Big Bill Hell's

About

Big Bill Hell's is the name of a fictional used car dealership set in Baltimore, Maryland, best known for it's vulgar parody of local sales commercial that opens with "Fuck you, Baltimore! If you're dumb enough to buy a new car this weekend, you're a big enough schmuck to come to Big Bill Hell's Cars."

Origin

This highly over the top commercial was originally produced as a joke in 1990 for a faux award show put on be the Advertising Association of Baltimore called The Ad Follies. The AAB searched for agencies willing to produce ad spoofs mocking the top agencies in the city despite the impending threat that people working on these spoofs may place their jobs in jeopardy for doing so. The production was conducted at television studio WBFF and all of the footage originates from car manufacturer promotional videos and generic stock footage. The writer and narrator of the copy are still both unknown.

The video was never intended to be shown outside of The Ad Follies show because of the vulgarity and the possibilities of being viewed by the mocked. Copies were only distributed to people who worked on production and to WBFF employees following the screening.

Online Origin

Among the earliest instances of Big Bill Hell's video can be found on Fugly.com, uploaded on April 6th, 2006.

The video first appeared on YouTube on June 19th, 2006, as "F You Baltimore." It was then re-uploaded several times over the years to YouTube and various other video sharing sites.

YouTube user unusualsuspectmm, who uploaded the "F You Baltimore" version to YouTube, came across the tape while working at a video production facility. A customer brought in the commercial on a VHS tape wanting it transferred to DVD and he encouraged the employees to make a copies for themselves. There is an altered version of the video from the production facility copies where a "B&R" sign is superimposed on the door of a car seen four seconds in.

Spread

Big Bill Hell's popularity began circa April 2006, probably in conjunction with the upload to Fugly.com. It peaked again in January 2007 when the video was uploaded to CollegeHumor and linked on MetaFilter.

In April 2007, it was ranked #1 on the list of Associated Content's Top 10 YouTube Videos.

Derivatives

Search Interest