Michael Buffer has
the primo gig. You have to be
envious. With his room-filling baritone this ring announcer has one job
and one only. That is to say
“Let’s
get rrrrready to rumble.”
But what I like is that he’s stepped out away from
the ring and brought his talented tonsils to other fields. There’s no
reason other activities can’t enjoy his auditory.
At gymnastic events and weddings he’s all
“Let’s get
rrrrready to tumble!”
At cookie bake-offs he’s there with his
“Let’s get
rrrrready to crumble!”
At debates where Sylvester Stallone and Marlon
Brando face off it’s
“Let’s get
rrrrready
to
mumble!”
At football games where OSU tailback Tatum Bell
carries the ball, he says
“Let’s get
rrrrready
to fumble!”
At Latin dance contests, Buffer belts out his
“Let’s
get rrrrready to Rumba!”
At the orthopedic operating theatre he shouts
“Let’s
get rrrrready for the lumbar!”
On the Iron Chef cooking show Buffer has his
“Let’s
get rrrrready to add the cucumber!”
Enough already. You get the idea. Buffer and his
patented slogan get around. He’s big. He’s the most popular boxing
figure in Germany. He’s everywhere: TV, movies, disco records, video
games (4), T-Shirts, ball caps, hot sauce –
“Let’s get rrrrready
to…arrrrgggghhh… owww,” autographed boxing gloves, you name it.
To
check Buffer’s popularity we did a Yahoo search and came up with
396,000 sites. For comparison the two highest paid baseball players -
Alex Rodriquez and Barry Bonds - had 341K and 272K
respectively.
There’s even a site called the BufferZone.Net
designed to snitch on anyone using the phrase:
Let’s Get Ready to …. It
seems that in 1995 Buffer copyrighted anything that starts with
“Let’s
get ready” and the BufferZone will pay people who report
infringements on the phrase. If a church group prints up a T-Shirt
promoting bingo night with
“Let’s
get rrrready to Bingo” snitches can
collect bucks by turning in the grannies.
It doesn’t even have to be “Let’s get ready…” It can
be “Are you ready…” Or it can be “Are you prepared to gamble?” just so
long as it plays on the excitement of Buffer’s coined introduction. The
site doesn’t guarantee that the snitch will get money but it does say
he’ll get a “special gift” for his report. The money, called “a bonus”
comes if and when the Buffer group makes a “recovery” based on the
information. In either case the snitcher does become an associate
member of the “Rumble Team.”
You’ve got to protect your livelihood. That’s
millions of dollars from coming up with one phrase. One phrase that
starts the heart pumping: “Let’s get ready” is as good or better than
the Baha Men’s “Who let the Dogs out?” Actually better, eleven times
better. Baha Men only came up on 36,000 websites.
I’m working on the
phrase: “That’s not a muskrat.”
It doesn’t quite have the cache’ of “Let’s get rrrrready” but it might
find a niche. Say a car dealer is introducing the new Corvette, we
could be at the grand opening with “That’s not a muskrat” or if a bank
is giving away toasters with each new account we could be there saying
“That’s not a muskrat.” We’d have T-shirts with a picture of a muskrat
and little old man reading “Muskrat – Not a Muskrat.”
And then if some church group decided to have “Not a
Muskrat Bingo Night” we could swoop in and say we own that phrase,
where’s our share? Then when they stammer and drop their daubers on the
floor, we’ll say you better pay up or we’ll sic Michael Buffer’s lawyer
on them. Yea, that’s it. They’ll know they’ll be in for a rumble.
