by Chiraz Aboujeot
December 12, 2020
31 Days In February
Usually calendars have 28 days in February. But in 1987 Chippendales printed a calendar with 31. That did not work out so well for sales.
Steve Banerjee prided himself to be a printer. He was the son of a large printing family in Bombay and went to printing school. August 15, 1986 was the day the mechanicals had to be delivered to Anderson Lithograph. Banerjee freaked out at the production artist pasting up the calendar mechanicals. The artist was a freelancer who did not want to stay late without overtime. Banerjee refused to pay overtime so the artist just dumped the mechanicals in a bag to go to the printer without finishing the layouts. February was printed with 31 days and because Banerjee did not check when he signed off on the press run – 300,000 calendars were printed with too many days in February. It ruined Chippendales and forced it into bankruptcy.
One Man Saw it All
According to the Anderson Lithograph salesman, David Humphrey, “Steve Banerjee signed the blueline. We proofed the color and made sure the press proof conformed to his mechanical. The client is responsible for the submitted artwork.”
How much would one of those misprinted calendars sell for?
Good question!
Seriously does anyone know? I lived those years and attended Chippendale’s in Culver City which was on Overland and that was in my early 20s. I remember everything and that was the early 80s. It was insane crazy. But I honestly don’t remember how much they sold for maybe someone can refresh my memory
I have a Chippendales calendar somewhere… now I’m wondering if it might be one of those mis-prints. 300,000 were printed and not one went out to the public??? Good question, how much would it be worth today, I wonder 🤔
If banerjee wasn’t such an asshole, would someone at the printer maybe have been like ‘um, you sure you want 31 days in every month?’ even though the “client” (in this case, the client was the owner…) is responsible?
Really good question. But we all know he was a narcissistic, envious, social climbing, ruthless, self-centered, asswipe.
So basically, it’s Universal Law, karma, “what goes around comes around,”anyway you want to look at it…
And I have to end this commentary with
Biblical stuff and I’m not pushing Catholicism because I’m a lapsed Catholic just found out I am Sephardic Jew…
he was a closet racist when he himself was prejudiced upon, represented pretty much all of the seven deadly sins, and was so coward that he took his own life so he couldn’t pay the price and be accountable for the notorious crimes he committed.
Absolutely, but he didn’t trust anyone. He was kind of like a micromanager so to speak. No one liked him, none of his associates, none of his gofers, none of his subordinates, so why would they want to “have his back?”
Whatever happened to “Thunder From Downunder?” it was like a copycat of the Chippendale’s guys, but these gentlemen came out of Australia and they were a traveling troop, and they were featured in Las Vegas for quite some time, but I can’t remember what era.
If this mis-print was going to actually bankrupt my business, which I find that hard to believe, I would have left the calendars just the way they were printed, laughed it off, and made people think they were investing in a “mistake” that may bring them some big bucks in the future. He probably would have sold even more.