Feliks: So long to Cal Worthington and his dog Spot
Feb 24, 2023, 12:01 PM | Updated: 2:18 pm
A 1962 map shows the location of Bill Pierre Motors in "Little Old Lake City," which was a phrase used in their advertising for decades. (Feliks Banel)
(Feliks Banel)
The closure next week of the last Cal Worthington auto dealership is the only excuse “All Over The Map” needed to play some old radio and TV jingles from other Northwest car sellers.
Cal Worthington was a famous West Coast auto dealer with memorable TV commercials. He went into business in the 1940s and died in 2013. Now, his grandson said the final remaining Cal Worthington dealership, in Long Beach, Calif., will officially change hands and be re-named “BP Ford” at the end of February.
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Worthington is definitely most associated with California, but he operated auto dealerships in several states, including even little old Washington. At the end of 1983, he took over the former Jim Houston Ford in Federal Way. When Worthington arrived, it was a big deal for local television viewers because Cal – “and his dog Spot” – already had a very famous jingle.
Local ads were created using the old jingle (and old footage of Cal with various non-dogs named Spot), but Worthington also visited his Federal Way location occasionally and filmed new segments there. Listen carefully to the end of this ad from 1984 for a special Federal Way slogan.
In the earliest commercials for the Federal Way dealership, some remember Worthington describing the dealership’s location as along the “Pacific Coast Highway South” – which is not what that stretch of Highway 99 through Federal Way was called. Perhaps Cal was thinking of the road called that near his place in Long Beach, California. Either way, Worthington sold his Federal Way dealership in October 1990.
In the earliest commercials for the Federal Way dealership, some remember Worthington describing the dealership’s location as along the “Pacific Coast Highway South” – which is not what that stretch of Highway 99 through Federal Way was called. Perhaps Cal was thinking of the road called that near his place in Long Beach, California. Either way, Worthington sold his Federal Way dealership in October 1990.
Even with tenuous local ties, the end of the Worthington era is a great excuse to revisit some more scratchy old audio from car dealers. Such as this one from 1960 … from the heart of “Little Old Lake City.”
Bill Pierre Motors (later Bill Pierre Ford) was founded in 1947 and is still in business in, yes, Little Old Lake City.
This one from 1983 is taken from a KIRO Newsradio 71 aircheck. Listen carefully for the earworm music, and then the simple yet memorable slogan for the dealership which was founded in North Seattle in the late 1960s.
It’s not clear who the second voice is along with Chuck Olson. It sounds a teeny bit like longtime KOMO broadcaster Larry Nelson, but it’s not him. If you know who it is, please email me.
This next one comes from probably the most interesting or even most infamous of local auto dealers who was a presence, sledgehammer in hand, on local TV throughout most of the 1970s: Dick Balch of Federal Way. Balch’s maniacal laugh was the perfect accompaniment to the sight and sound of damage being inflicted on the poor defenseless vehicles.
Here’s one more really weird one for Ralph Williams’ North West Chrysler Plymouth in North Seattle. This is actually from a never-broadcast outtake or parody starring a spokesman named Chick Lambert.
Williams owned auto dealerships in California and other states in the 1960s. North West Chrysler Plymouth opened in June 1968 and then shut down in December 1970 amidst alleged shenanigans involving practices that deceived consumers. Newspaper archives from Seattle throughout the early 1970s are filled with long and short stories about Williams’ battles on multiple legal fronts.
Earlier, it was Ralph Williams’ TV ads in California – featuring his dog Storm – which inspired Cal Worthington to create his “dog Spot” running gag.
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On a final note, if you’ve reached the end of this story and are wondering what numbskull would leave out Russ Dunmire and Glen Grant from a drive down auto dealership memory lane, just click here.
You can hear Feliks every Wednesday and Friday morning on Seattle’s Morning News, read more from him here, and subscribe to The Resident Historian Podcast here. If you have a story idea or a question about Northwest history, please email Feliks here.
