Here's some juicy stuff:
The low ebb came in 1957, when an L.A. County grand jury heard testimony about fudged contracts and trade-in scams, and indicted a dealer and more than a dozen of his associates. The dealer was H.J. Caruso, the father of future L.A. businessman, philanthropist and former mayoral candidate Rick Caruso. The elder Caruso pleaded guilty to what he thought was a deal for a misdemeanor, but there was no such deal, and Caruso and his lawyer couldn’t get the plea changed. Caruso went to jail for a year and was on probation until 1970, when his plea was changed to not guilty and the case was dismissed.
Eat poop Caruso. Like Giuliani, the spawn of criminal scum. At least America's Mayor's father was an honest stick-up man, not a lying, cheating used-car salesman. We dodged a bullet when Mayor Bass beat Rick's ass.
But enough hate-mongering. Found the above passage in
this L.A. Times story.
Will L.A. ever produce more gimmicky, lovable pitchmen like Cal Worthington?
A walk down nostalgia lane (& up your ...) but a bit remiss in appreciation of Ralph Williams, esp. as it admits Cal was mocking Ralph to begin w/. Not much about Williams in our usual cursory search of the iNternet, but
this about Williams has more.
Bonus from searching: All eight of the Firesign Theatre's Jack Poet VW TV adverts, &
the rest of the story.
