The Legend-News

C.W. McCall Tour 2002
Down and around and around and down

Okay, so we told you that we thought a group excursion around western Iowa was a neat idea. Visit the towns mentioned in the songs by C.W. McCall and meet other C.W. McCall fans.

And you thought that we'd occasionally update you on what we were planning to do. An itinerary, perhaps a map, maybe even a guide to the area.

Well, there's something that we've got to say.

Presenting… The Map! (gotcha!)

Strangely, most of the Iowa towns which are mentioned by C.W. are given in the song "Sloan". Here's how you connect the dots:

1. Audubon. The starting point, of course.
2. East Nishnabotna River. This is the river that's actually near Audubon; see item 6.
3. Darned if we can remember why we picked this spot. We'll tell you, as soon as we remember
4. Red Line.
5. Jacksonville.
6. West Nishnabotna River. C.W. crawled this river in the song "Nishnabotna", but it's really too far from Audubon to be the correct river. But "East Nishnabotna" just didn't sound as well.
7. Old 30, a.k.a. U.S. Highway 30, or the Lincoln Highway.
8. Ricketts.
9. Correctionville. Yes, there is a correction here.
10. Sioux City.
11. Sloan. Watch for dogs in the no-parking zones.
12. Pisgah. Stop at the Old Home Filler-Up An' Keep On A-Truckin' Café. It's really there.
13. Mondamin. Reach out and touch someone at the pay telephone, about four miles north.
14. Magnolia.
15. Woodbine. Gateway to Pisgah. :)
16. Persia. Slow down when crossing the railroad tracks.
17. Beebeetown.
18. The middle of Pottawattamie County, the home of the Fairweather Lewis and Willard Clark.
19. Exit 12 on Interstate 80. Whaddya mean, it's supposed to be in Iowa?
20. American Gramaphone. Chip's company.

Now you're probably wondering, "How many miles is that?" And we say, "Dunno. About 20 inches." Okay, maybe 250 miles. For a one-day trip, that's not too bad. (And if you think it is, try driving from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma to Bloomington, Illinois in one day. 675 miles! That was Day 3 of Convoy 2000.)

We have more details to plan; this is just the start. Stay tuned.

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Surfin' With The Rubber Duck
He did the lookin', so you don't have to

The Loess Hills, a real treasure. Chuck Offenburger, in the Des Moines Register of 28 August 1997, writes of the area in which he grew up, and stops at the original Old Home Café.

Siouxland and Loess Hills hospitality Tour Itinerary. A two-day excursion from Omaha to Sioux City, with a lunch stop in Pisgah.

The Dr. San Guinary WebLab. See the Video Archive for “Old Home Bread Sheriff” and “Old Home Bread - Mavis”.

Virtual Truck Route: Spotlight on C.W. McCall. You've probably read it all before, but any web site that links back to here deserves a mention.

How Fast Them Big Trucks Go by Kelly McCubbin. County music and trucking in the '70s. C.W. McCall wasn't the only truckin' singer out there.

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Old Home Café
Back where it all began

From the Des Moines Register of Sunday, November 17, 1974. Thanks to K.C. the Stealth Fan for the xerographic copy.

Sloan, C.W. McCall's dog in the TV commercial, was a favorite of children in Pisgah.

One boy yelled, "Hurry up, Mom, it's Sloan."

Mayor Arthur Long of Sloan attended the Pisgah affair and presented a spiked collar to C.W. McCall's dog, Sloan. The dog, named after the town of Sloan, "has brought [much] recognition to our town," said Long.

Bill Fries, an Omaha advertising man, is the creator of C. W. McCall and Mavis and is the voice of C.W. in the bread company commercials.

Bill Fries, the Omaha advertising man who wrote the scripts and was the voice of C. W. in the first six Old Home commercials, now has written three new ones, all all were shot recently in and around Pisgah, a town made famous when C. W. and Mavis went to the drive-in theater there on their first date (actually, there is no drive-in at Pisgah, population about 260).

The first commercials were shot near Irving, Tex., and the folks there paid little attention to the characters or the film crews.

Well, Pisgah paid attention.

About 500 persons turned out to watch and be a part of one of the scenes in which the setting is the semi-annual Pisgah Volunteer Firemen's Ball.

Fries invited all those present to become extras in the dance sequence. About 200 signed standard release forms and were paid $1 each to take part.

Setting for the TV commercial was a fictitious "Pisgah Semi-Annual Volunteer Firemen's Ball." About 200 townspeople "attended" the dance.

While the film crew ground away with overhead shots, the crowd danced and watched as the crew shot closeups of C. W. and Mavis doing what Fries described as the "Council Bluffs Shuffle" with the "Pisgah Grip."

Earlier, Finlayson's arrival on the set (the cement slab and little bandshell in the Pisgah Park) was the signal for a round of cheers and a call for a speech.

"It's good to be back in Pisgah, my second hometown," grinned Finlayson. "You folks keep Mama occupied tonight so I can have a little time with Mavis."

Privately, Finlayson and Mrs. Capps confessed they are amazed at the attention they draw when they appear in the territory covered by the commercials. "We don't know how to act," said Finlayson.

People treat us like we are national celebrities." He added: "You know an old ad man could go through his whole career and never hit one like this. This is like hitting a wildcat oil well."

C.W. McCall chats with Ron Photo, head of a country music band, called "Ron McCoon of Fort Calhoun and his Nucular Power-Plant Boys" in the TV commercial.

The shooting went on into the night and some of the bystanders sat on picnic tables and sipped beer. Parents brought their kids, cameras and sandwiches, and Leo Alton, 60, who runs a dragline for Harrison County, took the afternoon off to help set up the lights and his wife helped string up crepe paper and decorations for the dance scene.

Wearing his bib overalls, a flannel shirt and a billed cap, Alton was placed in a scene shot in the truckstop cafe. He was at the counter facing Mavis. Just the back of this head was seen. The shooting took four hours.

"You get paid for that?" he was asked.

"Nah, I ain't figuring on it," he replied.

Writer Fries assured all who did get in the commercials they would be paid the standard $1. He also told the crowd, "I'd like to tell you people that I think Pisgah is the nicest town in the world. You've just been wonderful to us…"

As C. W. says in one of his lines at the dance at Pisgah, "…Fun City …Yeah!"

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Song A’ Th’ Week
Words without music. Call 'em poems.

Bread Bash
(Bill Fries, Chip Davis)
From a commercial for Old Home Bread

Sing it like Old Home Filler-Up An' Keep On A-Truckin' Café, and you'll be close enough.

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The Legend-News is Copyright 2001 TechRen Enterprises. "She's not the descendent of a long line of mystical warriors; she's the descendent of a toaster oven." Thanks to Bill Fries and Chip Davis for the words and music.