I do indeed remember!
And in a related story (although it's been a few years)...
Willard Whyte Canned!
Sara Lee Corp. has dumped Jimmy Dean as the spokesman for the breakfast sausage brand that he founded. Julie Ketay, a Sara Lee public relations person, spoke about replacing Dean."Unfortunately, we're not looking for a spokesman. We're focusing more on the product, not the person. Our consumers want convenience and great taste."
75 year old Jimmy Dean was not taking it real well to being divorced from the company he started in West Texas in 1969 and sold to Sara Lee in 1984. Not many entertainers put their name on a product and make a go of it over time, which is a compliment to Dean, who must have been a sharp businessman. His sausage was the nation's top seller in its category when he sold it to Sara Lee and remains so today. It is odd that Jimmy Dean would no longer be hawking Jimmy Dean sausage.
"It is extremely odd, and I don't understand it at all," said Dean in that same rich country voice that sold millions of records and even more pounds of sausage. "Hell, I'm still the best sausage peddler they've got." Dean said that's exactly what he told Sara Lee President Bob Kopriva after he was dumped.
"He said, 'Yes, that's true, but you're not going to live forever and we've got to move on,'" recalled Dean. "It's kind of painful to hear someone say: We don't need you anymore. But the old folks left Sara Lee and the new ones came in. And always the new ones want to reinvent the wheel. They told me when this thing happened that they were trying to attract the younger housewife. An old saying came back to me from some West Texas dance hall: You better remember to dance with the one who brung you."
Dean said he understood the company's desire not to use him on camera ("My face has so many wrinkles it looks like 12 minutes of bad reception"), but figures they could have worked around that.