Jack Rebney is the infamous "Winnebago Man."
Laugh back in anger
By John Esther
Apparently the video of an angry man trying to sell a Winnebago has been a piece of visual solace and comfort to many for years. Some claim to have watched it thousands of times, others claim it gave them hope after tough days at work and it has been quoted in a few unmemorable films, but nobody gave much thought to the man having the meltdown until Austin-based director Ben Steinbauer.
Known as the “Winnebago Man,” Jack Rebney was hired to sell those gas-consuming vehicles. After enough insults to the industrial video crew shooting the motor home sales piece, an anonymous VHS tape of outtakes circulated amongst video nerds, eventually achieving cult status. It was pure entertainment and whomever the man was viewers were laughing at was of little consequence.
So Steinbauer does some sleuthing and finds Rebney living in the woods of Northern California, as angry as ever, but not so much at himself, but at the rightwing U.S. government, especially former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney.
While it was nice of Steinbauer to put a little humanity behind the video images of the ranting man so many people laughed at, Winnebago Man is about as consequential and amusing as the original video. Politically, socially and intellectually uneventful, Rebney’s intellectual honesty in the video and in the movie is far more amusing than those more infamous foul-mouthed tirades of his, which, by the way, pale in comparison to Mel Gibson’s recent, and not so recent, verbal tirades.
Destined to fade faster in theaters than “Winnebago Man,” if you liked the video, you will probably like Winnebago Man.
