Ding Dong, the Pitch is Dead
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To make light of death isn't considered politically correct. It's just that upon hearing of the death of Bill Mays (TV's obnoxiously loud pitchman), I couldn't help but think that this ended years of being beaten up in my living room. His presence was how I trained my index finger to find the remote's mute button without having to look.
Obviously death is saddening. It should be respected at all times. To that end, to the Mays family, Bill Mays was a successful, unique individual who earned respect.
But death, with its power to force a retrospective, also results in a time of consideration. The living get a chance to adjust, and then move on.
Another death has given the world a chance to understand we are all in this together. Michael Jackson, love him or hate him, has unified everyone in remorse.
On a smaller scale of global impact, yet equally devastating for those who knew him, was the loss of Brian Chalmers, laid to rest on Saturday afternoon.
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Brian was a graphics artist who, as someone brilliantly said, "...gave a face to a radio station. Imagine that."
For nearly 20 years, WMMS represented the radio industry in Cleveland. It was Brian's creative artwork of the WMMS Buzzard that mentally marked this city's population in the station's later years of dominance. |
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So, where do we go from here?
Will our TV screens begin showing more of that other hard-sell pitchman - what's his name? (You know - the one with pseudo-chammies and a microphone hanging from his head.) Or, will Direct-Response TV executives discover you can't recreate a Mays' masterpiece? Did the day of "hard sell" die with Bill Mays?
You just don't stamp out another Michael Jackson and keep living life the same, either. In retrospect, at a time when media is so diverse, is it even possible for a global audience to find a single person to revere? Are there too many content channels to ever give one person a super-stage again?
And for the radio industry, is the passing of Brian Chalmers a chance to reflect on what's been cast aside? Will radio executives see a need to again "give a face to a radio station"?
Most everyone respects Jon Stewart's smirk on the Daily Show, as if he's saying Do they actually believe we believe this? Stewart wasn't considered politically correct a few years ago, and no person's death led to his rise. Stewart showed that we change not just through attrition, but through innovation. There's reason to applaud his courage.
The radio industry has a chance to innovate in ways never possible before. It can shed the image it has of itself and that which others have painted, and again project "a face" in various communities. While Brian Chalmers was one of a team who successfully attached WMMS to NorthEast Ohio, Brian alone continued to draw the radio station's Buzzard, an image tuned into the city.
Imagine if either the Buzzard's original artist, David Helton, or Brian had the internet as their canvas?
Television lost a popular pitchman with the passing of Bill Mays. The world lost a fabulous entertainer in Michael Jackson. Neither will be duplicated.
For the radio industry, though, Brian's desire to visually connect with the community needs to be resurrected. The internet hands radio an opportunity to show every one of its markets a new face, and each could succeed by using the aggressively creative style of Brian Chalmers.
It's time to adjust and move on. Radio is dead. Long live Radio!
WMMS Staff Artists: David Helton and Brian Chalmers
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