Celebrating National Radio Commercial Day

These days, there's a dumb holiday for just about everything under the sun.  And they don't get any more ridiculous than this.  Yesterday was National Radio Commercial Day.  Say what you will, but thanks to radio advertising, I don't have to get a real job.

Over the years, I've produced and voiced thousands of commercials.  Today I was reminded of a spot I cut back in the late 90's.  I was working in Colorado Springs at the time and Motorhead was coming to town for a concert with the band Nashville Pussy.  I was my job to produce the radio commercial.

I was pretty sure that we weren't allowed to say the words "Nashville Pussy" in an ad, so I bleeped out one of the words.  The concert promoter wasn't happy.  He called the station and demanded that the band's name be uncensored.  Fine by me, I just took out the bleep.

Two days later, I was called into the General Manager's office and reprimanded for running the commercial uncensored.  I explained to him that two days earlier, he had reprimanded me for censoring the same commercial.  Turns out, several other advertisers complained about the spot.  Like the lying weasel he was, the GM claimed that he never ordered me to unbleep the words Nashville Pussy.  I called him a liar and then he reminded me that he was kind of a big deal.

Needless to say I changed the commercial.  But this time I made an addition to the line,  "Don't miss Motorhead, with special guests Nashville (bleep)".  The revised copy read "Don't miss Motorhead with special guests Nashville (bleep), because my (bleep) boss won't let us say (bleep) in a spot".  The revised version was way better.