Register

    YOUR SHOT: Sparring With The Champ

    By SHOOT StaffUpdated:No Comments1607 Views

    By Michael Patti

    --

    I GUESS WE ALL HAVE OUR favorite moment in advertising. For what its worth, this is mine.

    Parkinsons disease has been in the news lately. A lot of people are learning a lot more about it through the trials and tribulations of actor Michael J. Fox.

    Michael J. Fox is a class guy. The media coverage of his battle with Parkinsons disease has been intense, but hes handled it with humor and dignity. Ten years ago, when we were working on Pepsi together, he told me he felt like the luckiest guy on the face of the Earth. The other day, while continuing to count his blessings and downplay his prognosis, he told People magazine he still felt that way. Like I said, a class guy.

    My favorite moment in advertising also concerns a celebrity I worked with who is fighting Parkinsons, but it is not Michael J. It is Muhammad Ali.

    Now please understand, for me there are celebrities (and Ive worked with more than my fair share) and then there is Muhammad Ali. To me he is a true American hero. And there really are too few of those today.

    Hes a great fighter. He fought the best fighters in the world. He fought overwhelming criticism when he changed his religion and his name. He fought for the pride of an entire race of people. He fought the system and won. When asked why he refused the draft, he said, I aint got nothing against those Viet Cong. No antiwar protester ever put it any simpler or meant it more. For that stance alone he lost his crown and three years in the very prime of his career. And he never complained.

    Now for the past 10 or 12 years he too has been fighting Parkinsons. Anyone who watched the opening ceremonies of the 1996 Summer Olympic Games could not fail to be moved by the sight of his trembling hand as he proudly lit the flame. Heroic.

    That gives you some understanding of how overwhelmed I felt when I went to pitch him an idea for a role in a Pizza Hut International commercial.

    I was filled with excitement and more than a little trepidation. Would he be up for the role? I mean, this was a man known worldwide for his razor-sharp wit and tongue. Had the mask of Parkinsons extinguished the very trait that made him so engaging and fun to watch?

    We met. He looked impressive. He is beautiful. He walked slowlyashuffled reallyabut not the famous shuffle that dazzled so many opponents in the ring. And his voice was just barely a whisper.

    I showed the agency reel. He made a funny comment about George Foremans acting ability in an HBO spot.

    Then I went into my pitch: Muhammad, this has been a great year for you. From the Academy Award-winning When We Were Kings documentary to the lighting of the Olympic flame. You are still truly an Americana

    And two feet away from me he was snoring. His eyes were shut and he was sound asleep. My mouth dropped open in astonishment.

    His beautiful wife Lonnie came to my rescue. He can fall asleep at any time and we never know for how long, she said.

    I leaned closer, not wanting to believe I had actually sent my greatest hero into a deep slumber.

    Hes dreaming of all his old fights, Lonnie said, He relives them.

    Fascinated, I leaned even closer. Without warning, Muhammads eyes sprung open and he threw a jab that stopped a half an inch away from killing me!

    I literally fell off my chairafrom fright and from laughing so hard. He had sucker-punched me. Start boring Muhammad Ali with some ad nauseam adspeak B.S.? No way. He shut me up quick, and I knew then that with a little patience on the shoot, hed be great in the spot.

    And on the set, in the spot written by Ted Shaine and Tom Darbyshire, and directed touchingly by Peter Smillie, he was as real and hardworking as any celebrity Id ever been associated with.

    And in a final thought on Muhammad and his fight with Parkinsons, it was truly put in perspective by Angelo Dundee, his trainer and close friend for over 30 years.

    Dont waste a second feeling bad for the Champ, he told me, because the Champ has never wasted a second of his life feeling bad for himself.

    Its now obvious to me that the greatest ad campaign that Michael J. and Muhammad will ever be involved in wont sell a single soft drink, wont sell a slice of pizza, but will make the American public aware of and sympathetic to the battle to cure Parkinsons.

    Category:News



    Review: Director Tyler Spindel’s “Kinda Pregnant”

    Wednesday, February 5, 2025

    We have by now become accustomed to the lengths some movie characters will go to keep a good comedy lie going. But it's still a special kind of feat when Amy Schumer, playing a baby-mad single woman who fakes a baby bump in "Kinda Pregnant," is so desperate to maintain the fiction that she shoves a roast turkey up her dress.

    You might be thinking: This is too ridiculous. The stuffing, alone. But if we bought "Some Like it Hot" and "Mrs. Doubtfire," I see no reason to quibble with the set-up of "Kinda Pregnant," a funny and often perceptive satire on motherhood, both real and pretend.

    "Kinda Pregnant," which debuted Wednesday on Netflix, is a kinda throwback comedy. Like "40-Year-Old Virgin" and "Wedding Crashers," you can basically get the movie just from its title.

    But like any good high-concept comedy, "Kinda Pregnant" is predominantly a far-fetched way for its star and co-writer, Schumer, to riff frankly on her chosen topic. Here, that's the wide gamut of pregnancy experience — the body changes, the gender reveal parties, the personal jealousies — all while mixing in a healthy amount of pseudo-pregnant pratfalls.

    It's been a decade since Schumer was essentially launched as a movie star in the 2015 Judd Apatow-directed "Trainwreck." But "Kinda Pregnant," which Schumer wrote with Julie Paiva, almost as adeptly channels Schumer's comic voice — the one that made the sketch series "Inside Amy Schumer" so great.

    The movie's opening flashes back to Lainey (Schumer) as a child playing with dolls and imagining herself a mother-to-be. So committed is she to the role that Lainey, in mock-labor, screams at her friend and then politely apologies: "Sorry, but the expectant mother often lashes out at her support system."

    But as... Read More

    MySHOOT Profiles


    Add A Comment