Radio: Gaston, the Patriot

I am NUTS about the good old Oo Ess Ay.

She have everything — I hand her the bouquet.

I go quick to them and say: “Give me citizen paper today.” I wave the flag for good old Oo Ess Ay.

About 1,000 times a week over 20 stations throughout the country, these sentiments are sung by a character called Gaston, whose recorded outbursts are sponsored by Chateau Martin wine. Few jingles have made such an impact on the U. S. Variations on Gaston’s theme are popular in nightclubs, his antics have formed the background of several skits, and his slogan “I am NUTS about the good old Oo Ess Ay” is incessantly echoed among the nation’s small fry.

Gaston came into being year and a half ago when Chateau Martin’s president, a onetime hosiery man named Martin Lefcort, decided that it would be a good idea to have a Frenchman plug his California wines. The notion was developed by Chateau Martin’s advertising agent, Herman C. Morris, whose outfit whipped together a series of chats by a comic Frenchman, who, after a sip of Chateau Martin ’39, uniformly wound up: “I go queek get my citizenship papers.” This folderol, tried over a few stations, was so successful that Chateau Martin upped its spot announcement budget from $100 to $3,500 a week, introduced the imperishable jingles with which Gaston now assaults the ether. Since Gaston started, Chateau Martin has sold 15,000,000 quarts of wine, sent a top-hatted, bewhiskered stooge wandering around Manhattan to publicize his opposite number on the air.

Before Gaston took to poesy and song, he was played by a number of radio actors.

When he began to croon, Lewis Reid of the Morris agency asked Character Actor Irving Kaufman to assume the role. Plump, pink-faced, freckled, balding, Kaufman, who as a small boy once played a spurious Russian midget in vaudeville, has portrayed Lazy Dan for Old English Floor Wax, Happy Jim Parsons for Air Conditioning Training Corp., Johnny Prentiss for Gruen Watch Co. He boasts that he has made more phonograph records than any other singer, having worked for 22 companies under ten different names. On the radio he has played as many as twelve characters in one sketch. But until he was tried out for Gaston, he had never attempted a French accent.

Confident that it has a gold mine in Gaston, Chateau Martin has introduced a domestic champagne for him to swoon over.