Mornings With Barney (13 page)

During my almost thirty years on TV, people frequently requested a copy of their interviews on VHS or DVD, often an indication that even in this high-tech age, people were still clueless when it came to recording segments off the air. Nothing has changed.

“I tried to TiVo the show, Dick, but I got
Jerry Springer
instead.”

One thing was certain during the nineties: If guests had any interaction at all with Barney during the morning program, the chances they would want a copy of the show increased dramatically. Barney changed the experience from an interview into an event.

I felt early on as I watched
people's reactions to Barney that his true mission was to touch lives, just as he had touched Sally's from WIBC. When people saw Barney in person their moods visibly altered. Barney didn't care if you had just come from the symphony or the silo. Whether you smelled of money or manure, he was your buddy. Sure, all dogs are like that, but not all dogs were Barney. He was on TV. You had met a celebrity.

Barney was all heart and howl but not much of a businessman. He needed me to look out for the best opportunities to maximize his potential. I saw every would-be guest for the show through a kind of beagle lens. How could I work Barney into the segment? That was not the only criterion, but when things were in the balance, that could tip the scale. Like the time a local sign-maker wanted to publicize a new apparatus he had purchased that could inexpensively produce refrigerator magnets with a photo of your choice embossed on it.

Making a magnet with Barney's face on it would be good TV. Everybody would want one.
So
, I thought,
let's offer a free magnet to anybody who simply sent a self-addressed stamped envelope to his shop
. I told the owner my idea.

“Say what, now?” he said. Yes, I got that response a lot.

But wait, I had an even a better idea. How about two magnets: one with Barney's mug on it and one with Dave Barras's, our morning anchor. You could have only one. So which one would you request in the mail? How diabolical!

I didn't tell Dave I was going to do this, which you can look at as a testimony to what a good-natured, unaffected, self-assured guy he was to work with. You could also just say I was a big jerk because it was clear that in this man-to-mongrel contest, Dave was going to get hammered.

The morning of the show, we displayed the two magnets on the air, both having been previously designed from a photo of Barney I had given the sign shop and an eight-by-ten glossy of Dave I had stolen from the cache of PR material in his desk. Dave had always boasted that his photos were in such great demand that there was a six-month wait before his staff could fill a request. Not true, but a funny refrain he used on the air for many years.

Remember in the movie
Miracle on 34th Street,
when bags of letters addressed to Santa Claus are delivered to the courthouse? The next two days at the ‘ol sign shop looked much the same as that scene in the Christmas classic. Requests for the magnet kept pouring in. How many self-addressed stamped envelopes were delivered? About three thousand in two days.

I thought I would have a happy magnet maker, but he and I were poles apart in terms of what success meant. For three weeks the guy complained to me about the extra help he had to hire to stuff envelopes. Then he discovered that the postage we requested was not enough to mail the magnet. Then angry people who got Dave's magnet by mistake started to call. It was getting ugly out there.

What were the final numbers? I will not give you the exact stats out of respect for my buddy Dave. Despite his claim on the air that day, he apparently did not have a magnetic personality. But in one way, Dave has saved face after all these years, even though so few wanted his face. His magnets are probably worth much more today than Barney's. But that's because they were so rare.

Not a week goes by that people don't boast that they still have a Barney magnet on their fridge. What a testimony. There's Barney next to kids, grandkids, and family recipes on the appliance door. People see Barney every day, just before they indulge in a forbidden snack. Barney would have appreciated the appropriate use of his image. Can you think of a better example of product placement?

I did come up with one. It began with a phone call from a local clothing manufacturer. He was looking for some promotion for his sports apparel business that produced a line of madeto-order clothing featuring team logos and school names.

The guy was asking me for some free publicity, which was not an uncommon request. The sales department adored Barney. They also enjoyed being in the black financially and were seldom happy when a TV segment could potentially have been a paid ad. I always felt that in some way everybody was “selling” something. So it was hard to distinguish between hawking a product and those just spreading a point of view.

If the sales manager questioned why I had booked a certain segment, I often made the case that being on
Daybreak
might convince a potential advertiser of the power of television because inevitably those few minutes on the air with me and Barney led to company recognition and business. That would result in a greater chance the guy would become a client and cough up a few bucks. That was the tune I sang my entire career. This particular request, however, did seem to cross the line. A visit to a facility where people manufactured shorts and T-shirts just wasn't good TV.

With this in mind, I politely explained the problem with doing the segment. Just as I was about to hang up, the proverbial lightbulb went on. There was a way to make it good TV.

“Tell you what,” I said to the owner. “I'll do a show about your company if you'll agree to make a line of underwear with Barney's picture plastered all over each pair.”

“Are you serious?”

With that ringing endorsement, I convinced him this would be a great promotion. The shorts would be priced inexpensively so our viewers would order on impulse. We'd call them Beagle Boxers. (Boxers! Get it? Like the breed of dog.) And we'd take phone orders during the show.

He was hesitant, concerned that too many sales at the price we agreed on (ten bucks) would mess up waiting orders for other clients, especially because the boxers required labor-intensive stitching. I comforted him. “Don't worry. We couldn't possibly sell that many. I mean, what man would want a beagle on his underwear?” Somehow, I never felt guilty when I shaded the truth. My gut told me this was a great idea.

Three weeks later, we did a show from his plant, explaining how the Barney boxers had gone from design to production. We displayed the original concept on the computer, then showed his seamstresses and tailors in action completing each pair at their sewing machines. The whole setting had a kind of sweatshop look to it, which concerned me, but as was often the case with live TV, once you're there you have to make the best of it.

The shorts completed, we wrestled a pair on Barney. This had to be the most humiliated he had ever been. He didn't howl at me for a week. But Barney was always a good sport about wearing stuff: hats, shoes, scarves, earmuffs. Over the years he had a Santa suit and even a Harley biker outfit, both made just for dogs. The only thing he resisted wearing were those silly reindeer antlers. He did have some sense of style.

As soon as we mentioned on camera that the shorts were for sale, the switchboard was slammed. Even with the extra personnel the owner had hired, his staff couldn't keep up. To his credit, he knew he could not cut off the calls at the agreed time, so we extended the hours viewers could order. “I'll take calls until noon,” he relented. I have never seen a man so unhappy selling underwear.

By noon, over 1,000 pairs of shorts had been sold. His employees, who assembled the boxers by hand, worked overtime the next two weeks filling the orders for Father's Day, an upcoming date I had conveniently forgotten to remind the owner of. As it turned out, I was correct when I said that most men would not want beagle underwear. However, a lot of women did want to buy their husbands beagle underwear, whether they wanted a pair or not. Let that be a lesson to all of you going into sales and marketing.

Rumor has it that there was a minor baby boom nine months after the shorts were delivered. Not true, but it's the only reference to sex in this entire book. To this day, at fairs and book signings, men tell me that they still have their pair of Barney Boxers. Once a guy said he was wearing them. I took his word for it.

There is no real magic bullet
when it comes to advertising. Even Super Bowl ads, despite the huge investment, have come up short. The research is clear: Just because you remember an ad doesn't mean you will buy the product. Or even remember what product the ad was touting. Being from Indianapolis, I love that ad with Peyton Manning for ... for . . . not a clue. See what I mean?

Up until Barney arrived on the scene, I had never done a TV commercial. Not one. First, I was technically a newsperson both at the NBC and CBS affiliate. As a rule, reporters don't have the luxury of extra income in this area. It poses a conflict of interest. Suppose Katie Couric did a spot for Carnival Cruise Lines and a bad batch of calamari wiped out the entire early seating. That puts Katie in a very awkward spot that evening reporting the news.

Barney changed the rules. We were both for sale.

The first gig came out of my middle-age crisis. I had wanted a motorcycle, but my wife said I could take piano lessons instead.

We compromised and I took the piano lessons. I signed up with a well-known instructor at a music showroom up the street from the station. It was always mortifying to sit outside the teacher's studio waiting my turn only to hear a well-rehearsed seven-year-old playing a Mozart concerto. I also knew full well that the seven-year-old who followed me would have to listen to my rendition of “Born Free” for a fifth consecutive week.

Barney accompanied me on every lesson, trying to snooze in the corner of the room. Whenever I played, I imagined the scene from
Our Gang
comedies when Butch, the black-eyed mongrel, would cover his ears and eyes with his paws when there was an unpleasant stimulus.

After several months, I could play “Born Free” and maybe two other songs, but the owner of the store thought it was cool that Dick and Barney were at his studio taking lessons. And so, the first print ad was born, a photo of Barney and me on the piano stool with the tag: “If Barney and Dick can learn to play the Clavinova, anyone can.” The ad was a hit.

Requests for Barney (and me) to do personal appearances started to climb—even from corporations that had local ties to Indy but were headquartered elsewhere. This often led to some confusion....

“Hello, may I speak to Barney Wolfsie?”

“Excuse me?”

“This is Cal Larson from CVS Pharmacy in Minneapolis. I'd like to talk with Barney Wolfsie, please.”

“Yes, he's here, but look, he's a dog. Do you still want to talk to him?”

(Long,
long
pause.) “You say he's a dog? There must be some mistake.”

“Well, I don't know whose mistake it would be. We both feel pretty good about the whole arrangement,” I'd reply.

(Another long pause.) “This is CVS Corporate and we're opening a new store in Indy. The store manager has a budget for a local celebrity to appear and he gave us Barney Wolfsie's name.”

“Well, this is Dick Wolfsie.”

“Do you work for your brother?”

No matter what I said, it didn't seem to sink in, like I was talking to an Irish setter. He wouldn't let go. “Hmmm. Does Barney make personal appearances?”

“That's the only kind he makes!” I said.

“I see. Would he be available on August 18 at around 2 PM?” CVS Corporate was not taking “no” for an answer.

“Let me check my calendar. Yes, we're available.”

(Another pause.) “Oh, do you go with him?”

I explained the situation again, and again, and again. I thought I had finally made it clear. Barney and I made our appearance that summer. We stood in the doorway and greeted customers. Many had indeed come by to meet us in person. Although, based on the age of the turnout, the sale on Depends might have been the bigger draw.

When I received the check from CVS Corporate, you guessed it: it was made out to Barney Wolfsie. The next day at the bank, I anticipated trouble. Barney still had a hell of a time using a ballpoint pen and we had never opened an account for him, despite his ample income. I put Barney's paw print on the back and countersigned it, and the nice people at Bank One cashed it for us.