Save the 76 Ball - save the 76 ball

Michael Madsen wants to Save Ray's Balls!

kim — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 20:14:03 -0700

Actor fights for Hollywood balls

By Chris Vallance, BBC News

Hollywood actor Michael Madsen, best known for his roles in films such as Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill and Sin City, has thrown his weight behind a web-based campaign to save an iconic piece of Americana.

The Union 76 petrol station signs, otherwise known as the "76 Ball", have been a feature of the Los Angeles landscape for nearly 50 years.

The large orange spheres were created by designer Ray Pedersen for the 1962 Seattle World's fair.

The signs have even had cameo appearances in Hollywood movies - one was knocked down by a rampaging T-Rex in the film Jurassic Park: The Lost World.

But the 76 balls, which adorn petrol stations across the Western US, are being replaced with more conservative flat signs by Union 76's Texan parent company ConocoPhillips, sparking a blog-based campaign for their preservation.

Madsen said he decided to join the cause after seeing a newspaper report detailing blogger Kim Cooper's efforts to save the historic signs.

"There seems to be this driving force to tear down everything that's a little old", he told the BBC.

"These are things that were landmarks, it's a symbol that I remember from childhood. What's the point of smashing them and putting up flat signs?"

Film talent

In Madsen's view Los Angeles' increasingly bland environment is representative of a process of thoughtless modernisation that is taking over the movies too, "everything is just getting completely homogenised", the actor said.

"I grew up in a time when I watched actors like Humphrey Bogart and Robert Mitchum... those are the movies that I liked and I responded to.

"They're all gone now and there's no talent like that anymore, there's no immensity of talent that exists like that in the motion picture industry.

The same thing is happening to the motion picture industry that is happening to the landscape

"Even the movies are turning into a bunch of junk.

"They think if they put a handsome face in there or a good-looking body and they surround it with enough cars blowing up, that it is going to be entertaining... but in the long run it's just not going to last.

"It's all empty, there's no story anymore... the same thing is happening to the motion picture industry that is happening to the landscape."

Phone box

As well as lending his voice to the campaign Madsen has made a personal effort to save the signs from destruction.

Having been tipped off about a facility where dismantled balls we being kept he attempted to purchase one, but was told that they were all going to be crushed.

He said, "I get so mystified by things like that. Not only do they want to take them down, but they are going to make sure they smash everyone of them into pieces."

The 76 Ball is not the first piece of disappearing street furniture that the star has attempted to save.

He is also buying one of Britain's old red telephone boxes in an effort to preserve a little bit of the London that he remembers.

"I'm in the process of purchasing one of the phone boxes for myself and having it put up in the front of the garden. My kids aren't going to see the same London that I saw, my kids aren't going to see the same California that I saw."

PR Week feature: Cooper has a ball in effort to save brand icon

kim — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 10:28:23 -0700

Cooper has a ball in effort to save brand icon
by Randi Schmelzer - 5 Jun 2006 10:53

Burma-Shave rhyme signs, Howard Johnson's orange roofs, KFC's revolving chicken buckets: all pieces of modern Americana that today exist mostly in memory alone. Now, the iconic orange-and-blue Union 76 gas-station ball is on its way to joining them - unless Kim Cooper can stop it.

Cooper, 39, is a native Angelino and self-proclaimed "ultimate dilettante." From editing and publishing Scram, a journal of un- popular culture, to co-hosting the "1947project," a blog and bus-tour series highlighting LA's off-the-beaten-path crime sites, "my job is rescuing the underdog from neglect and destruction," she says.

The underdog this time is the 76 ball, the 45-year-old victim of a quiet marketing shift that began just after the 2002 merger of gas giants Conoco and Phillips.

According to its 2004 annual report, ConocoPhillips, which operates Conoco and Phillips gas stations, as well as 76, that year initiated a project to streamline the three brands' marketing efforts. So while its Web site refers to the 76 logo as "a long-trusted symbol [that] means something special to our customers," its most recent graphic-standards manual calls for a brand-consistent red-and-blue color scheme, rather than the historic, eye-popping orange.

"They began knocking down the 76 balls," Cooper recalls. These omnipresent symbols for gasoline in many parts of the US were methodically being substituted with ground-level "monuments" or taller, disc-shaped signage. Many of the LA area's 400 spheres have already been replaced, including the one that rose above Dodger Stadium for decades.

Cooper teamed with LA author Nathan Marsak in January to launch www.savethe76ball.com, a Web site dedicated to preserving the 76 balls "for generations to come." Featuring 76 sphere-related news, history, photos, and discussion, the site includes downloadable "I love your 76 ball" calling cards and a link to an online petition urging ball lovers to boycott ConocoPhillips-brand outlets if the company "does not demonstrate greater respect for the history and good will associated with the 76 ball."

Orb enthusiasts have responded in droves. The petition has 2,100-plus signatures, many accompanied by wistful, ball-inspired recollections and pledges to pump at Exxon or Shell. |

Cooper's endeavor has been showcased by media outlets from the LA Times to the BBC. Actor Michael Madsen even offered to help out, then asked where he could get his hands on a retired sphere. And following a Seattle radio interview, Cooper was contacted by former Young & Rubicam art director Ray Pederson - the man who designed the original ball as signage for a Union Oil Co.-sponsored sky-tram ride at the 1962 World's Fair - who offered his enthusiastic support.

Although ConocoPhillips has issued a statement thanking 76 ball junkies for their patronage, the company has yet to discontinue its icon-devastating, brand-continuity effort. But "the fact that people feel as strongly as they do about the balls," Cooper says, is a testament to their resonance.

"Children look for the 76 pumpkin every Halloween, and it makes them happy," she says. And the company's ubiquitous car-antenna mini-balls, introduced in 1967, became both a promotional coup and a still-strong fad: By the late 1990s, 76 was dolling out 4 million toppers every year.

Cooper admits that on some level, the effort is prank-like and "silly." She says she's "been attacked by people for putting my energies into this rather frivolous and highly charged campaign."

But saving the 76 sphere is about more than a gas-station sign. "If you don't look at what's around you, it's very easy to not care if things get knocked down and destroyed, things that actually reflect the culture, history, and changes of your place," she explains. "I think it's a tragedy."

Kim Cooper

2005-present
Cofounder, Explosive PR/Dumplingfeed media consultancy

1995-2000
Exhibition coordinator and librarian, LA Museum of Contemporary Art

1991-1992
Researcher, The Oakland Museum of California

Copyright © 2005 PRWeek

photo by Ricardo DeAratanha, LA Times

76 Ball Fans in Indianapolis URGENT request!

kim — Sat, 27 May 2006 14:29:27 -0700

WANTED: for a major opportunity to help Save the 76 Ball, any 76 Ball fans in Indianapolis who have some 76 memorabilia handy and would be willing to loan it to our Earl Ma before Monday, please contact us immediately. This is your chance to be part of a very cool, celebrity surprise that will be posted on this site presently. Antenna toppers, keychains, magic 76/8 balls, decals, t-shirts, anything will do, and we are grateful for your help. Thanks!

L.A. Times front page feature today

kim — Sun, 14 May 2006 09:04:24 -0700

What a thrill for this native Angeleno to pick up the "bulldog" (Saturday's preview) edition of the Sunday L.A. Times and discover that reporter Steve Gold's delightful story about the 76 Ball was on the front page, under the fold!

Welcome, L.A. Times readers, and for those who haven't seen the piece yet, you can read it online here. (But to see the silly photo of me posing like Atlas with a 76 meatball in my palm, you'll have to pick up the paper.)

And there are so many terrific comments on the petition this morning. Please sign if you haven't already, and spread the word to your friends. If the 76 Ball is going to be saved, it's up to people like you to quickly show the new owners that this is just bad business.

The Hermon Ball Comes Down

kim — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 20:57:59 -0700

Reporter Darleene Powells, who filed a swell piece on our 1947project Crime Bus tour earlier this year, was witness to this sad scene as she drove to the Y this morning:

Yes, that is the wonderful spinning ball at Monterey and Avenue 60 in the tiny NE Los Angeles township of Hermon, the same ball featured on the KTLA Morning News' feature on the Save the 76 Ball campaign.

Darleene notes: I'd read about this a couple of times on Franklin Avenue (here, here and here) and later noted to myself, a little smugly, that the 76 station near my house still featured its meatball. I have to admit I was hoping that this 76 station, tucked into an area of Los Angeles doesn't feel like Los Angeles, would escape notice, but alas. There goes the ball, sitting sadly on its 6.

It's ironic, as we enter the Easter season, to see this icon of modern design pulled down from its pole... perhaps not such a huge leap to the image of the dead Christ taken down from the cross? Like Christ, we hope our beloved 76 Balls will be resurrected, as ConocoPhillips crunches the numbers and sees that since consumers do have a choice, many of them are no longer shopping where the 76 Ball doesn't fly.

Save the 76 Ball! It's not too late!

76 Balls featured in L.A. CityBeat's design issue

kim — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 20:54:01 -0700

The Old Ball Game (link)

Last autumn, ConocoPhillips began to pluck the famous orange balls from their posts at Union 76 and Unocal gas stations and replace them with flat, rectangular signs that aren’t even orange. This sent loyal customers and commercial-design mavens into a fury. To fight back, local writer Kim Cooper launched Savethe76ball.com in January. Ray Pedersen, the ball’s designer, soon took notice, and the two joined forces to launch the campaign “Save Ray’s Balls.”

The ball was born at the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair, when Pedersen was approached to create a marker for 76 at a unique skyride installation. “But hanging a sign on it,” said Pedersen, “would be tantamount to ruining something architecturally beautiful.” Instead, he ran a pole up the center of the base and hung a sign on that. As it spun, Pedersen recalls, “It looked like hell. It was a lollipop. I said, ‘We need a ball … and I’d like to light the damn thing from inside. Everybody looked at me like I was crazy.”

Nevertheless, Pedersen started building the ball. But he was nearly fired for racking up almost $50,000 in expenses. When he saw his boss standing beneath the prototype, waving his arms and pointing at it, Pedersen thought he was “in deep doo-doo.” Much to his surprise, he says, his boss emphatically shouted “Goddammit, we’re gonna put one of these up at every station!”

“They were a beacon,” continues Pedersen. “You could see them all over the place.”

The 76 ball at Dodger Stadium was removed during recent off-season renovations, when fans wouldn’t be present. “It’s like, let’s get rid of this one quick, because when the season starts, people have a chance to notice,” Cooper says. “I was really hoping we could rally to save it.”

What becomes of the fallen balls? Last month, several were discovered in Fresno. Behind a chain-link fence lay at least a half-dozen orange spheres, one facing out as though from a detention camp of other lost souls of signage, damned to a death of rust and cobwebs.

Returning the balls to their rightful posts is possible, but not imminent. Almost 1,500 people have signed the online petition, threatening to buy their gasoline elsewhere if their stations take down the ball.

When ConocoPhillips bought Union 76, it intentionally didn’t purchase the rights to the ball. “It was going to be a little extra to buy, and they just said, ‘We don’t need them,’” asserts Cooper. Those rights now belong to Chevron.

“Once the Conoco people do this, they’re gonna destroy the personality of 76,” says Pedersen. “But that’s their nickel, right? They’re not gonna change.”

–Ryder Palmere (CityBeat)

Los Angeles Magazine Article

kim — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 08:14:48 -0800

Thanks to the good folks at Los Angeles Magazine (April issue, not yet online) for the swell piece on the campaign to Save the 76 Ball.

We are tickled to see our Ray's balls next to the Bettie Page feature, and further tickled by the ConocoPhillips spokesperson's amusing claims that they had heard nothing about any campaign to Save the 76 Ball--really? so the calls from the BBC, LA Business Journal, Brandweek, KTLA, KABC and Daily Telegraph didn't go through?--and that anyway, they had heard many more complements than complaints about the new signs.

Nice work, PR flack! That's what the boss men want to hear!

...now the stockholders, on the other hand, might be interested in knowing that as of today, 1493 people have signed the petition supporting the retention of the balls, most pledging not to purchase gas from your stations unless an orange sphere flies high above!

Take special note of signatory Charles Vaughan (#1440), who proclaims "$300 in personal gasoline expense a month and well over $1000 for my company is now being spent at Exxon." Ouch! That's a pretty expensive side effect from a failed re-branding attempt!

So c'mon, let's Save Ray's Balls! It's not too late!

A Visit To The 76 Ball Graveyeard

kim — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 08:43:00 -0800

Intrepid 76 Ball Fan J. Eric Freedner has made a startling discovery near Fresno, CA, a discovery that bodes well for those of us who believe ConocoPhillips needs to REPLACE the 76 Balls that they've taken down from their poles. He reports:

Well, I had a feeling I would find the "missing" 76 balls and... here they are!

A whole bunch of orange balls is now in the yard of Nelson Sign Service on Golden State Highway (Old Route 99) in Fresno, California.

These weren't here a few months ago! What do they plan to do with them? Spheres take up a whole lot more space than flat signs so I have a feeling Mr. Nelson won't keep them around forever...

There are also some flat 76 signs such as this old Fast Break one. I'm not sure if the "Fast Break" chain is still in business. Haven't seen any with the new red 76 logos, anyway.

Lots more "petro-jumble" at Nelson's but this sums it up as far as the Balls are concerned. I would think a similar yard exists for the Los Angeles area, at least for those balls the sign people don't clumsily drop to the ground!

76 Ball to be discussed at Modcom Meeting (Monday, Santa Monica)

kim — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 20:01:13 -0800

The good folks of the Modcom division of the Los Angeles Conservancy have extended an invitation to discuss the Save the 76 Ball campaign at Monday night's monthly meeting in Santa Monica, CA. Friends of the 76 Ball are invited to attend this free meeting to connect with others interested in saving the signs, and learn about the important work of Modcom. The 76 Ball discussion will be in "new business" in the 8pm hour, but please come early if you can. More info:

Monday, March 20th
6:30PM meet & greet
7:00PM meeting

Santa Monica Main Library
Multi-Purpose Room
601 Santa Monica Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90401
MAP

Our friends at the Santa Monica Conservancy will be joining us for the meeting. SM Conservancy Vice-President John Zinner, a leading sustainable development consultant, will give a brief discussion on the value of green buildings, of which the Main Library is a noteworthy example, and the connection to historic preservation.

Save the Swedish Meatball!

kim — Sun, 12 Mar 2006 14:58:20 -0800

The following article appeared on the Swedish website (newspaper?) Ny Teknik. If any of our readers can read Swedish, we would love to know what it says!

Amerikaner slåss för sina bollar

Bensinstationskedjan Union 76s skyltar har blivit en del av allas vår bild av USA. Antingen vi sett dem på plats längs någon Interstate Highway eller känner igen dem från en amerikansk roadmovie. Stora lysande orange bollar på höga master, med sifferkombinationen snitsigt målad i mörkblått och vitt.

Nu plockas de brandgula bollarna ner en efter en. Union 76 är sedan länge införlivat i den ännu större koncernen Conoco Phillips, som tycker att det räcker med helt vanliga platta skyltar. Och att siffrorna gör sig bättre mot en röd, inte en orange, bakgrund.

Men Conoco Phillips bollplockning möter motstånd. På internet cirkulerar namninsamlingar till försvar för dessa motorvägarnas lysande landmärken. Det finns en hel webbplats, http://www.savethe76ball.com/ med samma syfte.

Kanske kan reaktionen jämföras med svenskarnas känslor när Sparbankerna bytte bort sin välkända ek.

Den gamla trygghetssymbolen devalverades till något som mest såg ut som en sliten femöring. Och även om 76-bollens försvarare talar om den som ett designmästerverk, så tror jag att reaktionen också nu ytterst handlar om något annat.

Union 76 reste sina bollar på 1960-talet, långt före alla oljekriser, i en tid då bensinen var billig, särskilt i USA, och det aldrig talades om växthuseffekten. Längtan tillbaka till den tiden delas av många, särskilt de som då var unga. Framtiden var aldrig så ljus - och heller inte så bilburen - som då.

Och den längtan är knappast begränsad till amerikaner. För varför skulle annars rivningen av en BP-mack längs Ringvägen i Stockholm utlösa upprörda insändare eller svenska eternitkramare samla på sig bilkuddar med Gulfsymboler.