Nobody, but nobody had the slam-forge ahead, non-stop drive of the bald, bullet-headed motor mouth from L.A. There’s a really good band our now called “And You Will Know Us by the Trail of the Dead.” Just change the “us” to “me” and you got his lordship.

Sometime in the middle 1960s, budding car salesman Ralph bulldozed old time movie actor Leon Ames and his barely successful Leon Ames Ford, took it over and turned it into the second or third richest dealership in Los Angeles County. By hook, but mostly crook, Williams’ full-tilt attack on the TV screen hit the potential car buyer like a wave at the Banzai Pipeline. His head filled the screen, the eyes fixed on you, the mouth moving non-stop with emotionless, profit-driven super babble.

“Hi friends Ralph Williams, Ralph Williams Ford. Well, it’s the Fourth of July and I’m patriotic like anybody else, but let’s push that aside and talk about you behind the wheel of brand new Ford Thunderbird. Let’s just take a look at one of these gorgeous automobiles. Every one of these cars have all the extras giving you more for your car purchasing dollar here at Ralph Williams Ford.  Reversible windshield wipers, two-way sneeze-through wind vents, factory air-conditioning from our air-conditioned factories, accu-jac, and a complementary case of Everclear … when you buy or lease a brand new Thunderbird …  right here at Ralph Williams Ford.”

Some sharp-eyed readers note a striking similarity between Williams and “Ralph Spoilsport,” a creation of the greatest comedy group to appear on vinyl, the Firesign Theatre.  As you might guess, Williams remains the only car salesman in the world satirized and immortalized on a commercial recording.

After the state folded Ralph’s gambit in Encino, he went on to create havoc with Wilson Ford in Orange County, a dealership he took over from old friend and employer Dick Wilson. Reportedly the Wilson Ford dealership was being driven into the ground by his spendthrift sons and Wilson begged Ralph to take it over.

“Okay Dick, I’ll do it,” Williams responded, “but under one condition … stay out of my way.” So the dealership, which sponsored the Wilson Ford Drag Club at Orange County Int’l Raceway, rose from about 20 cars to 100 in 30 days. Through the magic of television, ole Ralph turned it into a roaring success until a variety of misdemeanors and felonies, not to mention bench warrants, got shoved his way.

Williams went onto other “successes” in Dallas and Seattle before trails of motor oil, rolled back speedometers, lynch mobs at the dealerships, and prison sentences tackled him for good, preventing further entrepreneurial rmisdeeds.

Finally, to the guy I saw while I was watching on CNN – one Cal Worthington, the final Southern California TV shill, the one who finished with the most toys and a ton of stomach ulcers. If you had only his Southern twang to go by, you might think Cal was some gap-mouthed bug magnet in coveralls.

“Well howdy again friends, I’m Cal Worthington at giant Worthington Ford here in the city of Bellflower where each and every day is a sale day. And I’ll tell you what, if you see me first, I’ll give you absolutely free either this Texas Instruments T-100 pocket calculator or the swine flu … you just see me first.”

Cal wore a cowboy hat, string tie, and boots and smacked of Hooterville Junction, but he was obviously nobody’s fool. For 50-plus years, he was able to negotiate his way through this school of hammerhead sharks, leaving in his wake dozens of L.A.’s most notorious grifters and wheeler dealers. He’d do anything to get you to come onto his lot. He’d eat a bug. Swallow a golf ball. Suck down a baby bird. Not only that, but for a long period Cal did his ads while cruising his lot on animals ranging from elephants and mules to porcupines and box turtles, always waving and grinning at the TV cameras, while enumerating the qualities on advertised vehicles.

But he survived and that past evening while watching him, a person that has interrupted my shows for a half-century … well … what can I say. Projectile vomiting for 5 minutes. And then a loud laugh and raucous applause. No animals for the old timer now (I thought he’d be lassoing a peacock or something), but nonetheless a genuine memory flogger.

Well, Cal, me and all of you are in a far different world than when we grew up. Now I’m watching my favorite sport battle HIV Corporate and the auto industry catch hollow points in the head. Obviously, some of the casualties in this degeneracy are the classic sales people mentioned above.

What a crew.  I hope that when I’m in Hell, that a situation arises where I can have a marathon crap session with them, preferably in an outdoor bar, law breaker to law breaker, chugging Tequila shooters under a retiring sun, working the lady, the glass and the straw, watching the kids in the parking lot throwing a Frisbee that looks suspiciously like a pizza.