Opinion: Toyota dumps on Fresno, but ...

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Those ad writers for Toyota’s Prius thought they had a pretty good concept for selling their car. And a hilarious punchline.

The new TV ads showed people driving their fuel-efficient cars with the funny name in a distant future where ‘gas stations will become nothing more than low-budget tourist stops. Like ghost towns ... or Fresno.’

Now, anybody who’s tried to buy gas in Fresno recently knows there’s nothing low-budget about it. So Fresnoites were outraged. Mayor Alan Autry did what any self-respecting mayor would do. He passed the buck up the chain of elected bigwigs and wrote a letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s office.

She didn’t duck. One of her people got in touch with one of the Toyota people who got in touch with one of their ad people who deleted the Fresno part.

Now it says ‘Modesto.’

No, just kidding. Toyota pointed out the ad ran only in the southeastern U.S., where the word ‘Fresno’ (Spanish for ‘ash tree’) sounds funny. Looking back at the Southeast, it seems like they’ve got their own array of funny-sounding towns. How about Euharlee? Or Snellville?

That’s Georgia for ‘nowhere.’

-- Andrew Malcolm