Is It Authentic Retro or Faux Ferdinand?

Candidate No. 1, like the 27 who followed, had come to the casting call wearing the all-black look of a beat poet. Like most of the others, he had remembered the beret but failed to bring bongos.

“Does your persona scream ‘European?’ ” asked the ad in Variety and the Hollywood Reporter. “Do your friends tell you that you’re the hippest cat around? Do you own black and only black?”

“What brought you here today?” the advertising woman asked Candidate No. 1.

“A friend called and said I was too cool to miss this.” His grin was devoid of embarrassment.

The three judges smiled. Good answer.

Things like this happen when cultural movements of yesterday become retro fads of today. The scene described here occurred one recent morning at the Eclectic Cafe in North Hollywood--or NoHo, as the local artistes prefer--as a marketing agency searched for “a human look-alike to Ferdinand, the High Priest of Hipness.” Ferdinand is the name of the animated spokescartoon for Cappio Iced Cappucino, a bottled beverage that is Maxwell House’s crafty contribution to our thirst for caffeine and the way cool mood of the coffeehouse.

Brian Sheehan, the owner of the artsy Eclectic Cafe and a judge in this exercise, suggested that the ideal Ferdinand would be “authentic retro.” After all, Sheehan mused, “a real beatnik would probably show up a couple hours late.”

The human Ferdinand will not be expected to hang out in cafes thinking existential thoughts. Rather, he will be paid to help promote the beverage at pro tennis tournaments sponsored by Cappio.

Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady would laugh. Charles Bukowski would puke. Instead of “Howl,” Allen Ginsberg would write “Foul.”

I saw the best minds of my generation

Buy stock in Starbucks . . .

Something like that. Candidate No. 1, Norm Kelsey, faced a major obstacle. Never mind that Norm is no name for a beatnik. The bigger problem is that Kelsey, unlike Ferdinand, is African-American. But then again, so was one of the judges. Whatever, there is no doubt that Kelsey oozes cool.

Kelsey said he had never responded to a casting call before and he pretty much came on a lark. But his credentials were satisfactorily bohemian, ‘90s-style. A 24-year-old Cleveland transplant, he lives “here in NoHo” and hopes to make it as a singer-songwriter, cutting demos and occasionally appearing at coffeehouse poetry nights. And his day job is tres L.A.-- leading VIP tours at Universal Studios.

The judges, if they were curious, would learn this from his resume. Like the Ferdinand impersonators to come, Kelsey simply answered a few questions and read the ad copy. His mellow voice nicely stretched the signature slogan: “The thrillll is the chillll.”

Thank you very much, the ad woman said. We’ll let you know.

The cattle call lasted maybe 90 minutes. A few Ferdinands read the script copy as if they were selling aspirin, but perhaps their minds were on the “Robocop 3” audition later that day. The contenders either read the copy with an American downbeat style or with European accents adopted for the occasion. Val Miller, an MTV producer who served as a judge, said he’d never realized there were so many guys in L.A. named Francois.

Then there was a musical trio called The Swamp Zombies, who were asked to try out individually but insisted on auditioning as a group. Their repertoire ranges from calypso to Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.”

Steve Jacobs laid down a bluesy bass line, and Smilin’ Dave played stand-up bongos. Guitarist Josh Agle and Jacobs gave a rhythmic reading of the ad copy that delighted the judges.

“I’m Fer, he’s Di, and he’s Nand,” Smilin’ Dave explained later.

“Maxwell House had Mrs. Olson, right?” Jacobs said. “We’re her illegitimate sons.”

Maybe, the ad woman mused, they could find some work for The Swamp Zombies. (As it turned out, the group was indeed hired to perform at this weekend’s Virginia Slims tournament in Manhattan Beach.)

But there was still the matter of the one and only Ferdinand.

By the time Candidate No. 28 had said “the thrillll is the chillll,” the judges had narrowed the field to three contenders. One was the goateed, bongo-playing Eric Hall, a 39-year-old percussionist with a group called Live Nude Girls who counts Dobie Gillis’ pal Maynard G. Krebs as a major influence on his life. He seemed to be the real retro thing.

“I pretty much live the beatnik style,” Hall told them.

The ad woman challenged him: “What’s the beatnik style?”

“It’s an attitude. It’s a way of life.”

Two of the judges departed to review the videotape. Sheehan, meanwhile, stayed behind to set up for lunch.

It was almost noon when one final black-clad man sauntered in brandishing a thick French accent and a thick French sneer. Was this the real beatnik that Sheehan suggested would show up late?

“The real Ferdinand walks in,” an outraged Jeal-Paul Manoux declared, “and they will not see him!”

Further investigation determined that the name was real, but the accent and the outrage was false. Manoux identified himself as a Chicago native who does comedy improv at a Hollywood theater.

But who knows? This might have been biggest opportunity of his career--and he missed it.

There was only one thing for Manoux to do. He went back into character and masked his disappointment with a metaphor.

“Ahhh, she is a very bee-you-tee-full woman,” he said. “But she is a very small pawn, in a very large game.”