“No Gimmicks,” Say 1986 Glenn Beck And His Chimp Zippy

Salon’s excellent 3-part series on Glenn Beck‘s Zoo Crew roots has restored a lot of focus to the impact that Glenn Beck’s instincts as an entertainer have on his political stances. Google News Spotlight, an automatic aggregator which highlights heavily linked-to and debated articles from across the blogosphere, has placed the article near the top of its feed; it’s also gotten a ton of play on Metafilter.

The Salon series has also had a hand in making a viral phenomenon out of this zany 1986 TV ad for Beck’s radio show, which involves balloons, cuckoo clocks, and a chimp named Zippy. Yes, this is actually real. Observe:

As Glenn Beck, art historian, Glenn Beck, fake karaoke singer, and Glenn Beck’s fake boiled frog (below) can attest, who needs gimmicks?

(via BuzzFeed)

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