“Bald guys like me don’t get famous, we’re just happy to get work.”

Fresh from the road playing the role of Elwood P. Dowd as part of the touring company for Mary Chase’s Harvey, Jon Menick’s agent arranged an audition for “something.”  The intentional ambiguity of the agent’s statement would portend a lot of the secrecy which surrounded this second part of the campaign.  With so much on the line (money-wise), finding an unknown actor and then keeping his identity a secret until the right time was critical.  Menick’s acting ability and lack of national presence helped him secure the role of Herb, and Menick shared with me some of the planning that went into fleshing out his character.

The venerable Vangie Hayes from J Walter Thompson financed a trip for Menick to research the details of his character’s life, and with $3k in hand he ventured to his home state of Wisconsin to “find Herb.”  And if you were looking for a character like Herb in America’s Dairyland, you’d probably find him exactly where Menick did…

“I went to Wisconsin and lived in a cheese factory for 3 days while I developed the Herb character.  I came back with a photo album detailing the life of Herb.”

Who he was, where he worked, even his girlfriend’s name (Bonnie if you must know) were all details Menick brought to life during his trip to Wisconsin and he packed these particulars along with 2 sets of “Herb clothes” on his journey across North America.

Herb’s first stop?  NBC’s Today Show for a coming out party and his “first taste” of a Burger King Whopper.  Of course, this wasn’t Menick’s first Whopper…

“I was eating at Burger King before the campaign and I continue to eat there to this day.”

In fact, burger infatuation started early for Menick.

“When I was a kid we had a grille (burger joint) in our town that made hamburgers to die for.  It makes my mouth water just thinking about them.”

“In high school they served burgers at lunch…I think I had burgers there 180 days a year.”

“To this day I eat hamburgers at least twice a week.”

Eating burgers was the last thing Menick could do as he was whisked across the continent, hitting 60 restaurants in 25 days as part of the contest portion of the campaign.  The premise was this – Herb would go into a Burger King restaurant and the first person to recognize him would win $5k (the local franchise operator had the option to kick in more money if they wished and some folks won $10k for identifying Herb).

“I had a contest official on my arm and he would determine who the first person was.”

This of course wasn’t without some bit of controversy as a 1986 lawsuit filed in Alabama would prove.  State lawmakers angered by the company’s decision to disqualify a 15 year old from winning a $5k prize (and instead offering it to his 16 year old friend) because he was didn’t meet the age requirements listed in the company’s contest rules threatened to invoke remedial legislation.  Time magazine’s story of these events features one of the greatest political quotes of all-time from then State Senator Mac Parsons, who in describing Burger King’s actions noted:

“I feel what Burger King did was as bad as what the Grinch did when he stole Christmas.”

thereby invoking the actions of one fictional character to describe the actions of another fictional character.  Mac Parson’s still serves the residents of Alabama as a Circuit Court Judge.

Part 3 of the interview will be posted shortly.  I will announce the post via twitter @burgatory or if you’d like me to email you when it is posted, send me an email with the subject “I gotta have more Herb!” to burgatory@gmail.com.  You’ll get a one-time email from me – that’s it!  No spam, just a heads up when the next part of the story is posted

Every so often the Internet kicks out something that triggers a tidal wave of memories and sets you off on a silly (and probably completely useless) quest to find a nugget of info or the answer to that long ago forgotten question.  A few weeks back I saw an “I’m Not Herb” shirt listed on eBay and off I went…to YouTube to watch the commercials, to Wikipedia to read about the campaign, to Google to read critics panning the campaign and ultimately imdb to learn about the career of the actor who played Herb in the iconic Burger King campaign of the mid-1980s.

If I told you that today, Jon Menick, the actor who portrayed the hapless Herb was out of show business you might not be surprised.  If I told you he is out of show business after a long, fruitful career which included feature films, network TV and a slew of national commercials you might not believe me, but thanks to the kickstart offered by this campaign, Jon Menick carved a nice career for himself out in Hollywood (eschewing the seemingly certain perils of typecasting) and has recently ditched the rat race for a more peaceful life working in the Valhalla of the Americas – Asheville, North Carolina.

I had the chance to speak with Jon about life pre- and post-Herb, but for those who may not be 100% familiar with the campaign, perhaps a bit of a refresher is in order (I keep having to remind myself that not everyone who reads this blog is a mid-30’s male weaned on TV and fast food – although I am sure there is some Google Analytics tool that would tell me I have the demo pretty well pegged…thanks for visiting!)

Homogeny From Sea To Shining Sea

In the early 1980’s a war raged across our country, one that would change the landscape (and shape of humans) like no war had before or since.  Fast food, which until then had been a regional affair, was in the throes of the last great land grab.  Regions of the country that had subsisted on burgers and fries prepared with local flair at hamburger stands and greasy spoons were facing an invasion of golden arches, burger royalty and a freckle faced girl in pigtails.  It is hard to even imagine now areas of the country that didn’t have access to these homogeneous fast food empires, but it is true (and it occurred in my lifetime).  I can (and I am sure many readers can, too) remember dominant local chains which existed and thrived across the country delivering what may realistically have been just complete knock-offs of McDonald’s, Burger King and to a lesser extent Wendy’s…but many of us did not know better (and/or may have been better off for it).  So, back to the war…

By the 1980’s most every part of the country was infiltrated and in order to gain market share, the big chains spent millions battling for mindshare and walletshare by launching some of the most memorable and expensive TV ad campaigns ever seen.  Perhaps we’ll explore this a bit further in future posts, but the first major shot fired was by Wendy’s with their famous “Where’s The Beef” campaign featuring the lovable octagenerian Clara Peller.  Wendy’s had placed McDonald’s and Burger King on the defensive and each answered in a completely different way.  McDonald’s introduced the McDLT, with its unique packaging and value statement (wasn’t it “Keep the hot side hot and the cold side cold?”).  Burger King answered with a character of their own to match up against Peller…Herb.

The Original Whopper Virgin

Herb was born in the fertile minds of the creative folks at J Walter Thompson, who at the time were helmed by James Patterson who now enjoys life as basically the most successful fiction writer alive.  Though his direct ties to the Herb campaign are tough to confirm, what is known is that Herb almost never happened.  In fact, the first time the character-driven concept was presented to their client (Burger King) the idea was shot down.  Pitched again months later as the Burger Wars continued to heat up, the idea grew legs and a two-part campaign was crafted.

The first part was “Who’s Herb?” in which the world was asked to ponder what would a guy who has never tasted a Burger King Whopper look like?  Concerned friends and relatives appeared in commercials questioning just what type of person could go through life without tasting a Whopper. The implication was that only “Herbs” (a nickname for geeks/nerds/other undesirables) don’t eat at Burger King and if you wanted to avoid the stigma of being a nerd yourself you’d better get one right now.  (It is at this point that I must tell any millennials/Gen Yers reading this that there was a time in our humble country when using a computer and showing a modicum of interest in technology was not cool…if you need more information on this wild and backwards-seeming time I encourage you to add the following to your Netflix queue Revenge Of The Nerds, Revenge Of The Nerds II: Nerds In Paradise, Revenge Of The Nerds III: The Next Generation and of course Revenge Of The Nerds IV: Nerds In Love).

Photographic Evidence Of The Existence Of Nerds

The second part of the campaign was “Where’s Herb?” and in what may have been the first example of a character jumping off the TV screen into real life, North Americans were challenged to be on the lookout for Herb at their local Burger King and if they were the first to spot him they would win $5,000.  Enter into the story, Jon Menick, who at the time was a stage actor living in New York City.

(Wow!  You just read almost 1000 words about Herb…want to hear more?  Part II will be posted later this week.  I will announce the post via twitter @burgatory or if you’d like me to email you when it is posted, send me an email with the subject “I gotta have more Herb!” to burgatory@gmail.com.  You’ll get a one-time email from me – that’s it!  No spam, just a heads up when the next part of the story is posted)