The Further Selling of Big Johnson


Things have gone from horribly bad to unbelievably worse for Mike LeMire (our in-house lawyer formerly of the prestigious Baltimore law firm of Dewey, Cheatem & Howe). In past issue of the TIMES, we chronicled the no show on the BIG JOHNSON BEER front. Then there was the time Mike attempted to redeem his good name by lending ours to a few less than desirable licensors, including someone who wanted to make an inflatable BIG JOHNSON doll. We’d toyed with the idea of an action-figure E. Normus for a while (no pun intended) and so this didn’t seem like that big of a jump. The problem came when we got the first shipment of dolls and we suddenly realized just where you had to “blow him up”. (Let’s just say the air tube was located in a spot that, had you inflated him in public, you’d either be arrested on indecent public acts charges or you’d get invited to a lot of weekends away in San Francisco.)

Then came the BIG JOHNSON toilet seat cover. It was questionable at best. Curly Joe put the proto-type on his bathroom at home and soon had to go to the doctor for bladder and colon problems. (“I couldn’t go with him looking at me all the time,” said Curly Joe from his hospital bed, still attached to a variety of very uncomfortable tubes and pumps. “And now I’ve got nightmares to boot.”)

Finally there was Mike’s totally insane marketing of the BIG JOHNSON Home Pregnancy Test Kit. No one could figure this one out. And the news went from bad to worse when it was revealed that the kits, manufactured in Kuala Lampur and shipped to the U.S. in crates marked “Bibles”, were found to cause serious health problems including: dizziness, joint swelling, abdominal cramps, internal bleeding, blindness, nausea, hair loss, painful rectal itch, gum disease, warts and spontaneous combustion. The FDA warning simply read “Don’t even pick this box up!”

“They all seemed like good ideas at the time,” said Mike in answering to all of this. Unfortunately, the time had been last call at the “House of Babes.”

These were just some of the missteps and downright bone-headed decisions that "Loophole" (as Mike is known to his friends and bookies) has made for BIG JOHNSONCO. But they would pale in comparison to his trip to the Far East.

Shemp Johnson (CEO of BIG JOHNSONCO and debt holder for Mike LeMire) had been expressing interest for several months in going after the growing Pacific Rim market for Big Johnson. "Hell, if they liked Godzilla," said Shemp, "then this'll knock their socks off!! Uh, do they wear socks with those sandals?"

		Mike LeMire visits Japan to Sell Big Johnson

It seemed reasonable. Afterall, the Big Johnson market has expanded recently to include over 35 countries in Europe, South and Central America, Australia and the Middle East. Why not the Far East?

So, Mike was packed aboard a jet and sent out on a whirlwind tour of Japan with the mission of getting new accounts and distributors. For over a month he was gone and we received not one word or letter. It was as if he'd fallen off the face of the earth. As it turned out, this wasn't a bad thing as the legal department actually ran smoother and faster WITHOUT Mike there.

Then, as suddenly as he'd disappeared, Mike showed up at our doors with no luggage, no samples and almost no clothes (he was clad only in a pair of socks, a sports jacket and an extra large pair of Depends Adult Undergarments). Still a bit befuddled from his journey it took over a day to get the whole story out of him. He hadn't quite carried out his mission in Japan. In fact he'd never left the Tokyo Airport Bar. The whole month he'd spent in Japan, Mike had stayed drunk on Saki and Kirin beer trying to figure out what kind of raw meat he was eating. He'd also inadvertently sold the rights to "Big Johnson" to the Yakuza for a handful of rice and a Videotape copy of "Speed Racer". They changed the look, content, style, words, colors and makeup of the designs, began printing and selling them and then had LeMire deported as an "Undesirable Alien".

		The Japanese version of Big Johnson. Or as he is known there: Big Job Hot Daddy

Mike can't wait for his upcoming trip to Pakistan.