Buzz

How do you spell m-a-y-o-r?
Thanks to former vice president Dan Quayle, we know spelling isn't a prerequisite for elected office. But shouldn't a candidate at least know how to spell his own name? Dallas mayoral candidate Domingo Garcia found himself in an embarrassing situation last week when his television ads broadcast on Channel 8 left out the 'n' in his first name. Domingo became Domigo.

Garcia says his ad agency, Campaign Mandate, had gotten it right initially, but then Channel 8 sent the video back for a revision concerning the sponsor statement. In the process, the agency somehow also revised the spelling of Garcia's name.

Sour Grapes
Advertising and ethics are, of course, often mutually exclusive. But a recent item in the trade publication ADWEEK was low, even by the ad industry's standards.

Guest writer Rita Winters played Siskel & Ebert in the April 24 issue by reviewing the latest television ad campaigns for several restaurants. Winters took a nasty swipe at the new ads for TGIFriday's, produced by the Dallas-based Publicis/Bloom Agency, which features "The Little Guy," a miniaturized man who runs around a tabletop heaped with Friday's foodstuffs.

While the ad's technical innovations won high marks from the New York Times and Dallas Morning News, Winters oh-so-charitably hypothesizes that the spot--created by renowned creative director Seth ("California Dancing Raisins") Werner--"could be one of those so-bad-it's-good campaigns." Winters goes on to pepper her prose with bad puns to make her point: "But for now he falls a little short."

Winters, too, falls a little short, failing to mention that her employer--J. Walter Thompson--happens to be one of the agencies that Publicis/Bloom bested to land the multi-million-dollar Friday's account.

Other than that, Mrs. Oswald, how did you like our city?
The long-awaited Norman Mailer treatise on alleged JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald is due out any day now, and if an excerpt in a recent issue of the The New Yorker is representative, the book is filled with compelling stuff. It includes the insight that Marina Oswald did not find Dallas fetching. She told Mailer the only thing she liked about our city was the smell of mimosa trees.

Book 'em, Dano
Robert McNamara's too-little, too-late mea culpa in his new Vietnam memoir, "In Retrospect," has prompted angry responses from lots of different quarters. A Dallas-based Lone Star group called the Associated Conservatives of Texas (ACT) has just weighed in with a modest proposal to McNamara.

"[ACT] strongly urges multi-zillionaire Robert McNamara to turn over every penny in proceeds from the sale of his new book...to a fund helping those whose loved ones were killed or maimed during his bloodthirsty reign as Secretary of Defense," reads the statement from ACT, which has a mailing list of 30,000 statewide.

Adds ACT spokesman David Rucker, who owns a local photography lab: "It would be a cruel, cruel twist of the knife if he continues to profit from the Vietnam War.