Miller Lite's "Everything You Always Wanted in a Beer and Less" campaign, a retirement haven for ex-jocks, accomplished something unique in the advertising business-it had legs. With its famous argument, "Tastes Great, Less Filling," the work ran for more than 15 years and well over 200 executions.

The series began in 1973 at McCann-Erickson, when Bill Backer and Bob Lenz, among others, hit on the idea of using athletes who could portray regular guys pitching the low-calorie beer. Former New York Jets running back Matt Snell was featured in the first spot, followed by hardboiled mystery writer Mickey Spillane.

Along the way, the campaign-which moved to Backer & Spielvogel in 1979-launched sayings into the vernacular still heard today, including one based on the antics of a hapless former baseball player, Bob Uecker. "I must be in the front row," crowed Uecker in one spot, to an usher at Yankee Stadium. Instead, Uecker was taken to a seat in the farthest reaches of the ballpark, a section still referred to by fans as "Uecker seats."

Always the cutup, Uecker caused an uproar at one of the regular Lite "alumni" gatherings, when spokesmen from earlier spots were often brought together to film a new one. This spot was set in the desert and the players were dressed in Western garb. During the production, Uecker complained he didn't know how to wear such clothing, and proved it when he came out wearing his chaps without jeans underneath, mooning his cohorts.

Charlie Breen, head copywriter through the 1980s at Backer & Spielvogel, and other creatives first saw Uecker on Johnny Carson's Tonight show, where his sad sack "Mr. Baseball" character had audiences roaring with laughter. They pitched him to Miller executives, who turned down the idea because they saw Uecker as a low-rent car salesman due to dealership ads he did in Milwaukee. The agency persisted, got him on videotape and pitched some spots. "There was so much laughter in the room, no one was going to say we're not going to use him," says Nick Gisonde, like Breen, a former executive creative director at the agency.

"The guys were never shills," says Backer, who took the account to his new agency. The athletes featured in the ads, including Bubba Smith, Dick Butkus, Larry Csonka, Carlos Palomino and Billy Martin, were all carefully selected. "We wanted about half the people to know who they were, the rest to feel they should know," says Backer. Adds Gisonde, "If you didn't get a sense that you wanted to sit down and have a laugh with this guy, he wasn't used."

A secondary tagline, "Tastes Great, Less Filling," came about almost by accident. "It was a typical client request, 'We better do something about taste,' " Lenz recalls. "So almost flippantly we added on 'Tastes Great.' " The first spot using the line featured former Boston Celtics head coach Tommy Heinsohn verbally sparring with former NBA referee Mendy Rudolph.

Such tomfoolery was part of selling beer, and never detracted from what the campaign's originators say is the high quality of the work. "They are little art forms," Backer says of the Miller Lite commercials. "These things were welcome in your home after the 10th time."

Trever Jensen