Here in the US we were recently in the middle of a furore over Donald Trump’s posting of a video on his pathetic “Truth Social” media platform depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes … which was met with swift blowback and condemnation on other social media by the half of America that wasn’t stupid enough to vote for him. However, it reminded me of an unfortunate incident back in the 80’s when I was working on the Xerox account at Y&R, New York.
I had come up with a campaign titled “Rick & Richard.” It featured Rick, a scientist at Xerox PARC, the famous research establishment that had invented everything from computer graphics, to local area networking, to the mouse. Richard was his assistant who checked the user friendliness of Ricks creations. Richard was also a chimpanzee and was the grandson of the chimpanzee who starred in the commercial that PKL, New York, created to launch the Xerox 914, the world’s very first dry copier back in the early 60’s.
My “Rick & Richard” campaign was enthusiastically received at both Y&R and Xerox, but before final clearance I had to present it to the Xerox Board of Directors. They all seemed to like it with the exception of one sour faced individual who raised his hand and pronounced… “We cannot run that.” I asked him why. “It has a monkey in it.” he replied. “Yes, that’s the point” I responded, “It demonstrates how everything Rick invents is easy to use.” “We cannot run that campaign,” he persisted. I again asked him why. “Because many of the workers in our factory are black” he responded. There was a moment of stunned silence, then I jumped up, shouted “My wife is black!” (she isn’t, by the way) and left the room. Needless to say, “Rick & Richard” never saw the light of day.
