Boo hoo! Boo hoo! FOTF no more

Last Friday, when the WaMu sign came down from Chase’s Madison Park branch, I wrote a blog entry talking about the days when WaMu was known as the Friend of the Family (FOTF for short). My photographer neighbor, Bob Peterson, now provides us with a Madison Park connection to WaMu’s 20-year FOTF ad campaign, featuring character actor Booth Coleman. Coleman personified the Bank’s then-folksy image; and he was famous in Washington State, at least, for his mastery of the avuncular role. It seems that several of the FOTF TV commercials were shot in Bob’s front yard, right here on 42nd Avenue E. And Bob’s got a photo to prove it:

Bob reports that not only is the 86-year-old Coleman still alive, but he’s still acting. A native Northwesterner (born in Portland, Oregon), Coleman has a long and distinguished film, TV and stage career to his credit, including a role as one of the apes in the TV version of Planet of the Apes.

Coleman and the Friend of the Family tag line epitomized Washington Mutual for about two decades, ending in the early 1990’s. At the time the Bank was seized by federal regulators last summer in what is to date the largest bank failure in U.S history, the Bank’s official tag line was Whoo hoo! Whoo hoo!

Need I say more?

[Photo of TV Commercial © Bob Peterson: http://www.bobpeterson.com/]