Fucking Day: King Cobra Commercials (Patreon)

Fred “The Hammer” Williamson was a pro football player in the 1960s whose trademark move was a karate chop he called “The Hammer.” This was back in the early days of football, when you were allowed to have things like trademark moves and those trademark moves were allowed to be things like karate chops. Actually, Fred Williamson is probably the reason they don’t let you karate chop in football anymore.

In the late ‘60s he spun that fame into acting, first with a bit part on an episode of Star Trek called “The Cloud Minders” where he pioneered Milli Vanilli’s entire deal.

Flowing hair barely contained with a durag? Check. One piece jumpsuit with inexplicable belt? Check. Frozen in abject terror at a sudden offscreen revelation? Check check and check.

Hammer parlayed that bit part into a host of film roles I, as a white person, am not allowed to tell you about. And then he pursued his true passion: fucking. He posed nude for Playgirl in 1973, their first black centerfold. An actual no-joke civil rights victory, and Playgirl had no idea how to handle it. They started off with the obvious: Fred Williamson plays with your pussy.

Things quickly got out of hand and, as can happen, Fred Williamson wound up a nude, cat-strangling giant trapped in a grand library.

The Hammer had seen this before: just like every wedding he’d ever been to, lust had driven the photographers mad and the only cure was a roundhouse kick. He took control of the situation and talked the editors of Playgirl back down to some classic naked karate.

This is all relevant. I’m not just thirst-posting Fred Williamson doing katas with a hint of balls. You can’t prove that. I’m helping you understand the madness of his career journey: Fred Williamson went from karate chopping his way through the first Super Bowl to a bit part in Star Trek; he went from blaxploitation film icon to naked library domination. Fred Williamson’s entire resume is a photo of his penis and a karate chop, and he landed every job he ever tried for.

After all that, there was only one logical place his career could go: Malt Liquor spokesman. This is the start of the real article. You were right earlier. I was just thirst-posting Fred Williamson. I will never apologize. Why would you ask me to?

In the 1980s, Fred Williamson became the face of King Cobra Malt Liquor, a company later accused of spearheading malt liquor brands’ racial targeting of “inner city youth.” Fred Williamson is the reason you can’t racially target liquor or karate chop Travis Kelce anymore. But Fred’s campaign wasn’t the start of the problem, it was simply King Cobra’s answer to the earlier Colt 45/Billy Dee Williams partnership. Truly, the 1980s were a cold war of sexually powerful black men and their community-destroying corn beer.

The Hammer’s first commercial started strong: He steps into a black and white frame, on a dingy alley named SAME OLD MALT LIQUOR ST. With a single touch, he brings color to the world.

Let’s not read into a malt liquor spokesman introducing color to a neighborhood. The Hammer strolls down what is now KING COBRA MALT LIQUOR BLVD as a dance party breaks out behind him. He walks by a woman on a payphone. She doesn’t even see him, in the primal part of the human brain normally reserved for spotting leopards in the underbrush, she simply senses that Fred Williamson’s cock is passing by and-

It’s a simple, solid commercial concept: Fred Williamson is a modern day Johnny Appleseed, magically spreading party with every step. If they’d stuck with it, this would be the kind of iconic commercial campaign briefly remembered by a financially stable comedian on a music channel’s long-running television program, back when any of those things existed.

Now reigning from the eye of the party hurricane he started, Fred unveils King Cobra’s tagline: “Don’t let the smooth taste fool you.”

A year later, King Cobra released another commercial with Fred Williamson. They repeated the same basic template: Fred magically creates a party, then accidentally bumps into a woman, upending her entire life.

She had a life. She was happily married. Pregnant with her husband’s child. Somehow it’s Fred Williamson’s baby now. It will come out hammering. Fred Williamson is the reason you can’t karate chop at the doula anymore.

It was the same basic ad, and it was perfectly charming. They could’ve run variations of that for years. Instead, for next year’s commercial, King Cobra chose madness.

The party is muted in this one, unseen. A world away. A sinister character wearing sunglasses slips into a darkened office, satisfied he made it undetected.

Then he takes off the sunglasses and realizes he wasn’t undetected, he just couldn’t see the people detecting him. Because of the sunglasses. It’s not played as comedy. It doesn’t matter - the intruder barrels past two office workers and bursts through a door yelling-

You fucked up. You forgot it was Martin Kove Month. He’s a human jumpscare.

Martin Kove demands Fred Williamson give up his most beloved treasure: the bad taste of malt liquor. It’s possible Martin Kove didn’t read the script. He delivers the following line with the same menace he’d say “they were out of Thin Mints” after blasting a canoe full of Girl Scouts with an uzi.

We pull out, like The Hammer never does, and see the full scene: Fred Williamson is sitting alone in a giant gothic office like a Batman mayor. All the lights are off. He’s brooding quietly in here while a party he no longer cares about rages into the night elsewhere. A single warm can of King Cobra Malt Liquor sits in the dead center of his desk, unopened. He’s not drinking it. He’s contemplating what it turned him into.

Martin Kove and Fred Williamson spit ad copy at each other like they’re on opposite ends of a burning speedboat. It’s clear when a commercial campaign gets taken over by some executive failson who dreams of screenwriting. You get little movies like this that make no sense and actually make the product look bad, all because Dorpus Koch wanted to write Lethal Weapon 3.

Then Fred deploys his power move and saves the commercial: It takes 1.8 seconds. Literally so fast you’d miss it. Here it is slowed down to 1/3rd speed.

It’s The Hammer! Fred Williamson opens his hand and karate chops the desk in the exact spot and with the exact force it takes to launch a can of malt liquor to Martin Kove’s head height. Like he practiced this thousands of times with a cheap dummy desk and a mannequin in a Frankenstein mask. All the menace fades from Martin Kove. He’s in love now. They’re technically married in New Hampshire. Fred presses the emergency button on his desk.

It opens a secret drawer of ice cold malt liquor.

This is the first seven signs of alcoholism, combined.

A beautiful woman enters. She tries to repeat Martin Kove’s line, but she butchers it. She’s probably the failson’s trophy girl. They don’t even hear her: the sexual tension between Martin Kove and Fred Williamson drowns out everything. The girl, the party below, the malt liquor tremors - everything.

For next year’s commercial, King Cobra chose madness. I know I used that line already. There’s precedent. For some reason, King Cobra commissioned and filmed a shot-by-shot remake of that last commercial, replacing all the roles save for Fred Williamson. Somehow, every actor is worse. Including Fred Williamson.

I’m sure some nerd is going to pop up in the comments and explain this guy was actually the beloved star of a six episode mid-season replacement show called My Six Horrible Wives where he played the wisecracking robot, but he’s no Martin Kove. Even The Hammer is no longer The Hammer. All his easy charm is gone. He seems… tired.

Every single line, every single shot: identical. It’s a crazy decision. This new whitey is 2.5 inches shorter than Martin Kove. Fred Williamson does the mental calculus.

Now the beautiful woman enters, to trip over her three-word line.

It’s just a poorly executed commercial that took a wild tonal swing, made extra bonkers by doing it twice. But when you consider the whole ad campaign together, it tells the accidental story of Fred Williamson: Immortal Party Wizard Who Yearns for Death. Damned to an eternally repeating party template, where he alone is capable of growth and change. A lonely and broken man, driven slowly insane by the contemplation of infinity.

In the final commercial, Fred walks home alone, a bag of malt liquor in one arm. He staggers through the middle of the street, praying for a distracted truck driver. He knows even before the playful honk that mercy is not for party wizards. It’s a limousine. Guess what’s inside. Guess what they want from him.

The easy smile is gone. The smoldering looks have faded. The Hammer grunts and grimaces through this farce. There is genuine madness in his eyes when he delivers the final sales pitch.

The limousine drives away, taking Fred Williamson with it. He will have sexual relations with that woman. He will perform admirably. She will divorce her husband and raise a Little Hammer on her own, just like 14% of women in the 1980s. Fred Williamson will go home to sit in a darkened apartment and wait for the cycle to repeat. He’ll place a can of King Cobra Malt Liquor on his desk. He’ll open his hand, readying a karate chop. He will know. He will know the precise force and velocity it would take to rocket this can of malt liquor through his own forehead. His hand will waver. He will sheathe the karate chop in his pocket. Another day. There will be a knock on the door. Somebody will tell him not to move.

In 1990, King Cobra ended the Fred Williamson: Party Wizard campaign. They replaced him with a radical party robot. Their new tagline: “It’s bodacious.” It sounds like I’m joking, but no, they really speedran all of the ‘90s in the first year.

On the one hand, I’m glad Fred Williamson: Party Wizard was allowed to die. But even with all the weariness of the later commercials, surely Cobra Man can’t replace The Hammer’s raw charisma. Not even if he has sick abs and a giant belt buckle with his name on it.

Okay, I’ll admit a drunken party Guyver is pretty sick. But Fred Williamson has the easy sleaze of a generational pussyhound, you can’t simply-

Alright, maybe Cobra Man has some moves but-

Oh shit. Okay, go Cobra Man!

Cobra! Man! Cobra! Man! Cobra! Man!

You can read more about Fred Williamson’s cock in Brockway’s new book, I Will Kill Your Imaginary Friend for $200.

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