October 29, 2025 • 48 mins
In the golden age of 1980s television, few faces were more familiar — or more dishonest — than Joe Isuzu’s. Actor David Leisure brought the fast-talking car salesman to life, turning a parody of advertising into one of its greatest icons. In this Very Special Interview, the man behind America’s favorite liar revisits the campaign that changed commercials forever.
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Hosted by Zaron Burnett, Dana Schwartz, and Jason English
Written by Zaron Burnett
Senior Producer is Josh Fisher
Editing and Sound Design by Chris Childs
Mixing and Mastering by Baheed Frazier
Original Music by Elise McCoy
Show Logo by Lucy Quintanilla
Executive Producer is Jason English
Question? Comment? Idea for which advertising icon we should try to interview next? Email us at veryspecialepisodes@gmail.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Okay, everyone, we are ready to shoot first position. All right,
let's shoot this picture, so and action. Whenever you're reading as.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
From Leisure, you know it's interesting if you watch the
first commercial. I'm pretty normal, right, I'm going like, Hi,
this is a car, and I'm a guy talking about
the car. And if you come in tomorrow you'll get
a free house. You get my word on it. So
I'm just talking like i'm talking right now. And as
we went along, I got a little bit more animated,
(00:46):
and my voice got a little more different, and then
I got a little bit bigger. And now I'm talking
like this, you can have a new car. Yes, So
the character got kind of bigger as I went along.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
You know, if you recognize that voice, then right about
now you're probably smiling thinking back to the man whose
voice that is. You may know his name, you may not,
but you most likely recognize that voice. For a half decade,
he was one of the most famous faces on TV,
a beloved figure who made folks actually want to watch
the commercials. His name is David Leisure, but you probably
(01:22):
know him better as Joe Isuzu.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
It just sort of happened one day we're shooting a commercial,
and as a joke, the director put my name on
a name tag and stuck it on me. As we're
shooting the commercial, I said joe So he said, call
yourself Joe Zuzu. I said, okay. In one commercial I
said Hi, I'm Joey Suzu, and then I was that
(01:46):
guy for the rest of my life.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
We thought it would be fun to take a look
back at a more innocent time in American culture, to
check in with a beloved liar from that bygone era
of the nineteen eighties. We also wanted to find out
what does Joey zuz think about the state of our
modern world. But also, and most importantly, David Leisure is
just fun to talk to. Plus, thanks to his wild
(02:08):
ride through American culture, he actually walked away with some
rare wisdom. Welcome to very special episodes and iHeart original podcast.
I'm your host, Zaren Burnett and this is being Joe Izuzu,
a conversation with David Leisure.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
Welcome back, everybody. She's Danis Schwartz. Hey, he's Aaron Burnett,
one of I'm Jason English, Dana. I know all of
this happened before you were born. In this episode, but
I was wondering if you'd ever heard of Joe Isuzu.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
I have not.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
Unfortunately I had not, Now I have.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Have you ever heard the expression where's the beef?
Speaker 5 (02:52):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Yeah, okay, so that one.
Speaker 5 (02:55):
But here's the thing. I had like heard where's the
beef as a meme, but it wasn't attached to anything
in my head. I didn't know. If you had asked
me what it was like an ad for I would
have had no idea.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Well, I'm hoping that this episode opens up the opportunity
for us to interview other advertising icons, even you know,
people from your generation data. If this does happen and
we are able to bring on more ad characters, anyone
have anyone for the wish list?
Speaker 3 (03:22):
The Geico Gecko.
Speaker 5 (03:24):
Ooh, the horny people from the Maxwell coffee commercial.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Yes, do you know what I'm talking about?
Speaker 4 (03:30):
The siblings absolutely.
Speaker 5 (03:32):
Because you're my present this year. I want to know
if they know the legacy of that commercial.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Yeah, that's good, brother.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
Saren. I was gonna say crazy Eddie. I know you've
covered him on Ridiculous Crime. Heck.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Yeah, they have a lot of crazy Eddie type characters,
Like there's the used car salesman who would be like mad,
MIC's come down. There's a lot of guys who are
like out there with a hammer or whatever saying I'm
knocking down prices. I think it's a very in regional
form of advertising. So maybe we could do a round
up with some of those guys.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
Well, my hope with this is also that we get
David Leisure and Joey Suzu back introduced him to a
whole new generation because this was a truly delightful interview
and I learned a lot. And why do we get
to it?
Speaker 3 (04:21):
First things first? What a name that is David Leisure.
It sounds like it was created in a Hollywood laboratory
where stage names are carefully constructed from the folks who
came up with Kerry Grant, Rock Hudson and Marilyn Monroe.
Now comes David Leisure. But if you can believe it,
David Leisure is not his stage name.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Yes, it's my room name. There's a bunch of leisures
in Indiana and that's where my dad came from. We're
not really sure what the origin is. It's a strange name,
but there it is.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Life growing up in the Leisure household was about as
all American as any mid century advertisement would have portrayed.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Gosh Gowie. Okay, talking about the fifties, you know, it
looked like seen out of you know, some sort of
fifties movies. You know, it was all pajamas and Christmas
trees and dogs and cats and mom making pies in
the kitchen. It was Norman Rockwell all the way.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Given that strong foundation, young David Leisure decided to throw
it all away and run off to California to go
to college and really experience all that life had to
offer in the nineteen sixties. Okay, that's not exactly true.
By nineteen sixty eight, the Leisure family had already picked
up and relocated to San Diego. And so there he is,
fresh out of high school, and David Leisure enrolls in
(05:39):
San Diego State for college.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
I loved college. College was great. So graduate high school
nineteen sixty eight. Everything's been really really conservative growing up
in San Diego. And you know, my dad would put
a bowl on my head and count my hair. In
nineteen sixty eight, I graduate high school and there's a
hardy going on. I mean it's like long hair, hippies, music,
(06:06):
free love, get it on, and you know, I just
had the best time in college. College was super cool.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
In an interesting twist of fate, one of his college
roommates would later be his co star, or rather the
star of the first big Hollywood movie David Leisure would
appear in. In the nineteen eighties, at the height of
his fame, David Leiser told People magazine about that old friend,
Bob Hayes, saying, how quote, I wanted to be Bob Hayes.
I used to dress like him, and walk like him
(06:35):
and talk like him. And he was great looking. Every
woman on earth wanted him. That's how I praise But
what was it like for him as a young man
to have this future Hollywood star as his college roommate.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
We had a great time. He was a leading man.
I'm a character actor. So we get along fine, and
we've been best friends ever since. We still talk, you know,
like once a month or something like that. He's in
Hawaii now, but you know, to check each other out,
like how we do it, Like we're a barometer now
for where we are now in our lives.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
After David Leisure graduated college with a fine art degree,
he headed off to Hollywood. His old college roommate Bob
Hayes found success far faster than David Leisure did, but
after six years of auditions, finally he landed his first
big part. The film was Airplane, and coincidentally, the star
of the movie was Bob Hayes, but it should be
(07:30):
said the newly minted star had nothing to do with
David Leisure getting the part. Instead, the role required him
to do four separate auditions, and he also had to
shave his head. That was so he could play a
Hari Krishna who was harassing people at the airport, which
was apparently a very seventies occurrence. The busy airports of
America were rife with Hary Krishna's trying to spread the word.
(07:53):
David Leisure played the hell out of that Harry Krishna believer.
He was perfectly annoying in the role. However, for David Leisure,
sitting in the theater watching himself in that first big role,
it was like sitting through dental surgery. But was zero novacamp.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
I hated it. I had the worst time. I was
watching myself through my fingers. I had a lot of
lines that they cut because I'm sure they thought I
I sucked, and so it was a horrible experience watching
myself for the first time in a major botion picture.
It was terrible. I had a horrible time.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
The experience of shooting the movie wasn't so horrible. In fact,
it was like attending a comedy camp, but with some
of the best minds in Hollywood at the time.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
It was a really interesting movie. I mean, they really
set a tone, They changed what comedy was. It was
an innovative film, and I think the best part about
that movie was the fact that the networks wanted to
use comedians and they said, no, you're not understanding the concept.
(08:55):
We want the real guys, the real actors who were
in those movies, to be in this movie and play
it as straight as they can and just deliver the dialogue.
And it was brilliant. It was absolutely.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Brilliant when it comes to delivering dialogue. That is certainly
something that David Leisure has established. He is a rare
expert at he can even make the bad dialogue work.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
My strong suit is making really dialogue work. I'm very
good at it. So when I was on empty nest
for seven years that writers would always come home, Man,
we're so sorry, I say, I don't worry about it, man,
I'll make it work. I got this, I got this. Yeah,
I'll make your job easier. I'll make this work. So
I was pretty good at making bad dialogue work, but.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
That was all to come later. After Airplane, which went
on to be a smash hit of nineteen eighty. However,
David Leisure didn't exactly book work off of its success.
He went to auditions, he did his thing, but he
just couldn't land that second big part. Things went from
iffy to dodgy to finally down bad. David Leisure had
to give up his apartment and he moved into his car.
(10:04):
Lucky for him, it was roomy. It was a nineteen
sixty four VW bus. Yet having to move into his
new hippie home on wheels was not the great moment
for the young actor.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Oh god, man, that was okay. So my marriage broke up.
I moved into my van. I bummed around la I
would park in front of friends' houses and then try
to find work as a waiter or a bartender or something.
I was just bouncing around, and then finally got an
apartment and I started waiting tables and nothing was happening. Now.
(10:38):
I'm in my mid thirties, divorced and going like, man,
this is not working out like I thought it was
going to work out.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
This is not an uncommon story for those who run
off to find fame and fortune in Hollywood. It can
be a tough town. That's always been true. They don't
call it the dream Factory because people there deeply committed
to reality. It's a town that makes sells and runs
on illusions, which can be disorienting for young Hollywood hopefuls.
(11:08):
That's how David Leisure found himself living out of his
VW parked in front of his friend's places, hoping to
get any work he could while still holding on to
his Hollywood dream. But he knew something needed to change, or,
more specifically, his girlfriend at the time saw something in him,
something that set him apart. Specifically, he was really good
(11:29):
at being charming, and most importantly, he was charming on camera.
He was also really good at smarmy, and both are
perfect for advertising.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
My girlfriend at the time, she says, why don't you
take a commercial workshop, you know, so you could do commercials?
And I said, ah, you know, there was a sort
of a stigma about being in commercials back then. But
I said, okay, well I give it a shot. So
I got in there and I just sort of basically
owned the room because you know, it was a bunch
of people. There were housewives and student and stuff, and
they weren't really actors, and so I just got in
(12:02):
there and I owned it. So I got an agent
right away. Being in commercials was fun. It was you know,
took up thirty seconds of your time too, that's all
I take. I immediately started working right away. And so
instead of earning like nine thousand dollars a year waiting
tables all night long, every day of the week, I
made twenty five thousand dollars that year. I worked four
whole days. I said, I'm in. I want to do commercials.
(12:25):
I'm in. I'm your guy.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Finally, David Leisure had found his lane.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
After a year or so, I was making one hundred
thousand dollars a year being invisible in commercials. It was cool.
I had some great commercial gigs that nobody knows about.
They were so cool. I would go to New York
for a week and they would shoot a bunch of commercials.
They were regional, but I made a ton of money,
and I used to get to go to New York
(12:51):
and go see plays, see my friends, see my actor buddies,
And this is a great gig. I love that gig.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
During his early run as a commercial pitch man, he
hawked products for a range of familiar companies. He played
a sleazy pizza parlor owner for Roundtable Pizza. He sold
burgers and shakes for Bob's Big Boy. He did ads
for the Canadian beer company Molson. Then David Leisure had
his biggest break yet. He did a series of ads
for The Yellow Pages. He played a no nonsense knockoff
(13:19):
of Detective Joe Friday from the radio and TV show Dragnet.
And during the run of all these various commercials, David
Leisure found a little secret to his success. One he
kept to himself, but he shared it with us.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
I got a lot of jobs pretending to be Steve
Martin at the time, because Steve Martin had just hit
really big in seventy nine seventy eight, and I saw
him on Saturday Night Live. I said, this is the
funniest guy in the world. So that Bob's Big Boy
commercial and that Roundtable Pizza a commercial you just spoke
about that was me doing Steve Martin.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Doing his street level impression of the rising young star.
Steve Martin worked well, like really well, and it showed
David Leisure aside of himself, one that he could turn
into his own brand of fame.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
I always say my acting range, you know, I played
a lying, sleazy Carl salesman and obnoxious mooching neighbors. So
my acting range is sleazy, obnoxious, mooching, slimy guy. That's
a pretty narrow parameter, but I'm pretty good at it.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
Enter joe Azuzu In nineteen eighty six, David Leizer beat
out roughly eighty other young, hopeful commercial actors, but there
was just something that stood out about his take on
the car salesman character. He had it. Jean Marie Obuji,
the art director from the ad agency de la Femina,
Travisano and Partners, said at the time about his audition quote,
(14:44):
when we saw him, we knew he was Joey Zuzu.
He could lie like a pro.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
That's hysterical, but.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Honestly, that was the thing. It was crystal clear here
was a guy who could make lying seemed fun and
even charming. You liked that Joe Azuzu was lying to you,
which flies in the face of what other advertisers were
doing at the time. However, lying was already having a
moment in the culture.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
John Lovett's had been on Saturday Night Live and he
had this liar character, Johnny Flanagan or something like that,
and so he had this great bit where he would
like you catch him thinking about his lie.
Speaker 5 (15:26):
I was on vacation at the time with my mistress,
Jeanne Kirkpatrick. Yeah, and then my wife find out about
it is the Morgan Fairchild.
Speaker 6 (15:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
While she was so jealous she cut off my allowance.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
So he goes like my wife, yeah, and he's thinking
Morgan Fairchild. He comes up with this lie.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Right.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Well, I said, that's not gonna work. They have twenty
one seconds, they have information they want to give out,
and if you sit there and you stop talking for
three seconds to think and act like John LOVETTZ did,
it's not going to work.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
So David Leisure thought about what the role called for.
How to bring the lyre to life and make it work,
not as a skit on SNL, but as a quick
hit car commercial. He worked out the answer. He would
be irretrievably mendacious. He transformed lying into a medium for
his rare art form.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
So I just went in there and did what I did,
which was smile and talk as smarmy as I could
possibly be, and I got the gig. It worked out
really well, and I just thought it was going to
be like one commercial, so it was fine. And then
they said they wanted to do a whole bit out
of it, which I couldn't have been happier. It turned
out really really well.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
Okay, let's take a pause for some samples from the
modern milieu of advertising. We'll be back after these ads
with more from the Pitchman, an actor extraordinaire David Leisure,
and will unveil the secrets of his greatest creation, Joe Azuzu.
(17:06):
In the nineteen eighties, advertising wasn't like how it is now.
That should go without saying, times change, taste change. What
once worked becomes old hat, it falls out of fashion.
But in the nineteen eighties advertising environment you can find
the planted seeds of our modern marketing. Think of Burger
King and their custom focused tagline have it Your Way,
or Ronald McDonald and his cast of characters the Hamburglar,
(17:29):
Mayor mccheese and Grimace entertaining the kids in Saturday morning commercials.
Also don't overlook Wendy's battling its way into the burger wars.
Wendy's had possibly the most famous of all the advertising
catchphrases when a little old lady asked, Where's the beef?
And also let's not sleep on New Coke, Coca Cola classic,
(17:49):
and the Pepsi Challenge. It was a heady time for
advertising as it was being born into our modern era,
and standing there above it all was the most famous
man and commercials, Joe Azuzu. How did the iconic pitchman
come to be? Beyond the audition when David Leisure first
nabbed the part like how did Joe Azuzu go from
(18:11):
a marketing pitch meeting to America's TV screens.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
The whole idea of the character came from Daryla Femina
Jerry Dela Femina. Specifically, he actually wrote a book about
dealing with Japanese car companies. It's called From the People
Who Brought You World War Two. It's a very funny
book and so everybody knows car dealers are not the
most honest people in the world. That's what everybody's image
(18:38):
of car dealers are. They hate that image, but that's
the way it is. So they were feeding on the
fact that car dealers just they just lie to get
you in there to buy cars. So they made that
part of an opera and I the of the commercial,
and it worked really, really well because they were really,
really funny.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
The dynamic of the Joe Azuzu ads was simple enough.
It relied on the simple site gag. Joezuzu would say
some outrageous lies about Azuzu cars or trucks, like maybe
about the new model and early Suv. The beloved Isuzu Trooper.
Joe Azuzu would promise that the Azuzu Trooper could seek
more people than the astrodome, while on screen there'd be
(19:17):
subtitles which told the truth he's lying. It was a
simple concept, yet fun and funny, and it was a
next level way for a second tier car company to
boast about the truth of its product.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
So what they could do with that is say what
the car is good in juxtaposition to what I said,
which was ridiculous. So then they said, no, what it
really does? It gets this many miles break Gallant. Oh,
what it really does is this much money. And no,
we won't give you a house, but we'll give you
a better deal on your financing. So it worked out.
It was a brilliant, brilliantly well constructed spot that they
(19:52):
came up with.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Of course, just as David Leiser was sipping from the
car of success, the bottom dropped out like the cup
was paper. In this case, what happened was David Leisure
broke his leg and he was scheduled to shoot a
whole run of new azuzu Ads, so the creative team
had to make it work. For the second Joe Azuzu Ad,
they had him lied to the viewers about how he
was racing at Monaco and he broke his leg, which
(20:19):
explains why he's on crutches and wearing a racetrack suit.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Van Jerno, I'm the world's greatest race car driver.
Speaker 6 (20:26):
Recently, I had a little problem here at Monte Carlo,
so I switched to this two hundred thousand.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Dollars Formula E's Suzu. It comes with driving gloves and
the pit crew all standard. It's so fast it will
go from Paris to Rome in two minutes.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
The ad worked perfectly, but at first there was well
a small panic.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
They freaked out, man, So I shot the first commercial.
They wanted to go in to do this whole series
of commercials, and I come in on crutches, in a
broken angle and a cast on my and now they're
freaked out because they have all these things planned out
for me. The race car driver thing was one of
my favorite bits. You know, I got in like silver
(21:08):
lamey racing suit, but I'm actually at a go card
center and so it's pretty silly. Those are all fun for.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
That first series of ads, as Joey Zuzu, David Leisure
and the creative team made the broken leg work. But
the creative team didn't want to come up with a
different reason for crutches in every single ad, so they
found some workarounds, like the time when David Leisure was
chained atop a giant rock in the Utah Desert like
he was modern day Prometheus, only in his case he
(21:38):
didn't dare defy the gods. Instead, he just wanted to
sell the people. Some of Zuzu Troopers be amazing. Isuzu
Trooper too. It's four wheel drive can take you anywhere.
In fact, I drove it up here myself.
Speaker 6 (21:52):
It has more seats than the astronom, plus enough cargo
space to carry texas and Isuzu will accept marbles and
sea shows's payment. They're selling fast, so you have to
come in in five minutes.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
You have mine work on it. They took an idea
from Chevy commercial which was shot back in the sixties.
They had this beautiful woman in a Chevy convertible in
a chiffon dress up on this rock in the middle
of nowhere. So they said, well, let's do that, so
(22:24):
we shot this commercial up there. It turned out to
be kind of a logistics nightmare because you know, even
when I was up on that rock and Moab, I
had a cast on my leg. If you look at
the commercial, you'll notice down by my feet there's a
big pile of rocks to hide the fact that I'm
not wearing a shoe.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
I got to cast. Murmur when he says, up on
this rock. If you haven't seen the ad, that phrase
wildly under sells the size and the scope of this
giant rock.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
You're up at eighteen hundred feet up in the air.
I'm chained to have a metal diaper on that you know,
they have chains on it, and so I'm hooked up
in case, you know besta wind comes up, and there
was always something that was happening because it was like, oh,
there's a storm coming in. We got to get you
within the next ten minutes. Otherwise you're the highest thing
(23:13):
in the world and you got a car, so lightning's
hitting you first. You're at TAG. So it was a
really cool shoot though. I mean we're out there for
at least a week, and then I had to dub
everything in anyway, and they had trouble because there was
red dust on the camber lands. I mean, everything you
could possibly think go run it went wrong. It was
just but it turned out to be very very cool,
(23:36):
pretty cool commercial.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
At this point in the American timeline, Joeyzuzuo fully entered
the zeitgeist. He was suddenly everywhere. He was one of
the biggest pop sensations of the late eighties. When it
came to commercials, it was pretty much Joey Zuzu and
that little old lady from the Wendy's ads aka Clara Peller,
the one who got famous for.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Saying where's the beef?
Speaker 3 (23:59):
The where's the Beef Lady and Joe Azuzu in the
late eighties. That was it. That was the mountaintop of marketing,
and for Joe Azuzu that stayed true for years. But
if you ask him, why do you think America loved
Joe Azuzu so much? David Leisure thinks the appeal of
his beloved character was actually rather simple and straightforward.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
You know, just because I was goofy looking, funny guy.
You know, I lied really well and they thought it
was funny, I guess. I mean, let's face it, pretty adorable.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
The height of his fame as a pitch man spanned
from nineteen eighty six to nineteen ninety. The high water
mark had to be when joe'zuza got his own Super
Bowl ad, not bad for a scrappy Japanese car maker
not named Honda or Toyota.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
I love the fact that I was in the Super
Bowl ad. Thing I thought that was that was one
of the coolest things. I'm on the stand. I'm in
the Super Bowl as an ad man. That's so cool.
I don't remember which one it was, but I remember
I was there.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
The strangest thing was how during his run as Joe Azuzu.
David Leisure became super famous, like really really famous, the
kind of fame where talk shows want to have you
on as a guest.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
After a while, yeah, we realized we had a big
deal going on because it got to be pretty famous.
I got more famous as being Joe as the character,
but more than me David. Right, so I got invited
to be on shows, but they didn't want David. It
took me a while to figure this out. What they
wanted was Joe, and so they would ask me the
(25:32):
stupidest questions. I'd be on like our Senior Hall Show
or Joan Rivers or somebody, or you know, the Tonight Show,
and they would be asking me questions. And I went
in there thinking, oh, they want to talk to David
Leisure the act. They didn't. They didn't care anything about
David Lee the actor. They wanted to talk to Joey Suzu.
And so they would ask me incredibly stupid questions. And
(25:53):
I didn't know it at the time, but on a
TV screen would be those little disclaimers, those cry ons
that would go ross and I would like, I came
off looking pretty stupid a lot of the times, but.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
It wasn't just that he faced frustration on talk shows.
David Leiser was now so famous he couldn't leave the
house without having to face the same folks who loved
his Joe Azuzu ads only when he wasn't on their
TV screens. David Leiser didn't think of himself as Joe Azuzu.
So what do you do when everyone you meet wherever
you go want you to lie to them?
Speaker 2 (26:28):
I lost my anonymity really really quickly. People would hear
my voice, they'd recognize me, and then they would come
up to me and they would say this gibberish and
I wouldn't. I would like go, like, what are they
talking about? What are you? What are you trying to
say to me? And then I would go, oh, they
see I'm the liar guy. They want me. They're lying
(26:48):
to me. They're telling me these ridiculous little things that
are lies. And I'm like, oh, okay, okay, thank you,
I get it, very clever, thank you. And I'd have
to excuse myself because I was like, I had no
idea what they're doing.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
As an actor, he knew exactly what he was doing.
He could almost effortlessly conjure up a compelling reality, he
could turn it on and become that guy Joe Azuzu.
But that was when he was working. That was his job. However,
now his job bled into everything, into every aspect of
his life. Like David Leisure found he couldn't even stop
(27:21):
to get gas without having to do some freelance emotional labor.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Like say, you go to put gas in your car,
right and you're just a regular person putting gas in
your car. But if you're recognizable and you're putting gas
in your car and somebody wants to tell you and
to say, hey, I appreciate what you do, but they
get a little nervous and that what comes out is
very awkward. And then now you have this awkward situation
where you're like you want to go home and take
(27:47):
a shower because you're all grubby and you're pumping gas,
and now you have to like communicate with another human
being and you're not really in the mood for it,
but you kind of have to be nice about it
and kind of go with whatever it was they were saying.
Then kind of like, you know, make it okay. So
you have to make it okay for them, otherwise they
get pissed at you. They really do. They get pissed
(28:08):
at you if you don't like go along with it,
so you have to kind of do that. It's part
of the deal.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
This calls to mind his gift for making a screenwriter's
bad dialogue work. David Lesuer found he could also make
this emotional moment work for a stranger where they'd kind
of written him into this impromptu scene for themselves, and
so there he is not getting paid but having to
work as Joe Azuzu and David Lesuer found that with
patients he was able to go along with it and
(28:35):
do so rather gracefully and artfully, which is why we
had to ask him did he learn about life and
grow as a person when he was constantly having to
do this spontaneous emotional labor just because he was trying
to get some gas.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Oh man, that's a very good question. Did I grow
as a person? I'd like to think I have. It
wasn't easy. I wasn't the most congenial person to get
along with at the beginning because I didn't realize what
was going on. It was like, it's very disconcerting to
lose your anonymity, you know, when people know who you
are all the time. It's like it's a weird thing,
(29:12):
so it takes a while to get used to. But
I think I matured a little bit. Let's get this straight.
Though I'm turning seventy five, I'm still as mature as
any twelve year old boy you'll ever meet.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
Okay, it's time we scratch that itch and run some ads.
Enjoy these, and hey, do it for Joe. Perhaps the
funniest thing about the run of Joey Zuzu is how
he made the car company a well known and beloved
brand in America's marketplace. But really it was more like
(29:46):
the car company made Joey Zuzu a beloved brand in
America's marketplace. In fact, so much so that his name
entered the murky world of American politics. In the presidential
election of nineteen eighty eight, the Democratic candidate for president,
Michael Dacaucus, referenced Joe Azuzu as a shorthand and as
an insult to his opponent, George H. W. Bush. Governor
(30:09):
Ducaccus said of the elder Bush that if the vice
president keeps it up, he's going to be the Joe
Azuzu of American politics. At that point, Joe Azuzu had
become code. He was America's idea of what a liar
looked like and sounded like. He was the new era Pinocchio.
But what was that moment like for David Leisure to
suddenly become part of American presidential history.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Everything that ever happened to me is Joe Zuzu. I
was flattered because I thought it was, like, it's just,
it's so insane that this character would be in the
lexicon of certain aspects of America, you know, So for
a politician to invoke the Joey Zuzu mystique against somebody
else as a threat or as a warning, I thought
(30:55):
it was pretty funny.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
But ironically, as much as people loved Joe Azuzu, he
wasn't selling cars. At first, the Joe Azuzu car commercials
did translate into increased car sales. There was an initial
eighteen percent spike in year over year car sales, but
then the next year, in nineteen eighty seven, the sales
numbers started to fall back to their normal range. In fact,
in nineteen eighty seven, the Zuzu sold fewer cars. They
(31:21):
sold fifty fewer cars in eighty seven than they did
the year before, and so naturally, the Japanese car maker
and the ad agency both saw the same obvious problem
with this downward sales trend. But the actor, David Leiser
knew little about sales trends and marketing forecasts. He kept
things simple.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Yeah, I wasn't. I wasn't part of that scenario. I
was just like trying to make the job work and
keep working. I was more concerned about me, mostly me,
and just about everything. Me was fine with me, But
I wasn't too concerned about where the whole trend was going.
I love doing the gig. I didn't want to lose
the gig.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
By nineteen ninety, the run was done, the eighties were over,
his era had passed. All that was left to do
now was to tell David Leisure the good times as
Joe Azuzu had come to the end of the road.
What was that moment like when he received that registered
letter and he read the bad news.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
I sat on the floor with the letter and a
balla vodka, and I'd take a ship and I'd read
the whole letter, and I'd take another pull on it.
I read the letter again, and I took another pull
on it, and I read the letter again and then
I put it down and I said, okay, that was that.
It was a pretty good run. Let it go, Liege,
let it go.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
But the world, and specifically the car maker Isuzu, wasn't
ready to let their lying pitchman go. A decade later,
the car maker brought back Joe Azuzu for a new
ad campaign after taking the nineties off from ads. Joe
Azuzu returned in two thousand. However, there was a little
secret about why the car maker resurrected Joe Azuzu.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
I didn't realize why they brought me back is because
the company was going down, and so they thought this
was sort of a last ditch effort to save Isuzu
in America.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
In a strange turn of fate, returning to Joe Azuzu
also returned David Leisure to his home state of Indiana,
back to America's heartland.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
So they actually took me to the factory where they
built the Azuzus, which is in lafay At, Indiana, and
they were so happy to see me. They had these
little placards with my face on it, and I mean
that was flattered.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
However, the secret reason for the return of Joe Azuzu
Soon enough bubbled up to the surface and David Leisure
saw why he was there in Indiana at the Azuzu factory.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Well, the reason they were so happy to see me
is because they were thinking I was going to save
their job. And these people, I mean, these are real
people with a real job, building a real product, and
worried about their job. Some of them drove four hours
to go to work every day. So it was that
was the first time actually felt the burden of what
(34:03):
the company goes through when it tries to make itself successful.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
Here he was the actor, the lying pitch man, the
nostalgia play, and in reality he was the last best
hope for the autoworkers in Indiana. That was when David
Leisure fully realized what he'd meant as the face of
the company, the image of these folks hopes. They felt
that placing their fate in the hands of this world
famous liar was their honest, best hope for their future.
(34:31):
But as an actor, David Leiser knew how impossible it
was to catch lightning in a bottle twice.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Yeah, you're absolutely right. Because it was such a later
time period, it went you know, it was like fifteen
years later. It was the year two thousand and then,
of course, the trade towers things hit, and that pretty
much killed any momentum that we might have had. They
took me to the Chicago Car Show and I think
it was two thousand and one, and this is back
when they finally let planes back in the air, and
(34:59):
I was one of two people on the plane because
there was nobody traveling anywhere. So I got to the
Chicago Car Show and I can tell you I literally
shook the hand of every single person at the car
show because there was only about fifty people. It's a
weird time period.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
And speaking of weird time periods, how about the twenty
twelve presidential campaign of Mitt Romney and perhaps the strangest
chapter in the history of Joeyzuzu. In twenty twelve, the
car Salesman returned to the world of American politics. It
was a commercial mocking Mitt Romney. The ad featured Mitt
Romney giving a speech and then morphed into Joeyzuzu giving
(35:38):
the speech, and the subtext was clear, He's lying.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Ah man, that was I mean, I actually kind of
regret doing that. It was sort of a political stance
that I took against somebody who at this moment in time,
I'd kill to have that person back, Mid Romney. I
was chiding Mitt Romney and his political opinions and viewpoints
(36:04):
in the world. I don't know. I kind of regret
ever doing that, but it was It was kind of
tough because I had to mimic his cadence and his
words and just sort of fake it. And it was
a weird. It was just a weird thing. I just,
I just I wish I hadn't done.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
It, which calls to mind our current modern moment in
American politics. Well, Joey Zuzu sat out the recent political cycle.
The actor David Leisure sees some parallels with his work
as a professional liar, so we asked what he thinks
about the joe izuzuification of American politics.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
I think we're in the middle of this is just
my opinion. I think, you know, everybody talks about civil war.
I think we're in a civil war right now. I
mean that we are so polarized as a nation. There's
one camp in the other camp, nobody likes anybody in
either camp, and the stuff that's going on now is
a little scary. I'm a little frightened for the state
(37:00):
of the nation.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
When he gazes out at the current zeitgeist and considers
the impact and importance of truth and honest conversations, David
Leisure has more to say than one might expect.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
See.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
The problem with the conversation is I don't think people
have a conversation to suss out the truth and then say, Okay,
there's the truth and put a frame around it and
enjoy it. I think what they do is they try
to have a conversation to justify their own opinions and
not have it changed. They're not willing to change their
(37:34):
opinion with a conversation. They're just trying to imbue their
opinion into the conversation and say this is the way
you should think. I mean, if you're going to change
your mind about something, that means you have to be
open to what is formally known as the truth. But people,
I don't think care about the truth anymore. They just
to care about their own opinions.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
David Leisure finds that the emotional power of the certainty
that is born of one's opinion, as opposed to the
objective truth, which requires effort and a process of discovery
remains a seductive option, but as with all lies, it
leaves a person vulnerable to exploitation by placing their trust
in the wrong things and in the wrong people.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
There's a certain amount of comfort that comes from having
an opinion about something, and there's a certain amount of
comfort that you give yourself for having an opinion and saying, Okay,
this is the way it's supposed to be. And that's
what puts the parameters around the life that you want
to live. And it's really hard. People hate change, which
(38:37):
is so ironic because nothing stays the same. You're born,
you change the second you're born. You're changing until the
day you've died. Everything in the universe is moving. There's
nothing stagnant, there's nothing staying the same. Ever, we're moving
around the sun. The sun's moving around the center of
the galaxy. The galaxy is moving around all the other galaxies.
(39:00):
Nothing stays the same, but we try to make it
the same just to make us feel better about ourselves.
It's not going to be the same. You have to
be able to adjust every day of your life.
Speaker 3 (39:11):
If you're wondering, did David Lezier make out alright? Playing
Joe Azuzu all those years. The actor would like you
to know it was all fun and games. But if
we're being real about it.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
Well let's let down play the money.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
That was always a major motivator for why he endured
his street level fame and played a liar so happily
and for so many years.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
Jozuzu gave me money. I was making money, but this
was better money, and then because of that, I got
even better money. So Jozuzu, Yep, money was a big
part of it. Profile. I got a really high profile
with Josuzu. Longevity. Here, Look it's twenty twenty five and
we're talking about something I did in the mid late
(39:55):
eighties and another millennium. I go, so longevity, money, longevity,
what else? I guess the reason to get up in
the morning you were gonna call me. So I got
up this morning to get ready for this conversation. So
I mean, yeah, I got a bunch of cool stuff
from Joe, nothing too esoterical, which.
Speaker 3 (40:14):
Brings us to the final question to consider. After all
these years, would the man who made Joe Azuzu famous
actually recommend an Azuzu? Of course, being who he is,
to answer that, David Leiser has a funny story about that.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Ah, So I have a long answer to that question. Yes,
I got it Azuzu the second year, and my manager
at the time said, I got them to give you
a car. So I went, oh, so I got a gift,
because that's what the word give means.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
Right.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
So but after I got the car, which I drove around,
I got a Trooper two, which was very cool. After
I drove it around, she sent me a bill for
ten percent of the car for her fee because she
got me that car, which is like money. So you
owe me ten percent of the car. So I went out.
(41:11):
So they didn't give me a car. It's part of
my salary now because you want ten percent of it. Okay, fine,
So I sent her ten percent in a check. The
next year, I got you another car, okay. So now
I got two troop or two's and she sent me
a bill for a certain amount. So I took that
bill and I went to the parks department at the
Zuzu and I said, give me this much money worth
(41:35):
a car and send it to this address. So I
sent her ten percent of a car to her office.
Like there was a hood and there were some wheels
and there was like, you know, like ashtray holder thing,
you know, and it just came sign here I go,
there you go, payton full.
Speaker 3 (41:57):
That's what you call a true Hollywood story.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Nasty little.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
But back to the question at hand, would he actually
really recommend than Azuzu?
Speaker 2 (42:10):
Driving the car was kind of cool? I mean it
was really early urban suv. It was there was only
Jeep as like a four wheel drive vehicle that was
it only ge and so before the suv thing took off,
Azuzu was the first considered suv along with Jeep that
(42:31):
was in the country. But it was more popular than
Jeep because it was like, you know, more of a
vehicle than a Jeep. They were pretty inexpensive and they
were very simple for cylinders, it wasn't a big deal.
So I had a few of them and they were
pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
So is that a recommendation, Well, they don't.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
Make it anymore.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
So yeah, this is not where the story of Joe
Azuzu ends. Because the folks who still love a Zuzu
troops have adopted the Pitchman as our patron saint.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
I've been adopted by these guys who take Azuzu Troopers
and there's like ten thousand of these people across the country.
So they adopted me as their mascot. They take a
Zuzu Troopers, they fix him up, and they take him
off roading. Now they beat the shit out of them,
but they fix them up. So they trade parts. Everybody
(43:23):
trades how do you fix this? What's this thing? How
do you fix that? And so they just all of
a sudden, I kind of, hey, hi, guys, what's going on.
I chripped in on this Facebook page, and all of
a sudden, every like, now I'm a celebrity for sure,
and they sort of adopted me and made me their mascot.
So it's kind of cool.
Speaker 3 (43:41):
So there it is. That's his story these days. That's
how Joe Azuzu became the patron saint, an unofficial mascot
of those folks who's still rocking a Zuzu Trooper. And
as for the reasons for his prolonged fame some decades later,
hopefully by now, that should be obvious. We Americans love
a liar. No really, well maybe some of us. Look
(44:02):
at that Joezuzu was just ahead of his time.
Speaker 5 (44:11):
Okay, this was genuinely a delightful rabbit hole. This is
one of those very special episodes on a topic that
it's not just that I didn't know about it, it's
that I didn't even know that I didn't know about it.
Speaker 3 (44:22):
Yeah, it's weird looking back because of how much Joeyzuzu
had a lock on the culture. I mean, he did
Super Bowl ats. This guy was like the go to.
The presidential campaigns are citing him. I think it's because
he was a liar, and back then America was really
charmed by a liar. So do you guys have a
very special moment from this one.
Speaker 4 (44:39):
Early on when that director as a joke puts a
Joe Isuzu name tag on him and then boom, it
changes the course of the rest of his life. Like
that is wild little thing.
Speaker 5 (44:51):
Yeah, maybe the name tag itself can be the very
special character.
Speaker 4 (44:57):
I hope that name tag is in some advertising museum
or the Smithsonian.
Speaker 5 (45:01):
What are you talking about?
Speaker 3 (45:02):
It just says Joe, Hi, my name is Joe. I
liked the moment when David Leisure is up on that
rock in Utah, the helicopters circling around him. He's wearing
the metal diaper chain to the rock and He's like
just hoping he doesn't become some living lightning magnet. How
do you as a performer deal with that terror?
Speaker 4 (45:18):
Right the lifelong friendship between Bob Hayes of Airplanes and
David Leisure, I love how we put it, like they're
barometers for each other and they check in with each other,
and like, that's awesome.
Speaker 3 (45:30):
I love that.
Speaker 4 (45:31):
I like the quote he's talking about his acting career
not going well and he's living in his van and
parking in front of friend's houses and says, this is
not working out like I thought it was going to
work out. And just like how real that feeling is.
And someone who made a fortune and was a very
prominent force in the culture for some time. I say
(45:54):
that to anyone going through some version of that right now,
you two could wind up in a car commercial that
runs for several decades.
Speaker 3 (46:03):
You just never know.
Speaker 4 (46:04):
You never know, Zaren. This was perhaps not our most
cinematic episode. I mean, it sounds great. Chris Childs doesn't
miss with these, but I don't know.
Speaker 3 (46:13):
I was able to cast it.
Speaker 4 (46:15):
You were, oh wow, look at you.
Speaker 3 (46:17):
I was able to cast it, but I only have
really the two guys. It's just basically Joey Zuzu and
Bob Hayes. So for Joey Zuzu, I thought, there's a
guy who looks a lot like him. I'm not sure
if you know him by name, John Michael Higgins. He's
in all the Christopher Guest documentaries. He played Save by
the Bell. Yeah, yeah, and one more, one more Great News.
Has anyone watched the show Great News?
Speaker 5 (46:38):
Loved Great News?
Speaker 4 (46:39):
Let's get that out. It's you in the culture too.
Speaker 5 (46:42):
If there are no fans left of Great News.
Speaker 3 (46:44):
I'm dead. For Bob Hayes was a little more difficult,
But uh, I thought I was looking at faces and
trying to get somebody who has the same charisma. And
this is kind of like a little bit out on
a limb here. But Jacob Olordi from Euphoria and the
New Friend Kenstein movie. He's like a very handsome guy
and he seems to have the same kind of quiet charm.
(47:04):
So there you go. There's my Bob Hayes. I love it.
Speaker 5 (47:07):
Get Jacob b Lordi in Anything You Can Do, Anything.
Speaker 4 (47:09):
That kids got legs. Get a role for our guy
David in that. Because the other version of this is
in the IP world let's ad some screenwriter to talk
to the a Zuzu Motors company and say we got
to do our Joey's Zuzu biopic.
Speaker 3 (47:24):
Now, it could be actually a good movie and it
has a lot of Americana to it.
Speaker 4 (47:29):
Very Special Episodes is made by some very special people.
The show is hosted by Zaren Burnett, Danish Schwartz, and
Jason English. Today's episode was written by Zaren Burnett. Our
senior producer is Josh Fisher. Editing and sound design by
Chris Childs, Mixing and mastering by Beiheed Fraser. Original music
(47:50):
by Alice McCoy. Show logo by Lucy Kintinia. I'm your
executive producer. We will see you back here next Wednesday.
You'd like to email the show, you can reach us
at Very Special Episodes at gmail dot com. Very Special
Episodes is a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Okay, everyone, we are ready to shoot first position. All right,
let's shoot this picture, so and action. Whenever you're reading as.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
From Leisure, you know it's interesting if you watch the
first commercial. I'm pretty normal, right, I'm going like, Hi,
this is a car, and I'm a guy talking about
the car. And if you come in tomorrow you'll get
a free house. You get my word on it. So
I'm just talking like i'm talking right now. And as
we went along, I got a little bit more animated,
(00:46):
and my voice got a little more different, and then
I got a little bit bigger. And now I'm talking
like this, you can have a new car. Yes, So
the character got kind of bigger as I went along.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
You know, if you recognize that voice, then right about
now you're probably smiling thinking back to the man whose
voice that is. You may know his name, you may not,
but you most likely recognize that voice. For a half decade,
he was one of the most famous faces on TV,
a beloved figure who made folks actually want to watch
the commercials. His name is David Leisure, but you probably
(01:22):
know him better as Joe Isuzu.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
It just sort of happened one day we're shooting a commercial,
and as a joke, the director put my name on
a name tag and stuck it on me. As we're
shooting the commercial, I said joe So he said, call
yourself Joe Zuzu. I said, okay. In one commercial I
said Hi, I'm Joey Suzu, and then I was that
(01:46):
guy for the rest of my life.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
We thought it would be fun to take a look
back at a more innocent time in American culture, to
check in with a beloved liar from that bygone era
of the nineteen eighties. We also wanted to find out
what does Joey zuz think about the state of our
modern world. But also, and most importantly, David Leisure is
just fun to talk to. Plus, thanks to his wild
(02:08):
ride through American culture, he actually walked away with some
rare wisdom. Welcome to very special episodes and iHeart original podcast.
I'm your host, Zaren Burnett and this is being Joe Izuzu,
a conversation with David Leisure.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
Welcome back, everybody. She's Danis Schwartz. Hey, he's Aaron Burnett,
one of I'm Jason English, Dana. I know all of
this happened before you were born. In this episode, but
I was wondering if you'd ever heard of Joe Isuzu.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
I have not.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
Unfortunately I had not, Now I have.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Have you ever heard the expression where's the beef?
Speaker 5 (02:52):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Yeah, okay, so that one.
Speaker 5 (02:55):
But here's the thing. I had like heard where's the
beef as a meme, but it wasn't attached to anything
in my head. I didn't know. If you had asked
me what it was like an ad for I would
have had no idea.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Well, I'm hoping that this episode opens up the opportunity
for us to interview other advertising icons, even you know,
people from your generation data. If this does happen and
we are able to bring on more ad characters, anyone
have anyone for the wish list?
Speaker 3 (03:22):
The Geico Gecko.
Speaker 5 (03:24):
Ooh, the horny people from the Maxwell coffee commercial.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Yes, do you know what I'm talking about?
Speaker 4 (03:30):
The siblings absolutely.
Speaker 5 (03:32):
Because you're my present this year. I want to know
if they know the legacy of that commercial.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Yeah, that's good, brother.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
Saren. I was gonna say crazy Eddie. I know you've
covered him on Ridiculous Crime. Heck.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Yeah, they have a lot of crazy Eddie type characters,
Like there's the used car salesman who would be like mad,
MIC's come down. There's a lot of guys who are
like out there with a hammer or whatever saying I'm
knocking down prices. I think it's a very in regional
form of advertising. So maybe we could do a round
up with some of those guys.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
Well, my hope with this is also that we get
David Leisure and Joey Suzu back introduced him to a
whole new generation because this was a truly delightful interview
and I learned a lot. And why do we get
to it?
Speaker 3 (04:21):
First things first? What a name that is David Leisure.
It sounds like it was created in a Hollywood laboratory
where stage names are carefully constructed from the folks who
came up with Kerry Grant, Rock Hudson and Marilyn Monroe.
Now comes David Leisure. But if you can believe it,
David Leisure is not his stage name.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Yes, it's my room name. There's a bunch of leisures
in Indiana and that's where my dad came from. We're
not really sure what the origin is. It's a strange name,
but there it is.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Life growing up in the Leisure household was about as
all American as any mid century advertisement would have portrayed.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Gosh Gowie. Okay, talking about the fifties, you know, it
looked like seen out of you know, some sort of
fifties movies. You know, it was all pajamas and Christmas
trees and dogs and cats and mom making pies in
the kitchen. It was Norman Rockwell all the way.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Given that strong foundation, young David Leisure decided to throw
it all away and run off to California to go
to college and really experience all that life had to
offer in the nineteen sixties. Okay, that's not exactly true.
By nineteen sixty eight, the Leisure family had already picked
up and relocated to San Diego. And so there he is,
fresh out of high school, and David Leisure enrolls in
(05:39):
San Diego State for college.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
I loved college. College was great. So graduate high school
nineteen sixty eight. Everything's been really really conservative growing up
in San Diego. And you know, my dad would put
a bowl on my head and count my hair. In
nineteen sixty eight, I graduate high school and there's a
hardy going on. I mean it's like long hair, hippies, music,
(06:06):
free love, get it on, and you know, I just
had the best time in college. College was super cool.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
In an interesting twist of fate, one of his college
roommates would later be his co star, or rather the
star of the first big Hollywood movie David Leisure would
appear in. In the nineteen eighties, at the height of
his fame, David Leiser told People magazine about that old friend,
Bob Hayes, saying, how quote, I wanted to be Bob Hayes.
I used to dress like him, and walk like him
(06:35):
and talk like him. And he was great looking. Every
woman on earth wanted him. That's how I praise But
what was it like for him as a young man
to have this future Hollywood star as his college roommate.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
We had a great time. He was a leading man.
I'm a character actor. So we get along fine, and
we've been best friends ever since. We still talk, you know,
like once a month or something like that. He's in
Hawaii now, but you know, to check each other out,
like how we do it, Like we're a barometer now
for where we are now in our lives.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
After David Leisure graduated college with a fine art degree,
he headed off to Hollywood. His old college roommate Bob
Hayes found success far faster than David Leisure did, but
after six years of auditions, finally he landed his first
big part. The film was Airplane, and coincidentally, the star
of the movie was Bob Hayes, but it should be
(07:30):
said the newly minted star had nothing to do with
David Leisure getting the part. Instead, the role required him
to do four separate auditions, and he also had to
shave his head. That was so he could play a
Hari Krishna who was harassing people at the airport, which
was apparently a very seventies occurrence. The busy airports of
America were rife with Hary Krishna's trying to spread the word.
(07:53):
David Leisure played the hell out of that Harry Krishna believer.
He was perfectly annoying in the role. However, for David Leisure,
sitting in the theater watching himself in that first big role,
it was like sitting through dental surgery. But was zero novacamp.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
I hated it. I had the worst time. I was
watching myself through my fingers. I had a lot of
lines that they cut because I'm sure they thought I
I sucked, and so it was a horrible experience watching
myself for the first time in a major botion picture.
It was terrible. I had a horrible time.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
The experience of shooting the movie wasn't so horrible. In fact,
it was like attending a comedy camp, but with some
of the best minds in Hollywood at the time.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
It was a really interesting movie. I mean, they really
set a tone, They changed what comedy was. It was
an innovative film, and I think the best part about
that movie was the fact that the networks wanted to
use comedians and they said, no, you're not understanding the concept.
(08:55):
We want the real guys, the real actors who were
in those movies, to be in this movie and play
it as straight as they can and just deliver the dialogue.
And it was brilliant. It was absolutely.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Brilliant when it comes to delivering dialogue. That is certainly
something that David Leisure has established. He is a rare
expert at he can even make the bad dialogue work.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
My strong suit is making really dialogue work. I'm very
good at it. So when I was on empty nest
for seven years that writers would always come home, Man,
we're so sorry, I say, I don't worry about it, man,
I'll make it work. I got this, I got this. Yeah,
I'll make your job easier. I'll make this work. So
I was pretty good at making bad dialogue work, but.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
That was all to come later. After Airplane, which went
on to be a smash hit of nineteen eighty. However,
David Leisure didn't exactly book work off of its success.
He went to auditions, he did his thing, but he
just couldn't land that second big part. Things went from
iffy to dodgy to finally down bad. David Leisure had
to give up his apartment and he moved into his car.
(10:04):
Lucky for him, it was roomy. It was a nineteen
sixty four VW bus. Yet having to move into his
new hippie home on wheels was not the great moment
for the young actor.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Oh god, man, that was okay. So my marriage broke up.
I moved into my van. I bummed around la I
would park in front of friends' houses and then try
to find work as a waiter or a bartender or something.
I was just bouncing around, and then finally got an
apartment and I started waiting tables and nothing was happening. Now.
(10:38):
I'm in my mid thirties, divorced and going like, man,
this is not working out like I thought it was
going to work out.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
This is not an uncommon story for those who run
off to find fame and fortune in Hollywood. It can
be a tough town. That's always been true. They don't
call it the dream Factory because people there deeply committed
to reality. It's a town that makes sells and runs
on illusions, which can be disorienting for young Hollywood hopefuls.
(11:08):
That's how David Leisure found himself living out of his
VW parked in front of his friend's places, hoping to
get any work he could while still holding on to
his Hollywood dream. But he knew something needed to change, or,
more specifically, his girlfriend at the time saw something in him,
something that set him apart. Specifically, he was really good
(11:29):
at being charming, and most importantly, he was charming on camera.
He was also really good at smarmy, and both are
perfect for advertising.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
My girlfriend at the time, she says, why don't you
take a commercial workshop, you know, so you could do commercials?
And I said, ah, you know, there was a sort
of a stigma about being in commercials back then. But
I said, okay, well I give it a shot. So
I got in there and I just sort of basically
owned the room because you know, it was a bunch
of people. There were housewives and student and stuff, and
they weren't really actors, and so I just got in
(12:02):
there and I owned it. So I got an agent
right away. Being in commercials was fun. It was you know,
took up thirty seconds of your time too, that's all
I take. I immediately started working right away. And so
instead of earning like nine thousand dollars a year waiting
tables all night long, every day of the week, I
made twenty five thousand dollars that year. I worked four
whole days. I said, I'm in. I want to do commercials.
(12:25):
I'm in. I'm your guy.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Finally, David Leisure had found his lane.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
After a year or so, I was making one hundred
thousand dollars a year being invisible in commercials. It was cool.
I had some great commercial gigs that nobody knows about.
They were so cool. I would go to New York
for a week and they would shoot a bunch of commercials.
They were regional, but I made a ton of money,
and I used to get to go to New York
(12:51):
and go see plays, see my friends, see my actor buddies,
And this is a great gig. I love that gig.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
During his early run as a commercial pitch man, he
hawked products for a range of familiar companies. He played
a sleazy pizza parlor owner for Roundtable Pizza. He sold
burgers and shakes for Bob's Big Boy. He did ads
for the Canadian beer company Molson. Then David Leisure had
his biggest break yet. He did a series of ads
for The Yellow Pages. He played a no nonsense knockoff
(13:19):
of Detective Joe Friday from the radio and TV show Dragnet.
And during the run of all these various commercials, David
Leisure found a little secret to his success. One he
kept to himself, but he shared it with us.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
I got a lot of jobs pretending to be Steve
Martin at the time, because Steve Martin had just hit
really big in seventy nine seventy eight, and I saw
him on Saturday Night Live. I said, this is the
funniest guy in the world. So that Bob's Big Boy
commercial and that Roundtable Pizza a commercial you just spoke
about that was me doing Steve Martin.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Doing his street level impression of the rising young star.
Steve Martin worked well, like really well, and it showed
David Leisure aside of himself, one that he could turn
into his own brand of fame.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
I always say my acting range, you know, I played
a lying, sleazy Carl salesman and obnoxious mooching neighbors. So
my acting range is sleazy, obnoxious, mooching, slimy guy. That's
a pretty narrow parameter, but I'm pretty good at it.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
Enter joe Azuzu In nineteen eighty six, David Leizer beat
out roughly eighty other young, hopeful commercial actors, but there
was just something that stood out about his take on
the car salesman character. He had it. Jean Marie Obuji,
the art director from the ad agency de la Femina,
Travisano and Partners, said at the time about his audition quote,
(14:44):
when we saw him, we knew he was Joey Zuzu.
He could lie like a pro.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
That's hysterical, but.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Honestly, that was the thing. It was crystal clear here
was a guy who could make lying seemed fun and
even charming. You liked that Joe Azuzu was lying to you,
which flies in the face of what other advertisers were
doing at the time. However, lying was already having a
moment in the culture.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
John Lovett's had been on Saturday Night Live and he
had this liar character, Johnny Flanagan or something like that,
and so he had this great bit where he would
like you catch him thinking about his lie.
Speaker 5 (15:26):
I was on vacation at the time with my mistress,
Jeanne Kirkpatrick. Yeah, and then my wife find out about
it is the Morgan Fairchild.
Speaker 6 (15:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
While she was so jealous she cut off my allowance.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
So he goes like my wife, yeah, and he's thinking
Morgan Fairchild. He comes up with this lie.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Right.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Well, I said, that's not gonna work. They have twenty
one seconds, they have information they want to give out,
and if you sit there and you stop talking for
three seconds to think and act like John LOVETTZ did,
it's not going to work.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
So David Leisure thought about what the role called for.
How to bring the lyre to life and make it work,
not as a skit on SNL, but as a quick
hit car commercial. He worked out the answer. He would
be irretrievably mendacious. He transformed lying into a medium for
his rare art form.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
So I just went in there and did what I did,
which was smile and talk as smarmy as I could
possibly be, and I got the gig. It worked out
really well, and I just thought it was going to
be like one commercial, so it was fine. And then
they said they wanted to do a whole bit out
of it, which I couldn't have been happier. It turned
out really really well.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
Okay, let's take a pause for some samples from the
modern milieu of advertising. We'll be back after these ads
with more from the Pitchman, an actor extraordinaire David Leisure,
and will unveil the secrets of his greatest creation, Joe Azuzu.
(17:06):
In the nineteen eighties, advertising wasn't like how it is now.
That should go without saying, times change, taste change. What
once worked becomes old hat, it falls out of fashion.
But in the nineteen eighties advertising environment you can find
the planted seeds of our modern marketing. Think of Burger
King and their custom focused tagline have it Your Way,
or Ronald McDonald and his cast of characters the Hamburglar,
(17:29):
Mayor mccheese and Grimace entertaining the kids in Saturday morning commercials.
Also don't overlook Wendy's battling its way into the burger wars.
Wendy's had possibly the most famous of all the advertising
catchphrases when a little old lady asked, Where's the beef?
And also let's not sleep on New Coke, Coca Cola classic,
(17:49):
and the Pepsi Challenge. It was a heady time for
advertising as it was being born into our modern era,
and standing there above it all was the most famous
man and commercials, Joe Azuzu. How did the iconic pitchman
come to be? Beyond the audition when David Leisure first
nabbed the part like how did Joe Azuzu go from
(18:11):
a marketing pitch meeting to America's TV screens.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
The whole idea of the character came from Daryla Femina
Jerry Dela Femina. Specifically, he actually wrote a book about
dealing with Japanese car companies. It's called From the People
Who Brought You World War Two. It's a very funny
book and so everybody knows car dealers are not the
most honest people in the world. That's what everybody's image
(18:38):
of car dealers are. They hate that image, but that's
the way it is. So they were feeding on the
fact that car dealers just they just lie to get
you in there to buy cars. So they made that
part of an opera and I the of the commercial,
and it worked really, really well because they were really,
really funny.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
The dynamic of the Joe Azuzu ads was simple enough.
It relied on the simple site gag. Joezuzu would say
some outrageous lies about Azuzu cars or trucks, like maybe
about the new model and early Suv. The beloved Isuzu Trooper.
Joe Azuzu would promise that the Azuzu Trooper could seek
more people than the astrodome, while on screen there'd be
(19:17):
subtitles which told the truth he's lying. It was a
simple concept, yet fun and funny, and it was a
next level way for a second tier car company to
boast about the truth of its product.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
So what they could do with that is say what
the car is good in juxtaposition to what I said,
which was ridiculous. So then they said, no, what it
really does? It gets this many miles break Gallant. Oh,
what it really does is this much money. And no,
we won't give you a house, but we'll give you
a better deal on your financing. So it worked out.
It was a brilliant, brilliantly well constructed spot that they
(19:52):
came up with.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Of course, just as David Leiser was sipping from the
car of success, the bottom dropped out like the cup
was paper. In this case, what happened was David Leisure
broke his leg and he was scheduled to shoot a
whole run of new azuzu Ads, so the creative team
had to make it work. For the second Joe Azuzu Ad,
they had him lied to the viewers about how he
was racing at Monaco and he broke his leg, which
(20:19):
explains why he's on crutches and wearing a racetrack suit.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Van Jerno, I'm the world's greatest race car driver.
Speaker 6 (20:26):
Recently, I had a little problem here at Monte Carlo,
so I switched to this two hundred thousand.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Dollars Formula E's Suzu. It comes with driving gloves and
the pit crew all standard. It's so fast it will
go from Paris to Rome in two minutes.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
The ad worked perfectly, but at first there was well
a small panic.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
They freaked out, man, So I shot the first commercial.
They wanted to go in to do this whole series
of commercials, and I come in on crutches, in a
broken angle and a cast on my and now they're
freaked out because they have all these things planned out
for me. The race car driver thing was one of
my favorite bits. You know, I got in like silver
(21:08):
lamey racing suit, but I'm actually at a go card
center and so it's pretty silly. Those are all fun for.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
That first series of ads, as Joey Zuzu, David Leisure
and the creative team made the broken leg work. But
the creative team didn't want to come up with a
different reason for crutches in every single ad, so they
found some workarounds, like the time when David Leisure was
chained atop a giant rock in the Utah Desert like
he was modern day Prometheus, only in his case he
(21:38):
didn't dare defy the gods. Instead, he just wanted to
sell the people. Some of Zuzu Troopers be amazing. Isuzu
Trooper too. It's four wheel drive can take you anywhere.
In fact, I drove it up here myself.
Speaker 6 (21:52):
It has more seats than the astronom, plus enough cargo
space to carry texas and Isuzu will accept marbles and
sea shows's payment. They're selling fast, so you have to
come in in five minutes.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
You have mine work on it. They took an idea
from Chevy commercial which was shot back in the sixties.
They had this beautiful woman in a Chevy convertible in
a chiffon dress up on this rock in the middle
of nowhere. So they said, well, let's do that, so
(22:24):
we shot this commercial up there. It turned out to
be kind of a logistics nightmare because you know, even
when I was up on that rock and Moab, I
had a cast on my leg. If you look at
the commercial, you'll notice down by my feet there's a
big pile of rocks to hide the fact that I'm
not wearing a shoe.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
I got to cast. Murmur when he says, up on
this rock. If you haven't seen the ad, that phrase
wildly under sells the size and the scope of this
giant rock.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
You're up at eighteen hundred feet up in the air.
I'm chained to have a metal diaper on that you know,
they have chains on it, and so I'm hooked up
in case, you know besta wind comes up, and there
was always something that was happening because it was like, oh,
there's a storm coming in. We got to get you
within the next ten minutes. Otherwise you're the highest thing
(23:13):
in the world and you got a car, so lightning's
hitting you first. You're at TAG. So it was a
really cool shoot though. I mean we're out there for
at least a week, and then I had to dub
everything in anyway, and they had trouble because there was
red dust on the camber lands. I mean, everything you
could possibly think go run it went wrong. It was
just but it turned out to be very very cool,
(23:36):
pretty cool commercial.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
At this point in the American timeline, Joeyzuzuo fully entered
the zeitgeist. He was suddenly everywhere. He was one of
the biggest pop sensations of the late eighties. When it
came to commercials, it was pretty much Joey Zuzu and
that little old lady from the Wendy's ads aka Clara Peller,
the one who got famous for.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Saying where's the beef?
Speaker 3 (23:59):
The where's the Beef Lady and Joe Azuzu in the
late eighties. That was it. That was the mountaintop of marketing,
and for Joe Azuzu that stayed true for years. But
if you ask him, why do you think America loved
Joe Azuzu so much? David Leisure thinks the appeal of
his beloved character was actually rather simple and straightforward.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
You know, just because I was goofy looking, funny guy.
You know, I lied really well and they thought it
was funny, I guess. I mean, let's face it, pretty adorable.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
The height of his fame as a pitch man spanned
from nineteen eighty six to nineteen ninety. The high water
mark had to be when joe'zuza got his own Super
Bowl ad, not bad for a scrappy Japanese car maker
not named Honda or Toyota.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
I love the fact that I was in the Super
Bowl ad. Thing I thought that was that was one
of the coolest things. I'm on the stand. I'm in
the Super Bowl as an ad man. That's so cool.
I don't remember which one it was, but I remember
I was there.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
The strangest thing was how during his run as Joe Azuzu.
David Leisure became super famous, like really really famous, the
kind of fame where talk shows want to have you
on as a guest.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
After a while, yeah, we realized we had a big
deal going on because it got to be pretty famous.
I got more famous as being Joe as the character,
but more than me David. Right, so I got invited
to be on shows, but they didn't want David. It
took me a while to figure this out. What they
wanted was Joe, and so they would ask me the
(25:32):
stupidest questions. I'd be on like our Senior Hall Show
or Joan Rivers or somebody, or you know, the Tonight Show,
and they would be asking me questions. And I went
in there thinking, oh, they want to talk to David
Leisure the act. They didn't. They didn't care anything about
David Lee the actor. They wanted to talk to Joey Suzu.
And so they would ask me incredibly stupid questions. And
(25:53):
I didn't know it at the time, but on a
TV screen would be those little disclaimers, those cry ons
that would go ross and I would like, I came
off looking pretty stupid a lot of the times, but.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
It wasn't just that he faced frustration on talk shows.
David Leiser was now so famous he couldn't leave the
house without having to face the same folks who loved
his Joe Azuzu ads only when he wasn't on their
TV screens. David Leiser didn't think of himself as Joe Azuzu.
So what do you do when everyone you meet wherever
you go want you to lie to them?
Speaker 2 (26:28):
I lost my anonymity really really quickly. People would hear
my voice, they'd recognize me, and then they would come
up to me and they would say this gibberish and
I wouldn't. I would like go, like, what are they
talking about? What are you? What are you trying to
say to me? And then I would go, oh, they
see I'm the liar guy. They want me. They're lying
(26:48):
to me. They're telling me these ridiculous little things that
are lies. And I'm like, oh, okay, okay, thank you,
I get it, very clever, thank you. And I'd have
to excuse myself because I was like, I had no
idea what they're doing.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
As an actor, he knew exactly what he was doing.
He could almost effortlessly conjure up a compelling reality, he
could turn it on and become that guy Joe Azuzu.
But that was when he was working. That was his job. However,
now his job bled into everything, into every aspect of
his life. Like David Leisure found he couldn't even stop
(27:21):
to get gas without having to do some freelance emotional labor.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Like say, you go to put gas in your car,
right and you're just a regular person putting gas in
your car. But if you're recognizable and you're putting gas
in your car and somebody wants to tell you and
to say, hey, I appreciate what you do, but they
get a little nervous and that what comes out is
very awkward. And then now you have this awkward situation
where you're like you want to go home and take
(27:47):
a shower because you're all grubby and you're pumping gas,
and now you have to like communicate with another human
being and you're not really in the mood for it,
but you kind of have to be nice about it
and kind of go with whatever it was they were saying.
Then kind of like, you know, make it okay. So
you have to make it okay for them, otherwise they
get pissed at you. They really do. They get pissed
(28:08):
at you if you don't like go along with it,
so you have to kind of do that. It's part
of the deal.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
This calls to mind his gift for making a screenwriter's
bad dialogue work. David Lesuer found he could also make
this emotional moment work for a stranger where they'd kind
of written him into this impromptu scene for themselves, and
so there he is not getting paid but having to
work as Joe Azuzu and David Lesuer found that with
patients he was able to go along with it and
(28:35):
do so rather gracefully and artfully, which is why we
had to ask him did he learn about life and
grow as a person when he was constantly having to
do this spontaneous emotional labor just because he was trying
to get some gas.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Oh man, that's a very good question. Did I grow
as a person? I'd like to think I have. It
wasn't easy. I wasn't the most congenial person to get
along with at the beginning because I didn't realize what
was going on. It was like, it's very disconcerting to
lose your anonymity, you know, when people know who you
are all the time. It's like it's a weird thing,
(29:12):
so it takes a while to get used to. But
I think I matured a little bit. Let's get this straight.
Though I'm turning seventy five, I'm still as mature as
any twelve year old boy you'll ever meet.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
Okay, it's time we scratch that itch and run some ads.
Enjoy these, and hey, do it for Joe. Perhaps the
funniest thing about the run of Joey Zuzu is how
he made the car company a well known and beloved
brand in America's marketplace. But really it was more like
(29:46):
the car company made Joey Zuzu a beloved brand in
America's marketplace. In fact, so much so that his name
entered the murky world of American politics. In the presidential
election of nineteen eighty eight, the Democratic candidate for president,
Michael Dacaucus, referenced Joe Azuzu as a shorthand and as
an insult to his opponent, George H. W. Bush. Governor
(30:09):
Ducaccus said of the elder Bush that if the vice
president keeps it up, he's going to be the Joe
Azuzu of American politics. At that point, Joe Azuzu had
become code. He was America's idea of what a liar
looked like and sounded like. He was the new era Pinocchio.
But what was that moment like for David Leisure to
suddenly become part of American presidential history.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Everything that ever happened to me is Joe Zuzu. I
was flattered because I thought it was, like, it's just,
it's so insane that this character would be in the
lexicon of certain aspects of America, you know, So for
a politician to invoke the Joey Zuzu mystique against somebody
else as a threat or as a warning, I thought
(30:55):
it was pretty funny.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
But ironically, as much as people loved Joe Azuzu, he
wasn't selling cars. At first, the Joe Azuzu car commercials
did translate into increased car sales. There was an initial
eighteen percent spike in year over year car sales, but
then the next year, in nineteen eighty seven, the sales
numbers started to fall back to their normal range. In fact,
in nineteen eighty seven, the Zuzu sold fewer cars. They
(31:21):
sold fifty fewer cars in eighty seven than they did
the year before, and so naturally, the Japanese car maker
and the ad agency both saw the same obvious problem
with this downward sales trend. But the actor, David Leiser
knew little about sales trends and marketing forecasts. He kept
things simple.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Yeah, I wasn't. I wasn't part of that scenario. I
was just like trying to make the job work and
keep working. I was more concerned about me, mostly me,
and just about everything. Me was fine with me, But
I wasn't too concerned about where the whole trend was going.
I love doing the gig. I didn't want to lose
the gig.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
By nineteen ninety, the run was done, the eighties were over,
his era had passed. All that was left to do
now was to tell David Leisure the good times as
Joe Azuzu had come to the end of the road.
What was that moment like when he received that registered
letter and he read the bad news.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
I sat on the floor with the letter and a
balla vodka, and I'd take a ship and I'd read
the whole letter, and I'd take another pull on it.
I read the letter again, and I took another pull
on it, and I read the letter again and then
I put it down and I said, okay, that was that.
It was a pretty good run. Let it go, Liege,
let it go.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
But the world, and specifically the car maker Isuzu, wasn't
ready to let their lying pitchman go. A decade later,
the car maker brought back Joe Azuzu for a new
ad campaign after taking the nineties off from ads. Joe
Azuzu returned in two thousand. However, there was a little
secret about why the car maker resurrected Joe Azuzu.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
I didn't realize why they brought me back is because
the company was going down, and so they thought this
was sort of a last ditch effort to save Isuzu
in America.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
In a strange turn of fate, returning to Joe Azuzu
also returned David Leisure to his home state of Indiana,
back to America's heartland.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
So they actually took me to the factory where they
built the Azuzus, which is in lafay At, Indiana, and
they were so happy to see me. They had these
little placards with my face on it, and I mean
that was flattered.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
However, the secret reason for the return of Joe Azuzu
Soon enough bubbled up to the surface and David Leisure
saw why he was there in Indiana at the Azuzu factory.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Well, the reason they were so happy to see me
is because they were thinking I was going to save
their job. And these people, I mean, these are real
people with a real job, building a real product, and
worried about their job. Some of them drove four hours
to go to work every day. So it was that
was the first time actually felt the burden of what
(34:03):
the company goes through when it tries to make itself successful.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
Here he was the actor, the lying pitch man, the
nostalgia play, and in reality he was the last best
hope for the autoworkers in Indiana. That was when David
Leisure fully realized what he'd meant as the face of
the company, the image of these folks hopes. They felt
that placing their fate in the hands of this world
famous liar was their honest, best hope for their future.
(34:31):
But as an actor, David Leiser knew how impossible it
was to catch lightning in a bottle twice.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Yeah, you're absolutely right. Because it was such a later
time period, it went you know, it was like fifteen
years later. It was the year two thousand and then,
of course, the trade towers things hit, and that pretty
much killed any momentum that we might have had. They
took me to the Chicago Car Show and I think
it was two thousand and one, and this is back
when they finally let planes back in the air, and
(34:59):
I was one of two people on the plane because
there was nobody traveling anywhere. So I got to the
Chicago Car Show and I can tell you I literally
shook the hand of every single person at the car
show because there was only about fifty people. It's a
weird time period.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
And speaking of weird time periods, how about the twenty
twelve presidential campaign of Mitt Romney and perhaps the strangest
chapter in the history of Joeyzuzu. In twenty twelve, the
car Salesman returned to the world of American politics. It
was a commercial mocking Mitt Romney. The ad featured Mitt
Romney giving a speech and then morphed into Joeyzuzu giving
(35:38):
the speech, and the subtext was clear, He's lying.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Ah man, that was I mean, I actually kind of
regret doing that. It was sort of a political stance
that I took against somebody who at this moment in time,
I'd kill to have that person back, Mid Romney. I
was chiding Mitt Romney and his political opinions and viewpoints
(36:04):
in the world. I don't know. I kind of regret
ever doing that, but it was It was kind of
tough because I had to mimic his cadence and his
words and just sort of fake it. And it was
a weird. It was just a weird thing. I just,
I just I wish I hadn't done.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
It, which calls to mind our current modern moment in
American politics. Well, Joey Zuzu sat out the recent political cycle.
The actor David Leisure sees some parallels with his work
as a professional liar, so we asked what he thinks
about the joe izuzuification of American politics.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
I think we're in the middle of this is just
my opinion. I think, you know, everybody talks about civil war.
I think we're in a civil war right now. I
mean that we are so polarized as a nation. There's
one camp in the other camp, nobody likes anybody in
either camp, and the stuff that's going on now is
a little scary. I'm a little frightened for the state
(37:00):
of the nation.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
When he gazes out at the current zeitgeist and considers
the impact and importance of truth and honest conversations, David
Leisure has more to say than one might expect.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
See.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
The problem with the conversation is I don't think people
have a conversation to suss out the truth and then say, Okay,
there's the truth and put a frame around it and
enjoy it. I think what they do is they try
to have a conversation to justify their own opinions and
not have it changed. They're not willing to change their
(37:34):
opinion with a conversation. They're just trying to imbue their
opinion into the conversation and say this is the way
you should think. I mean, if you're going to change
your mind about something, that means you have to be
open to what is formally known as the truth. But people,
I don't think care about the truth anymore. They just
to care about their own opinions.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
David Leisure finds that the emotional power of the certainty
that is born of one's opinion, as opposed to the
objective truth, which requires effort and a process of discovery
remains a seductive option, but as with all lies, it
leaves a person vulnerable to exploitation by placing their trust
in the wrong things and in the wrong people.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
There's a certain amount of comfort that comes from having
an opinion about something, and there's a certain amount of
comfort that you give yourself for having an opinion and saying, Okay,
this is the way it's supposed to be. And that's
what puts the parameters around the life that you want
to live. And it's really hard. People hate change, which
(38:37):
is so ironic because nothing stays the same. You're born,
you change the second you're born. You're changing until the
day you've died. Everything in the universe is moving. There's
nothing stagnant, there's nothing staying the same. Ever, we're moving
around the sun. The sun's moving around the center of
the galaxy. The galaxy is moving around all the other galaxies.
(39:00):
Nothing stays the same, but we try to make it
the same just to make us feel better about ourselves.
It's not going to be the same. You have to
be able to adjust every day of your life.
Speaker 3 (39:11):
If you're wondering, did David Lezier make out alright? Playing
Joe Azuzu all those years. The actor would like you
to know it was all fun and games. But if
we're being real about it.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
Well let's let down play the money.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
That was always a major motivator for why he endured
his street level fame and played a liar so happily
and for so many years.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
Jozuzu gave me money. I was making money, but this
was better money, and then because of that, I got
even better money. So Jozuzu, Yep, money was a big
part of it. Profile. I got a really high profile
with Josuzu. Longevity. Here, Look it's twenty twenty five and
we're talking about something I did in the mid late
(39:55):
eighties and another millennium. I go, so longevity, money, longevity,
what else? I guess the reason to get up in
the morning you were gonna call me. So I got
up this morning to get ready for this conversation. So
I mean, yeah, I got a bunch of cool stuff
from Joe, nothing too esoterical, which.
Speaker 3 (40:14):
Brings us to the final question to consider. After all
these years, would the man who made Joe Azuzu famous
actually recommend an Azuzu? Of course, being who he is,
to answer that, David Leiser has a funny story about that.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Ah, So I have a long answer to that question. Yes,
I got it Azuzu the second year, and my manager
at the time said, I got them to give you
a car. So I went, oh, so I got a gift,
because that's what the word give means.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
Right.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
So but after I got the car, which I drove around,
I got a Trooper two, which was very cool. After
I drove it around, she sent me a bill for
ten percent of the car for her fee because she
got me that car, which is like money. So you
owe me ten percent of the car. So I went out.
(41:11):
So they didn't give me a car. It's part of
my salary now because you want ten percent of it. Okay, fine,
So I sent her ten percent in a check. The
next year, I got you another car, okay. So now
I got two troop or two's and she sent me
a bill for a certain amount. So I took that
bill and I went to the parks department at the
Zuzu and I said, give me this much money worth
(41:35):
a car and send it to this address. So I
sent her ten percent of a car to her office.
Like there was a hood and there were some wheels
and there was like, you know, like ashtray holder thing,
you know, and it just came sign here I go,
there you go, payton full.
Speaker 3 (41:57):
That's what you call a true Hollywood story.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Nasty little.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
But back to the question at hand, would he actually
really recommend than Azuzu?
Speaker 2 (42:10):
Driving the car was kind of cool? I mean it
was really early urban suv. It was there was only
Jeep as like a four wheel drive vehicle that was
it only ge and so before the suv thing took off,
Azuzu was the first considered suv along with Jeep that
(42:31):
was in the country. But it was more popular than
Jeep because it was like, you know, more of a
vehicle than a Jeep. They were pretty inexpensive and they
were very simple for cylinders, it wasn't a big deal.
So I had a few of them and they were
pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
So is that a recommendation, Well, they don't.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
Make it anymore.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
So yeah, this is not where the story of Joe
Azuzu ends. Because the folks who still love a Zuzu
troops have adopted the Pitchman as our patron saint.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
I've been adopted by these guys who take Azuzu Troopers
and there's like ten thousand of these people across the country.
So they adopted me as their mascot. They take a
Zuzu Troopers, they fix him up, and they take him
off roading. Now they beat the shit out of them,
but they fix them up. So they trade parts. Everybody
(43:23):
trades how do you fix this? What's this thing? How
do you fix that? And so they just all of
a sudden, I kind of, hey, hi, guys, what's going on.
I chripped in on this Facebook page, and all of
a sudden, every like, now I'm a celebrity for sure,
and they sort of adopted me and made me their mascot.
So it's kind of cool.
Speaker 3 (43:41):
So there it is. That's his story these days. That's
how Joe Azuzu became the patron saint, an unofficial mascot
of those folks who's still rocking a Zuzu Trooper. And
as for the reasons for his prolonged fame some decades later,
hopefully by now, that should be obvious. We Americans love
a liar. No really, well maybe some of us. Look
(44:02):
at that Joezuzu was just ahead of his time.
Speaker 5 (44:11):
Okay, this was genuinely a delightful rabbit hole. This is
one of those very special episodes on a topic that
it's not just that I didn't know about it, it's
that I didn't even know that I didn't know about it.
Speaker 3 (44:22):
Yeah, it's weird looking back because of how much Joeyzuzu
had a lock on the culture. I mean, he did
Super Bowl ats. This guy was like the go to.
The presidential campaigns are citing him. I think it's because
he was a liar, and back then America was really
charmed by a liar. So do you guys have a
very special moment from this one.
Speaker 4 (44:39):
Early on when that director as a joke puts a
Joe Isuzu name tag on him and then boom, it
changes the course of the rest of his life. Like
that is wild little thing.
Speaker 5 (44:51):
Yeah, maybe the name tag itself can be the very
special character.
Speaker 4 (44:57):
I hope that name tag is in some advertising museum
or the Smithsonian.
Speaker 5 (45:01):
What are you talking about?
Speaker 3 (45:02):
It just says Joe, Hi, my name is Joe. I
liked the moment when David Leisure is up on that
rock in Utah, the helicopters circling around him. He's wearing
the metal diaper chain to the rock and He's like
just hoping he doesn't become some living lightning magnet. How
do you as a performer deal with that terror?
Speaker 4 (45:18):
Right the lifelong friendship between Bob Hayes of Airplanes and
David Leisure, I love how we put it, like they're
barometers for each other and they check in with each other,
and like, that's awesome.
Speaker 3 (45:30):
I love that.
Speaker 4 (45:31):
I like the quote he's talking about his acting career
not going well and he's living in his van and
parking in front of friend's houses and says, this is
not working out like I thought it was going to
work out. And just like how real that feeling is.
And someone who made a fortune and was a very
prominent force in the culture for some time. I say
(45:54):
that to anyone going through some version of that right now,
you two could wind up in a car commercial that
runs for several decades.
Speaker 3 (46:03):
You just never know.
Speaker 4 (46:04):
You never know, Zaren. This was perhaps not our most
cinematic episode. I mean, it sounds great. Chris Childs doesn't
miss with these, but I don't know.
Speaker 3 (46:13):
I was able to cast it.
Speaker 4 (46:15):
You were, oh wow, look at you.
Speaker 3 (46:17):
I was able to cast it, but I only have
really the two guys. It's just basically Joey Zuzu and
Bob Hayes. So for Joey Zuzu, I thought, there's a
guy who looks a lot like him. I'm not sure
if you know him by name, John Michael Higgins. He's
in all the Christopher Guest documentaries. He played Save by
the Bell. Yeah, yeah, and one more, one more Great News.
Has anyone watched the show Great News?
Speaker 5 (46:38):
Loved Great News?
Speaker 4 (46:39):
Let's get that out. It's you in the culture too.
Speaker 5 (46:42):
If there are no fans left of Great News.
Speaker 3 (46:44):
I'm dead. For Bob Hayes was a little more difficult,
But uh, I thought I was looking at faces and
trying to get somebody who has the same charisma. And
this is kind of like a little bit out on
a limb here. But Jacob Olordi from Euphoria and the
New Friend Kenstein movie. He's like a very handsome guy
and he seems to have the same kind of quiet charm.
(47:04):
So there you go. There's my Bob Hayes. I love it.
Speaker 5 (47:07):
Get Jacob b Lordi in Anything You Can Do, Anything.
Speaker 4 (47:09):
That kids got legs. Get a role for our guy
David in that. Because the other version of this is
in the IP world let's ad some screenwriter to talk
to the a Zuzu Motors company and say we got
to do our Joey's Zuzu biopic.
Speaker 3 (47:24):
Now, it could be actually a good movie and it
has a lot of Americana to it.
Speaker 4 (47:29):
Very Special Episodes is made by some very special people.
The show is hosted by Zaren Burnett, Danish Schwartz, and
Jason English. Today's episode was written by Zaren Burnett. Our
senior producer is Josh Fisher. Editing and sound design by
Chris Childs, Mixing and mastering by Beiheed Fraser. Original music
(47:50):
by Alice McCoy. Show logo by Lucy Kintinia. I'm your
executive producer. We will see you back here next Wednesday.
You'd like to email the show, you can reach us
at Very Special Episodes at gmail dot com. Very Special
Episodes is a production of iHeart Podcasts.
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