Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/07/21
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 06:44 PM 7/21/03 -0400, caliguri@rcn.com wrote: >Wasn't it Johm Cameron Swazey (?) whom I >recall as a kid strpping a Timex watch to a boat prop and other crazy >things to show that it will "take a lickin' and keep on tickin' !" I could >be >wrong there; I was a little kid , but I recall those demos on TV - shows >the power of the medium I guess! '============================= Ah! John Cameron Swazey, the announcer who marked the change from "journalist" to "personality" when TV beat radio, was the spokesman for Timex. Timex sponsored the then-middle-aged Walter Cronkite's THE TWENTIETH CENTURY on CBS, every Sunday in the late 1950's at, I recall 8PM your time. For those of us in real time (that is, Eastern time), the broadcast was live. Swazey would subject the Timex to various horrid tortures and then would intone, in his magnificent voice, "[I]t takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'!" One night, he strapped the Timex to an outboard motor prop, lowered the engine into a 55-gallon oil drum converted into a test tank, and fired the motor. Swazy continued with his ad hype, rolling phrase after rolling phrase, while the motor whirred away. And, as the advert ended, the motor was cut off and lifted from the test tank. Swazey then spoke directly into the camera, "[A}s I said, it takes a lickin' and ... <pause> ... it's GONE!", as the watch had flown off of the rapidly rotating prop. Swazey swore later that they had done the test four or five times before doing it live on nation-wide TV but the result was, to be polite, most risible. No, I do not know what was run in the Central, Mountain, and Pacific time zones on that night. I was in the Eastern time zone and still recall the laughter of my parents. Marc msmall@infionline.net FAX: +540/343-7315 Cha robh bąs fir gun ghrąs fir! - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html