Word: pitchman
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...unaccountably more pleasant; the reason may be that political advertising has abruptly vanished from television-a sweet, almost subliminal improvement in the moral atmosphere. No more candidates hagiographically displayed, saints mixing radiantly with the adoring throng; no more of those sarcastic prosecutorial voice-overs about the other guy, the pitchman's tone as low and urgent and insinuating as a whisper of Cassius in the ear. No more that tussling, scuffling sound of the reluctant national psyche being dragged on a leash toward a booth with curtains and a lever...
...offensive is both tiring and obscurely humiliating. It is impossible to watch the nightly news on network television without being treated to a stream of 30-second treatises on hemorrhoids, tampons, feminine deodorant sprays and constipation. "I want to talk to you about diarrhea," says the earnest pitchman. T shirts, sweatshirts and bumper stickers proclaim their aggressive little editorials. Some are mildly funny (a woman's T shirt, for example, that says so MANY MEN, so LITTLE TIME). But often they are crude with a faintly alarming determination to affront, even sometimes to menace. They are filled with belligerent...
...evils therein. Redford plays an ex-rodeo champ who's been roped into selling breakfast cereal as the advertising symbol of a huge conglomerate. The corporation's other symbol is Rising Star, a champion race-horse worth $12 million. When Redford, already unhappy with the life of a travelling pitchman, discovers that his employers have drugged Rising Star with steroids that not only slow him down but make him sterile as well, he takes the reins into his own hands and gallops into the desert intent on setting the horse free...
...hard to turn on a television set or radio without hearing Joe Garagiola, the baseball catcher turned pitchman, importuning customers to come in and collect $400 price rebates on all Chrysler models except for the most popular small cars like the Omni and Horizon. The company's advertising agency, Kenyon & Eckhardt, and some 25 other suppliers and service agents are giving additional rebates of $100 to $500 to any of their employees who buy Chryslers. In addition, Chrysler since May has been granting its dealers special discounts that now range from $325 to $1,500 per auto. These cuts...
...result is that these traditional homes of the small saver are fairly scrambling for deposits. New customers are being lured by both familiar freebies (toasters, tickets to shows) and new appeals. For example, New York's big Bowery Savings Bank (assets: $5 billion) now has its longtime pitchman, Yankee Slugger Joe DiMaggio, asking folks to take money out of stocks and put it into thrift accounts because it is "a calmer investment." And at some banks, depositors wanting to make sizable withdrawals have found themselves practically grilled by officials about their reasons for doing...