I'm Climbing Up Those Walls Again

This year may not have been a great year for electing presidents, but has been an amazing year for local TV ads. My two favorites are Talk & Tan and Tony’s Restaurant.

Talk & Tan is a stroke of pure genius. Everyone knows that cell phones and tanning go together like peanut butter and jelly, so the folks at T&T have thrown them together in one store. Not only does it offer a multitude of cellular options, it also has a wide variety of tanning booths.

It’s a scary world out there: a world where you might not be given the right advice on tanning. That’s why Talk & Tan is run by Dr. Eddie, who reassures us of his abilities wearing a stethoscope and a lab-coat, and motioning to us with a pair of glasses while reminding us that he can diagnose our tanning needs. Personally, I find the mullet to be the highlight of this commercial.

The commercial for Tony’s Restaurant is more subtle. We are treated to the grey-faced Tony, charming in his own Dracula-like ways, as he talks to us in his somewhere-from-the-Mediterranean-accent. He repeats several times through the commercial, “If you haven’t heard of us, then ask your neighbor!”

Now, as alluring we found Talk & Tan’s offer, we decided to give Tony’s Restaurant a try. The brave 4 that decided to make this ultimate sacrifice were Matt, Chris Shelley, Ben, and me. The drive took us deep into the desolation of first Liberty and then Pickens. The directions were exact: Tony’s Restaurant stood before us, it’s giant red sign a beacon for the hungry.



Tony’s fit the picture perfectly. A weird looking hostess showed us to our table with little rips on the tablecloth. After we were seated, she appeared to look under our table. I assumed she was scouring for roaches before I realized she was looking intently at the table number. She took our drink orders and left. A family sat down at a table nearby, and one of the kids turned the sound all the way up on his Gameboy and started playing.

Our waitress appeared, and I nearly laughed out-loud. I had been forming a picture of Tony’s the whole night, and she completed it: she was pregnant and looked ready to give birth. I choked back a laugh and gave her my order.

We were not given rolls with our salad, we were instead given about 25 packets of Captain’s Wafers (crackers). We ate a lot of crackers. Matt asked for honey-mustard dressing, and was given what *appeared* to be a mustard squeeze bottle, but turned out to be what he requested. The actual food was good.

Mission accomplished.

However, we never got to see Tony…