You see, I’m rather hurt. Ronald Biggs, the Great Train Robber, is appearing in coffee commercials.
What’s more, elegant corgis speaking in royal accents are advertising dog food.
Kids are toughening their teeth. Cockneys are advertising furniture, bank managers are shifting it.
But for me, nothing.
What I want is an agent. What I want is the big time. As one agent said, I’m big but this isn’t the time.
But why not? Take white ants, for instance. I know all about termites. Two of them sit opposite me at breakfast.
Don’t think I haven’t tried. I said to one television casting director, “I’ve been screen-tested for several parts.”
“Listen, friend,” he said, “With your size, you should have been road-tested.”
I have always fancied myself in a biscuit commercial. Why shouldn’t I collect a few crumbs? Others make a packet.
I thought of auditioning as a weather man. Listen to this:
Hullo customers. Well, the only rain about is under the shower. Now let’s look at the satellite picture. Either this is a moist, tropical inflow or someone has spilt the coffee. Tides, fishermen? Well they’re in and out.
As you see, rain-lovers, I have all the patter even if I haven’t the pitter.
So my hopeless search goes on. I’ve even been thinking of joining one of those television safaris. They are usually in the tropics with hazy islands in the background and slim, sun-browned mermaids snorkelling across reefs searching for an old wreck.
Girls, look no further.
Another thing. The beautiful inquisitors of Nationwide haven’t quizzed me for a single segment. My wife says if it was called Openwide I’d stand a chance.
And I’m still waiting for word from Parkinson. I can see myself walking to the studio, down that elegant aisle, the orchestra playing and Parkinson rising, his rugged face creased by a thousand questions and nervously fluttering his first enquiry: For God’s sake, who let him in?
Nobody even wants me on 60 Minutes. Five is all they could stand.
Then there are those tile commercials. Why not me? I’ve been out on them often enough.
And certainly I’ve been. in talk shows. Ours never stops.
Then again I have fancied myself in a more dignified role. I come to the front of the screen, with my earnest expression and my gold-rimmed spectacles, and tell you where you can borrow money.
And then you ring me and tell me where I can.
I suppose I shouldn’t sit here wishing for the moon. Yet these advertisements are so sleek and glib. So persuasive. I’m sure I can radiate a certain confidence. People feel they can identify with me.
“That’s him,” they shout, racing their monthly accounts around to the studio.
I’ve even thought I could have a role introducing movies. Rolling west with Jesse and Stan James. Astairing into space and putting the ginger into Rogers.
You see, I’m witty, too.
In the scramble of big names and hot properties it’s easy to see I have been passed over, although passed in, my family thinks, is the more appropriate term.
So here I sit, my television possibilities untap ped and untaped, my interesting and inimitable face waiting to be animated.
If only Walt Disney was still with us!
Max Fatchen