Bill Allen had no college degrees in marketing, but on an August afternoon in 1976 I found out just how smart his promotional instincts were.
Allen — who died last week at 78 — was a co-founder of the Treasure Island supermarket chain, and went on to own the Gold Star Sardine Bar nightclub. It was in his role as a grocer that we met.
In the summer of ’76, Paul Galloway and I — then at the Sun-Times — decided to write a fictional serial for the paper. I made up a character who I called Mike Holiday — a 26-year-old graduate of the University of Illinois who decided to reject the success track, and to instead work as a grocery store bag boy.
We called the serial “Bagtime,” and populated it with real-life Chicagoans. The initial episodes of “Bagtime” concerned Mike’s angst about his ex-wife’s involvement in a bisexual thrill cult involving the Bears, the White Sox and the waitresses from R.J. Grunts. (As you may have surmised, this was a somewhat different Chicago newspaper era.)
We had to have Mike Holiday work somewhere specific — so we said he was a bag boy at the Treasure Island supermarket on North Wells Street. We chose that grocery because it was where Galloway always shopped; Galloway lived in an apartment above That Steak Joynt, which was across the street from the Treasure Island, so we had Mike Holiday live there, too.
We didn’t tell anyone at the Treasure Island that we were saying Mike Holiday worked there. We just wrote the first episode. This is how it began:
“High noon Saturday, the Treasure Island on Wells Street. There’s a line four-deep at the check-cashing machine, and a carton of raspberries has tipped over and turned one of the aisles bright red. We’re busy. Which means I’m busy. I’m Mike Holiday. I’m a bag boy.”
Some of the real-life Chicago celebrities who were featured in the first episodes of “Bagtime” called the paper to complain, and say they didn’t understand what this was all about. And Galloway and I wondered how long it would take for the owners of the Treasure Island to either protest, or demand an explanation.
On the afternoon of the second day that “Bagtime” appeared, and we still had not heard a peep from the Treasure Island, Galloway called the store and, without identifying himself, said: “Is Mike Holiday there?”
The person who answered said: “Yes, he is.”
This threw us. There was no Mike Holiday; we’d made him up.
Galloway said, “He’s there?”
The person said: “Yes.”
Galloway said: “Could I talk to him?”
The person said: “He’s out on the floor right now. If you’d like to talk to him, come on in.”
We sent a copyboy up to Wells Street. He came back to the city room laughing out loud.
Every bag boy at the Treasure Island was wearing a T-shirt that read: “I May Be Mike Holiday.”
Bill Allen, whom we’d never heard of, had done it; he wasn’t going to ask any questions about what this was about, and he certainly wasn’t going to complain. He was going to ride this thing as far as it might take him. He had instructed all his employees to say that Mike Holiday was on the premises. He’d had the T-shirts rush-produced.
It was the start of some great times for the Treasure Island, and for us. Bill was smart enough to understand that when good luck blindsides you, run with it; he didn’t know where this Mike Holiday had come from, but he was going to hop on board. We’d chosen his store on a whim; he was going to hitch his star to a bag boy who didn’t really exist.
Last year I was in an airport in Ohio, and a man came up to me, introduced himself, and said he was an attorney. He said he wanted to thank me for some of the best times of his life.
“When I was younger, I worked as a bag boy at the Treasure Island,” he said. “All these women would come in looking for Mike Holiday. They’d ask me if I knew Mike. And I’d say, `I am Mike Holiday.’ Boy, did I have some great dates.”
I wish Bill Allen could have hung on a little longer. Out of nowhere this winter, Galloway and I got a call saying that the executive producer of “The Drew Carey Show” has decided to shoot a pilot for a new half-hour comedy based on. . . .
Yep. “Bagtime.” All these years later, Mike Holiday lives. We don’t know what’s going to happen with this whole thing, but it would have been nice to hear Bill’s laughter at the absurdity of it all. He knew it from the beginning:
You can’t keep a good bag boy down.