mentioned earlier by so many talking heads, my guess is that they are just so used to hearing and using those phrases that they are unaware they are even doing it.  Well, look, I mean you know, that could be the reason.

That same habitual or accepted use theory would also explain why so many local news teams use that annoying head turn to the camera in all of their ads.  As a pilot I have watched the local news in a myriad of different cities during layovers.  I can raise my right hand and swear that in every television commercial done by a local news crew, each reporter would turn their head to look at the camera as they were introduced.

We can probably cut the local news guys some slack but there is no excuse for the major network golf coverage that introduces each of their on-course announcers and have them, one-by-one, look up from facing their lap to facing the camera.  It doesn’t get any hokier than that and what the hell were they looking at down there anyway? (Don’t answer that.)  I don’t know for sure but that may be the same network that has coerced those poor innocent college football players into doing the same goofy move as they are introduced at the beginning of a game.

We didn’t do any of that on the radio and my television appearances consisted of a smattering of small parts.  I wasn’t the star so I never got introduced.  Maybe I’m just out of touch.  Well, I mean you know, I am getting old.  What do you kids think?  Let me know in the comments and keep your pencils handy for the next post.  We’ll be making fun of advertising.  Oh boy!  I can’t wait. Share on social, tell your friends, click the RSS feed button and as always, go forth and do clickwise.  TTFN

Well, OK, if you insist, I'll do a blog.  Here you go.  Are you happy now?  I didn't really want to do a blog and resisted as long as I could but was dragged kicking and screaming into the blogosphere against my will.  Although, now that I think about it, it might not be so bad.  I can say whatever I want, make fun of all the things I really like to make fun of and maybe even promote a couple of things that deserve promoting.  (You know, like the books I write and other neat stuff.)

You know, I'm actually starting to like this idea and I think you'll have fun and enjoy it too.  We'll talk about aviation, my books, advertising, travel, the finer things in life and anything else you want to throw in by way of suggestion in the comments.

The title "Clickwise" is from my upcoming YouTube channel.  The idea is that what is discussed and shown will offer some guidance as to what is good, worthwhile, interesting, useful or just plain fun.  It will be reviews, news and how-to's that will help you navigate the confusing keyboard of life.  Enjoy!  Subscribe!  Comment!  Share!  But most of all, enjoy!  And with that, I beseech thee, go forth and do clickwise.  TTFN