From “Right Idea, Right Time: The Fight for Pensacola’s Maritime Park:”
In mid-July 2006, Friends of the Waterfront Park PAC released a series of animated cartoons to address Save Our City’s misinformation. The ads featured two old men in late 19th-century suits sitting in stuffed chairs on the vacant Trillium site.
Dick Appleyard came up with the idea, and his news media director, Joe Vinson, developed the ads based on Statler and Waldorf, the grumpy puppets that ended each episode of “The Muppet Show.” The ads would later win the Appleyard Agency the award for Best Broadcast ad from the Pensacola chapter of the American Advertising Federation.
Appleyard recalled, “Joe thought the animated ad could be very funny and make points that needed to be made. Nobody’s ever done an animated ad in Pensacola before. Quint didn’t care about cost and gave us the go-ahead.”
“I was glad we played offense,” Quint Studer said. “Our concern was they were prepared. They had all these names. We had never been through this before, and we needed to come out and play offense in this town.”
He added, “They might object, but at least they knew we weren’t going to just sit there and be silent.”
The first ad was titled “Stop Our City,” the nickname I had given Save Our City. It focused on correcting the misinformation the Community Maritime Park would increase taxes.
The second ad, “Forever Glum,” teased that Save Our City didn’t care about young professionals.
The book captures the drama, resistance, and unlikely alliances that reshaped a Gulf Coast city. Through riveting interviews, vivid scenes, and relentless reporting, this book unveils how a ballpark, maritime museum, and waterfront transformation became the catalyst for change. You order it on Amazon.