Chinchillas are Good Business
A lil while back I posted this episode of a forgotten TV show called Divorce Hearing and simply could not decide whether it was the absolute best or absolute worst piece of television I had ever seen. Most viewers decided it was one of the best. Well, it's time to cast those ballots again with this relic of early TV: The Hoot Gibson Show. It "stars" an aging B-movie western figure of the same name. The real meat of this program lies in its sponsor. At the 6:50 mark the sponsor appears in the flesh, a Chinchilla salesman who could not deliver a line of script to save his life. Needs to be seen to be believed.
I didn't think his delivery was too bad. But the way he talks about how to get into the business makes me wonder.....does he raise chinchillas to sell the fur, or is it a "Be your own boss-chinchilla pyramid scheme". Love the title cards and backdrops for the show. Oh, and where did tucking your slacks into your boots come from in old western movies and shows?
Posted by: Dale Hazelton | February 24, 2008 at 10:05 AM
The interview about the chinchilla business is just surreal. I can't wait to order some and start chinchilla ranching.
Posted by: Ivy | February 24, 2008 at 10:08 AM
The interview about the chinchilla business is just surreal. I can't wait to order some and start chinchilla ranching.
Posted by: Ivy | February 24, 2008 at 10:09 AM
I'm convinced Firesign Theatre parodies this on a track from "Dear Friends".
Posted by: Jeffersonicus Diatomaceous Skate-Key | February 24, 2008 at 04:03 PM
"Of course, before they can sell the chincillas, they have to have them."
Sounds like a mid-20th century version of alpaca farming.
Posted by: Eric B. | February 25, 2008 at 12:34 PM
The chinchilla guy, if you watch all the way through, he sounds like he is at the end of his rope. He is in despair. Every other insane business idea he has had since the end of World War II has failed. This one is failing too. It's failing so badly he has to pay an incompetent cowboy show to shill his rat-raising business. He is still shell-shocked, terrified. Failing in the big bright world of the new American dream.
He's a Philip K. Dick protagonist:
"George Johnson went back to his conapt. The chinchillas greeted him, chittering at him from their cages in the closet. There were messages on his autofac maching, but they were all divorce notices from his ex-wife Dinah. George sat down on the consofa and put his head in his hands and thought about the dreams he had been having. The dreams about the next dictator of Mars.
The dictator whipped a rope around in a circle. His name was Hoot Martian. He loomed out of the dark at George, his leathery old TV cowboy facing leering with pop-eyed madness.
And the chinchillas chittered and laughed."
Posted by: rhodomontade | February 26, 2008 at 01:27 AM