Jim Ferguson

Fergy and I have been friends for a long, long time.  The first significant spot we did together was the NOTHING BUT NET commercial for McDonald’s with Michael Jordan and Larry Bird.  Ferg and his partner Jim Shallcross had written a script but it was extremely sketchy.  They were busier writing a script for Steven Spielberg’s LITTLE GIANTS, based on a previous McDonald’s commercial, so the script for this commercial had taken a back seat.  We went into the pre-pro and the client, Roy Bergold, asked what I thought of the script.  I said what script?   The script isn’t finished yet (we were shooting the next day).  Roy, twiddled his thumbs, looked around the suddenly quiet table, and said, “Well Joe, you’ve done great work for us in the past and I’m sure this will be good, too.”  Meeting over.  In the hallway Ferg attacked me.  I said, “What will they do?  Michael Jordan and Larry Bird are going to show up tomorrow.  Are they going to pull the plug?”  We all showed up the next day and the day after and the commercial won the Super Bowl polls.  Home run!!!  I don’t think Ferg has ever forgiven me.  He went on to great successes, president of Y& R, etc.  His only problem is that he worked on the Bush and Romney and Trump campaigns.  He’s saving his money for a double wide.  Another couple of years…