Pat has been on television nearly as often as Morley Safer and yet you may have missed his stirring performance in a Taco Time commercial playing “The Cop”. Then again, you might remember it quite well. Who’s to say? Either way, these are large files and will take time to download and play. So click the link of your choice, sit back, and wait. There’s a very good chance you will see something.
Pat Cashman video demo
This is a worthy collection of video clips, primarily from “Almost Live!” of Pat as (roughly in order of appearance ) Spokesperson Marvin Cutler for “Wonderful Discoveries”, then the ultimate “Going Out of Business” Rug merchant, that odd fuzzy haired painting instructor, soon to be fired weatherman Brian Dickson, Mr. Lowery and his book “Think Positive and Win”, as himself with target Bill Stainton, an older playwright, a coughing mystery show host, an annoying talk show host, a dim witted fisherman with a powerful way to fish, Lenny, who likes to break in and leave flowers, politician Carl Dimnoggin, a private detective with a poor vocabulary, and sadly…a man with mange.
Taco Time TV commercial
Created by David Leonard Creative. Shot in December of last year (on 35 mm film), it was an absolutely freezing weather day…you can see Pat’s breath in one quick shot. Either that, or he was smoking. By the way, that is not actually Pat driving the motorcycle at the beginning—they were afraid he would wreck it. They would have been correct.
Most people assume that there is a man inside the cactus suit. In fact, there is no one inside—but there were two guys lying on the floor of the convertible—just out of sight—manipulating the arms and head of the rubber cactus. There were also two guys manipulating Pat’s arms and head. The cactus was a typical Hollywood-type. He showed up with a huge entourage, including 18 saguaros and a couple dozen prickly pear hangers-on.
KING 5 News Promo
Written, directed and edited by Pat, the promo won several awards, including the Broadcast Promotion Executives Gold Medallion, the industry’s top honor. Tony Ventrella, at that time KING TV’s sports anchor – and the venerable news anchor Jean Enersen, star.
For the closing shot, wastebaskets were borrowed from nearly every office in KING’s building. A behind-the-scenes note: Tony was originally slated to throw the paper wads at the wastebasket, intended to always be missed shots. But he wound up making most of them, so Pat decided to become the shooter instead – missing reliably, and thus saving lots of valuable film.
In the very last shot, the paper wad was dropped from a ladder just above – and was achieved in one take – again, by Pat. Incidentally, he was cut from every basketball team he ever tried out for – from the seventh grade on.
Carl Dimnoggin for State Treasurer
Intended to be a send-up of every falsely sincere political ad that we have all be subjected to. Pat portrays Carl Dimnoggin, the sticky-fingered candidate. Pat is also the off-camera voice – he just took a few on-camera pauses as Carl Dimnoggin, and then added the other voice afterwards. By the way, that is Pat’s actual wife, Patty – and daughter Katie – in the supporting roles. Good thing Pat was also wearing some support, as it turns out. Pat was writer, producer and editor for this spot.
Epilogue: Surprisingly, Dimnoggin WAS elected – and served for two years until he was arrested for fraud.
Alaska Airlines Presentation Segment
This piece parodied some new flight crew uniforms that Alaska Airlines was introducing several years ago. Pat wrote and produced it along with several other short humorous segments that were used in an Alaska employees gathering. The film segment is excerpted from an old Flash Gordon serial, with Pat replacing the voices with his own – and adding new SFX (most notably squeaking shoes and pants ripping) and music too.