Sunday, November 9, 2014

Bozell's headquarters location is mentioned in a hit song

Louis F. Davis, Jr. was an Ohio native who attended a conference at the University of Nebraska, and ended up getting a job there. The job? To conduct and arrange a version of "Hair" that could be performed in a dinner theater setting. Originally slated to last for eight weeks, the show ended up playing for six months. At its conclusion, Davis made a promise to himself:

[Davis] made himself another promise at the time – that he would try anything except writing country music.

Protecting himself from such a cruel fate, he ended up accepting a job at an Omaha, Nebraska advertising agency, Bozell & Jacobs (known today as simply Bozell). There he made the acquaintance of the firm's senior vice president and creative director, a man named William Fries. Fries and Davis collaborated on a series of commercials that would change both of their lives. You see, the commercials starred a character named C.W. McCall. Fries described what happened after the commercials began to air:

“As soon as the spots started to air, people began writing letters to the Metz Baking Company wanting to know more about C.W. McCall and Mavis and this little soap opera that was going on,” Fries reminisced. “It was just amazing. Fan clubs were springing up and people were calling into TV and radio stations wanting to know when the spots were going to air.”



The popularity resulted in the release of a limited edition record by the Metz Baking Company that sold 30,000 copies. The record? "The Old Home Fill-er-Up an’ Keep-on-a-Truckin’ Café."

However, most of us are familiar with C.W. McCall from a record that came out a couple of years later called "Convoy." The record includes a hidden tribute to the town that Fries and Davis then called home. You see, the convoy kept on getting longer and longer, until at the end of the song, the following conversation took place over the radio:

Ah, 10-4, Pig Pen, what's your twenty? OMAHA? Well, they oughta know what to do with them hogs out there fer shure.

Fries ended up in Colorado, and Chip Davis ended up creating Mannheim Steamroller (yeah, them) - while remaining in Nebraska.
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