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-	Confessions of an Ad-man XII: Consumers in Search of Service
-	Confessions of an Ad-man XI: More Dueling With Mother Nature
-	Confessions of an Ad-Man X
-	Confessions of an Ad-Man IX
-	Confessions of an Ad-Man VII: Commercial ends up in the air instead of on the air

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By this time they had exceed the entire budget for the commercial by a factor of three and were happily eating into the money allotted for the media buy. They had shot sixteen feet of bumpy film of one of the Eagles and that was it. This called for desperate measures. The team flew back to Toronto to ponder its strategy. Suddenly the gaffer (a polite way of saying go-fer) had an idea.

He knew one of the animal handlers at the largest zoo in the area. He was sure he could “borrow” a condor from him. They would tell him they were going to shoot the bird in a studio with an Andean Mountain rear screen. They weren’t. they were going to take the bird up in a plane, throw it out and get “ze byoodifull shot, no?”

The plan was that the condor would accidentally fly away and they would apologize profusely to the animal guy. He would probably be fired but the commercial would meet its rapidly approaching air-date. After all, advertising is far more important than life.

On the appointed day they took off into the smoggy skies and after checking the focus, the sound and everybody’s blood-type, they tossed the bird out of the plane and rolled the cameras. The footage they got was never seen by anyone. The bird, because it was kept in a zoo, had its wings clipped. It fluttered weakly down several hundred feet and landed on the hood of a ’69 ford.

Here’s where the story gets a little cloudy. There are several endings:

The director took off with the agency promotions director and was never seen again. The car company sued the agency. The zoo sued everybody. The animal guy reported the condor stolen and got to keep his job with nothing more severe than a reprimand.

No matter what the real ending, if the story is true at all, I can’t get the image out of my head. That poor bird taking the long dive and ending up as a hood ornament is just too much. I know I’m not supposed to laugh and I know if any environmentalist finds out that I am, he or she will probably run to my house and throw blood on my coveralls when I’m taking out the garbage.

I think I heard somewhere that the commercial ended up being a head and shoulders shot of a guy in a powder blue leisure suit and sunglasses yelling, “C’mon down. We’re blowin’ these babies outta here. The boss is away and we’re selling everything in the lot at rock bottom prices. Bring the whole family."

Thanks for reading. I’m going to take my meds now.