7-Up Commercial

The 7-Up Commercial

In the fall of 1975 I published an article in Lookout, the Costa del Sol’s English language magazine. I discussed how to speak Spanish without knowing any words and to illustrate the article Joanne took pictures of me making faces and hand gestures. Thumb and little finger of right hand raised up, rest of fingers clenched, tilt hand towards mouth. “Let’s have a drink.” Hand held in front of you, fingers together and extended, wobble hand back and forth. “Maybe, maybe not.” Upraised -- well, never mind. They were universal gestures you could use anywhere in Europe.

At about that time a Chicago advertising agency showed up on the Costa del Sol with a contract to film some 7-Up commercials for use in theaters around the world. They hired a film production company owned by Eddy Vorkapich. Eddy had worked as an art director and cameraman in Hollywood but had moved to the Costa del Sol where he had a really cool villa complete with movie theater and a studio with wonderful northern light.

Eddy filmed during the day and the film was flown overnight to London to be developed. Later it was sent to New York for editing and music. After that, the commercials were sent to the intended country of use for voice-over. Spanish is different from country to country. Costa Rican “ticos” would not enjoy listening to a 7-Up commercial in Castilian Spanish. They would much prefer Tico Talk. A few years later I met people in California who had seen the commercials in Singapore. Spanish of any sort would have been ineffective for that audience.

The plots of the commerecials involved the 7-Up hero, a pair of hands dressed formally in white gloves who lived in a green box. On the basis of the published article, I got the job as a pair of hands. The hands would execute whatever deed of derring do was required, and then pour everyone a nice drink of 7-Up.

One of the scenarios involved outlaws in the Old West who tried a hold up but were handcuffed by the hands emerging from the green box. First, there was the matter of getting guns in for the outlaws. You can’t have them using wooden guns or pointing their fingers. However, even though the Spanish Civil War had been over for 36 years by the time we were actively promoting 7-Up, the authorities were still reluctant to allow handguns into the country. Spanish citizens were permitted to own small gauge rifles or shotguns if they had a clear police record, but no handguns. No no no no no. That was strictly a prerogative of the police. So when our earnest young production assistant picked up a load of six guns at the airport, she had some heavy explaining to do.

One of the outlaws, a Spaniard, wore a Mexican suit, complete with big sombrero, fancy jacket and conchos down the pants legs. He had a Kodak Instamatic® hung over the revolver in his holster and whenever there was a break in the shooting snapped pictures right and left. The bandido spoke no English and the other two outlaws, a Brit and a Belgian, translated for the director when Eddy’s desires exceeded his Spanish.

The other “plot” involved a beautiful girl and a beautiful boy running along the beach in beautiful bikinis, wanting a cool, refreshing drink. Green box to the rescue. He parachutes to the beach. The top of the box opens, the hands come out, drinks are poured, the day is saved. For the parachute drop the company hauled a tall crane to an inlet so they could film on a sandy beach with the Med and blue sky behind and not attract hundreds of tourists. They had just hauled the chute and green box up the crane and were set to make their first drop when a small Spaniard interrupted the works, loudly. He, it seemed, was the mayor of the small town where they were working, the alcalde, and no one had cleared this chute shoot with him. He wanted things stopped right now until the matter of permisos was cleared up.

The company went ahead with their work while the production assistant, a South African lady fluent in English, Spanish, Afrikaans and Swahili, the same one who picked up the guns at the airport, attempted to pacify the mayor. She succeeded in doing so and as the mayor was leaving the two shook hands. Unfortunately, she had been painting the green box in case there was a need for a second drop. She had green paint on her hand and, by the time she and the alcalde finished their demonstration of undying affection, so did he. He expected his palm to be crossed with something green, but I don’t think it was paint.

The first day of the actual beach shoot dawned. The beautiful Canadian girl model and the beautiful Belgian boy model showed up in their beautiful bikinis and looked at the cloudy, rain drenched beach. Did I mention that we were shooting in January? Couldn’t work that day. The company was dismissed with an early call for the next morning and the senior advertising rep from Chicago went to work on a bottle of vodka.

The next day was beautiful and sunny. People talk about Sunny Spain but not necessarily about Warm Spain. In January it’s cold. The poor bikini clad models had to run up and down the beach pretending they were having fun. I was tucked inside of a large box buried in the beach and covered over with sand. Someone placed the green box on top of my box through which my hands could appear to work their magic. I was the only warm person on the set. And the shoot took two days.

The commercials took up four weeks of my time for which they paid me 50,000 pesetas, about $1000 US. That money kept our family of three going in relative comfort for four months. And the work was easy. I was merely the talent. All the thought, the organizing, the networking, the bribing, had been done by others.