When I was in the sixth grade my teacher Gary Rogers had one solid rule: NO WAR STORIES. It was his way of simplifying a daily navigation through a room full of us who before being assigned to his class were all about war stories. What life experience could any 11 year old kid have that would make for any real good war stories anyway? While it was a stifling experience and arguably not fertile ground for growing minds, it worked. Mister Rogers! Mister Rogers! If the next word was a personal pronoun, it was cut off with a stern…”Is this a war story?” That quote was a quick efficient reminder that his classroom was a no war stories zone. I don’t remember the sixth grade as particularly stimulating but it was orderly.
Now so many years have come and gone. I was having writers block till my sixth grade experience came back to mind. With reflection and some prompting from friends who have a hole burned straight into the side of the head with my war stories, I guess I’ll see if I can get some old war stories out for some air.
We’ll Leave The Light On…
My work in T.V. broadcasting is a big source of war stories. One of my favorites was my first trip to Alaska.
As work environments go, the television broadcasting business has never been known for stability and during one of many unstable times I was laid off from ABC Inc., I went to work for a production company that had among its client list a T.V. Showbiz program called Entertainment Tonight. It was May 1988; I remember because it was when Rolling Stone had a scantily dressed Lisa Bonet on its cover. Born Lisa Michelle Boney, she was cast as Denise Huxtable on The Cosby Show. Funny thing about showbiz folks, they often have to change their names, I mean what visual impression would you get from the name Boney? That reminds me of Miss California Semi-Finalist (1976) Linda Michelle Mouron who became Linda Mour when she went to work for KABC T.V. in L.A. The name change was to avoid the pain of any "moron" associations because viewers can be so cruel. I worked with her in Sacramento and shot her very first television stand up…A high school classmate, Jimmy Cox also worked with Linda at Disneyland playing piano for her dancing but I digress…
I had an assignment as audio tech for a shoot in Alaska for Entertainment Tonight. The motivation was to shoot an interview with that Motel 6 guy, Tom Bodett who had just renewed his Motel 6 contract. That was showbiz news and one of the first but still rare television interviews of Tom Bodett. “We’ll leave the light on for ya” was a line he conjured up himself and it became key to an ad campaign that pulled the brand from the brink of economic demise resulting in one of the most successful ad campaigns in radio history. It painted a folksy image of a guy who would likely stay at Motel 6 and the company intended to maintain that image. So Tom was a hot property at the end of his first contract with Motel 6. A bidding war was on for his services with Toyota as the lead contender. Well, by that time, Motel 6 was able to fend off Toyota which made Tom, a wealthy man, more so by a considerable leap. By the way, not many know that the line, “We’ll leave the light on for ya” was just enough filler for a 30 second script that kept timing out short. It was taking a lot of fuss to get the script to fill a thirty second spot and after much frustration, the line “We’ll leave the light on for ya” came from an inspired Tom Bodett. It was just enough fill for the spot and a legend was born. Tom, a lucky guy was discovered by a Motel 6 producer who had a tape of Tom’s “End of the Road with Tom Bodett and Johnny B.” radio program that ran on National Public Radio. Tom was based at Homer Alaska which is known as the end of the road because, as the locals say; you can keep going, but you can’t take your car with ya ‘cause ya won’t find any roads that go further west than Homer!
For the long trip to Alaska, we arrived at San Francisco International early to get our many cases of gear safely loaded and with just enough time to get a look at our fellow passengers who would be making the trip with us, at least this leg of it. One group that caught my eye was all dressed up in Hippie, Wild West, and Pirate kind of garb. Frumpy looking cowboy hats, ear rings, leather vests and one guy had long ratty looking hair with a patch over one eye. These guys stood out and looked kind of menacing. The kind of folks decent people keep their distance from. After we all boarded, this odd group were seated just a couple rows from me. They were loud and course and scary but I relied on “be and let be” as my rule of the day. If ignored, maybe they’d just not be encouraged to do anything scary folks might do. With only an occasional outburst of loud guffaws, from this entourage, we made our way to Anchorage.
Now these guys looked like they might be from some desolate far region of our largest state and I figured we’d be parting company here in Anchorage. They would go back to what ever far in the woods place they were from. Well guess again. The last leg to Homer from Anchorage was via Twin Otter. This is an airplane I have flown often, but have never landed in because until this trip, I tended to leave Twin Otters in flight usually at about 13-thousand five hundred feet.
This was way different than flying in a skydiving Twin Otter. This one had seats and didn’t fly much higher than three thousand feet and guess who was in the seat right next to mine? Yup, Mister frizzy hair eye patch. The seating on a commercial Twin Otter is very cozy so to maintain some imaginary distance, just after take off I took out my issue of Rolling Stone, the one with Lisa Bonet on the cover. “Harrumph… Rolling Stone Huh?” Mister Eye Patch blurted “…ah, yeah,” I casually attempted to reply to what I thought was his unfavorable assessment of my reading material. Maybe he was some kind of righteous fundamentalist kind of guy who didn’t take kindly to the sexy cover of Ms. Bonet. Returning to my magazine, I desperately hoped he felt the chill of my vibe and would ignore me long enough for landing at the south end of the Kenai Peninsula, Homer Alaska.
Without incident or other distraction from my magazine reading, the rest of the hundred twenty five mile flight, we arrived in Homer. You never know when something news worthy is going to happen so we news crews always keep our primary gear, camera, recorder and microphones with us often purchasing a seat just for the camera if need be. This is standard operating procedure for television news crews and on this trip it would be a good thing. Because our plane dropped us then headed for Fairbanks with several cases of our gear still on board. It’s a good thing the days are long this time of year this far north ‘cause lighting is mostly what went to Fairbanks and with luck the plane would return as scheduled in Homer before we ran out of daylight so we could finish the shoot. Unruffled, we headed for the parking lot just a step from the tiny terminal where we had agreed to meet up with Tom and Johnny B.
Now think about this, Tom Bodett a very wealthy man would likely arrive for our meeting in the celebrity style he is accustomed to, right? What I saw next confirmed that the voice on the radio, the guy who would leave the light on just for me, was all his audience would expect him to be. With our camera gear, we stood out and so were recognizable to an oncoming yellow 1964 Ford Galaxy station wagon with a duck decoy hood ornament, horn honking, and lights flashing. Tom stepped out and with a warm greeting, I was put at ease.
After nearly twenty two years as of this writing, the exact sequence of events evades me but I remember we went to Tom’s house, a beautiful glass front two story he built himself. Home construction and I guess swinging a hammer is what Tom did before fame and fortune found him. After we parked, I helped Tom chase a moose from his yard…well, this is Alaska what else ya going to chase out of your yard, Sarra Palin going all mavericky?
Tom helped us get to a shoot location somewhere remote and suitable. We shot the interview and when that was done, Tom noticed he had left his ear stud in. He fretted that it might be noticed on camera. Today Tom passes for the “light on” guy much easier than he did then. Part of the Motel 6 strategy then was to keep hidden from public view as much as possible, their spokesman because a young looking 33 year old with shoulder length brown hair and an ear stud might clash with his carefully crafted folksy radio persona.
From there, I think we went back to the airport to pick up our wayward gear cases then we stopped for lunch at Alice’s. This wasn’t Arlo Guthrie’s Alice’s but it is Alice's Champagne Palace in Homer Alaska. It is a venue known for the famous acts that perform there, a location very suitable to try out new material prior to touring. As we were getting seated, a band was setting up for their performance that evening and guess who I saw? It was our rowdy, Hippie, Wild West, and Pirate kind of frumpy looking cowboy hated, ear ringed, leather vested travel companions and Mister long ratty hair eye patch guy was there too. A big banner was strung out above the stage.
Suddenly it clicked, it made sense, I felt bad for my pre-judgments. This was Ray Sawyer and his band. The eyepatch he wears was the result of a near-fatal 1967 car accident in Oregon. They are better known as;
Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show
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| On The Cover of the Rolling Stone |
Well we are big rock singers, we've got golden fingers
And we're loved everywhere we go
We sing about beauty and we sing about truth
At ten thousand dollars a show
We take all kind of pills to give us all kind of thrills
But the thrill we've never known
Is the thrill that'll get you when you get your picture
On the cover of the Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Wanna see my picture on the cover
Rolling Stone
Wanna buy five copies for my mother
Rolling Stone
Wanna see my smilin' face
On the cover of the Rolling Stone
I've got a freaky old lady name o' Cocaine Katy
Who embroiders on my jeans
I've got my poor old gray-haired Daddy
Drivin' my limousine
Now it's all designed to blow our minds
But our minds won't really be blown
Like the blow that'll get you when you get your picture
On the cover of the Rolling Stone
{Refrain}
We got a lot of little teenage blue-eyed groupies
Who do anything we say
We got a genuine Indian guru
He's teachin' us a better way
We got all the friends that money can buy
So we never have to be alone
And we keep gettin' richer but we can't get our picture
On the cover of the Rolling Stone
We finished the shoot at some point, I don’t remember how or when but after it was all done, we ended up back at Alice’s where Tom joined us for some refreshment. Don’t remember much after that aside from too much celebration. I think it was a long day for all of us but we helped close Alice that night. I eventually crawled back to my room and next thing I remember is waking with a pounding headache, to the tune of Tom pounding on my door telling me I was about to miss my return flight back home.
In the course of my time in the biz, I have met a lot of celebrity types and while most were fun and interesting, in hindsight this assignment with the legend of the tag line, the great Bodett, was the single most pleasurable and memorable.
Thanks Tom... Wow I had a great time! Thanks for leav'n the light on... We can talk about energy conservation on another blog.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Tom resides today in Dummerston, Vermont where he is involved in local politics. He is still the voice of Motel 6 and is a frequent panelist on NPR's "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" Which can be heard Saturdays and is on itunes. Animaniac fans will remember Tom for his voiceover for "Mime Time" and the "Good Idea/Bad Idea" segments featuring Mr. Skullhead on Animaniacs
TOM BODETT'S REVIEW
Re: For your approval
From: Tom Bodett (-------@gmail.com)
Sent: Fri 4/02/10 4:22 AM
To: Carl Gallagher (orangesky10@hotmail.com)
Cc: Tom Bodett (
------@gmail.com)
Carl,
Thanks for the nice tribute, as I can think of no other word for it. It all rings fairly true, as far as my memory goes and I don't have any corrections to offer except one -- The Motel 6 producer who heard me was named David Fowler, who is now the world wide director of creative for Ogilvy Mather, and he did not hear me on the radio show with Johnny B (which was a commercially syndicated program that didn't go on the air until August of 1988) He heard me on NPR's evening news program 'All Things Considered" where I had been doing weekly commentary since 1984. Other than that, like I said, fine...and probably overly flattering.
Oh. one more thing -- I wasn't particularly wealthy either. Comfortable, yes. Lucky son of a bitch, certainly. Wealthy, not so much.
Keep on writing. You've got a knack for it.
My best,
Tom
