Yesterday's radio commercials and related jingles are disposable flotsam and jetsam. Often rescued from the dumpster and tape eraser, here's where they live to celebrate another day, and give us a peek into the pop culture of the past. All material has been sourced from tapes or vinyl discs (records) used on the air at radio stations or dubs of said tapes, transferred for pristine quality when possible.
Tis the time to trim the tree, sing carols, and just run around with your ass cut off getting things done for Dec 25th. Oh the needless stress of it all. This year we have those more militant then ever to keep christ in christmas instead of saying happy holidays? Who really cares. It's suppose to be a fun and joyous time for peace on earth and good will towards men. I suppose commericalism and whining kids taught by their parents that material things matter come christmas time take all the fun out of that thought. The parents aren't much better then the kids now are they?
For those like me who will say christmas and happy holidays in the same sentence. This stuff is for you. Here's 3 LP's full of christmas related material dated late 1960s-early 1970s from my Pepper-Tanner production music material for radio stations. Yes Virginia there was a time when people said christmas with foolish resentment and being "politically correct". I just shake my head at all this crap and lets move on to the jingles...
Given the number of jingles here, I have posted an mp3 for each side of the albums, I'll leave it up to you to cut them up. Audacity is a wonderful audio editor, and it's free and will import mp3s, so it's easy to cut it down to what you want.
Regardless of how you spend the Holidays, enjoy the jingles and best wishes for a fantastic 2012, with more to come from the Jingle Jetsam.
A first time on the Jetsam, posting vintage jingle demos from TM, certainly a major player in radio station jingles for decades. I just happened to find these tapes around and thought i'd post them. The "Sounds Like" package was actually used at a radio station I worked with either in the late 70s or early 80s, hence why I have the tape. The other is so dated for the 70s, it's campy.
Just a brief note on an issue that happens now and then. I occasionally get emails asking what jingles I have and do you have this or that and would you like to trade. The funny thing is, I really am not a hard core jingle collector. Yes I like jingles, they are part of the advertising medium and radio stations, but I don't collect one thing over another. While I welcome people emailing to ask if I have something they are looking for, I am not looking to trade whole packages or do a massive dub of everything I have to trade. You are certainly welcome to anything posted here, and time permitting, can dub any specific material on a case by case basis, but I have other projects I do. Please consider this if you want to email me. If you also have the "Solid Gold Saturday Night" package from the mid-late 80s (a syndicated show from the United Stations Radio Networks) that's something different.....
The power of advertising over the decades is that they can sell anything to almost anyone...with the right motivation.
In other words....no matter what decade, SEX SELLS!
True the standards change over the years, getting more and more risque these days, compared to say, 1974, but it hasn't changed in 100 years (or more) we guys are such suckers for a pretty girl, you can put slime in her hands and as long as she looks good, we'll buy and buy and buy.
Ultra Brite toothpaste was big on sex selling in the 70s. Anything that starts off with "How's your Love Life?" isn't going to be too wholesome, but like those Axe Body Spray TV ads of today, this ultrabrite Toothpaste radio spot of yesterday takes a comic spin on the sex side of things, as that way, they can get away with it without much flack from a broader audience.
It must have worked....the product is still around, though it's not as easy to find as some of the leading tooth pastes.
If you want sex appeal today....choose suggestive clothing, or you can track down a tube of Ultra Brite and let your imagination run wild. God, wouldn't it be nice if some of the world of advertising was actually reality?
From 1974, Ultra Brite Tooth Paste
:60 sec US Radio Spot
Well....last we left things, I was getting ready to move, to somewhere, and we had a deadline to move quite a bit of electronics vinyl, CD's and of course, the tapes that you hear on the jetsam. I'm glad to report that the move went well over 3 days and 5 17 foot cube van's full, but it was done on time.
Now the fun started...sorting, finding where to put stuff and finding stuff to begin with. The biggest challenge was assembling the main production facility where I dub the tapes to the computer. We are back up and running!
Over the next couple of weeks, watch for a new post here on the jetsam. I'm planning for the end of September if all goes well.
This is just a post to say, HI...we're here! It's not a dead blog and stay tuned.....
I've decided to take a break this summer with the jetsam. The main reason? I'm moving. I have a LOT of stuff. Only a fraction of it is heard on the jetsam. radio shows, a large vinyl and CD collection, studios for both production and my internet radio stream, all with vintage broadcast gear and computers, you can see where this is going. It takes time to pack and tear down and unpack and rebuild. The weekly radio show "Cheeze Pleeze" (www.cheezepleeze.com) and the stream (timecapsuleaudionetwork.tripod.com) will be given a bit of priority to be up and running and then the jetsam will be back. I thank you for all the letters and support i've had over the last year with this project, and want to stress, it's isn't permanent, it's just a break. we'll be back in the fall sometime.
Let's throw in one more exhibit before we start the break. Circa 1960s Wrigley spearmint gum jingles from another ET record that had me stand up and take notice when I saw the label. It's from the Universal Recording Corp in Chicago. It's a legendary studio in the city from the 1940s onward started by a man who pioneered numerous recording techniques and tricks and moved to hollywood in the late 50s to start yet another legendary recording studio of his design, Bill Putnam.
You can read more about Universal on the wiki HERE
Well, I suppose records didn't just pay the bills alone...commerical jingles certainly helped too.
Another randomly picked LP from the pepper/tanner collection of albums I received awhile back. Some of this stuff is in such great shape I wonder if it was ever used. It really follows the belief of the jetsam, to help preserve the material that would have been lost and live for another day, or use.
With this bunch in particular, you can really let the imagination run wild, as some of these jingles can be uset up to be taken out of context. "Hey Pretty Girl" and "We Do" in particular stick out as a couple, that, well, have "possibilities depending on how creative you are, but hey, if you just like jingles, you'll enjoy them too.
As previous posts have done, side 1 and side 2 of the album are separate mp3's with each side's jingles. See the label scans for details.
Who would have thought when the soft drink was first sold at a pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia in 1886 for 5 cents a glass that it would literally go on to take over the world for a century and a quarter so far? Makes you wonder what John Pemberton thought about the mixture back then.
For more details there is their WIKIPEDIA PAGE and for some info on their 125th celebratiions go HERE
Few products have stood the test of time in some many countries as Coca Cola.
Here at the jetsam, we cannot let this milestone be ignored. In the collection are various Coca Cola Jingles and commericals, from the mid 80s through to the 90s.In an exhibit in the early days of the blog we had some examples of the "New Coke" advertising in 1985 and the backlash that resulted in creating "coke classic". That page is HERE for your reference. The "New Coke" was eventually considered a failure, and disappeared at least here in canada, and "Coke Classic" eventually, once again, became "Coke".
But here, are some lesser known jingles and advertisting from the late 1980s, primarily from Canada, as...well, I am in Canada. I have also included though a US based 60 sec jingle that Whitney Houston (when she still cared about her career) sang for Coke in 1988 sourced off a network radio show program LP's. I'll let the titles and audio speak for themselves from this point.
Happy Birthday Coca Cola.
From March 1985,
Produced by Mccann Erickson Ltd.
:30 sec Full Sing "MOR-Piano" # 84-82-30
I lost count how many "Off the Jack" jingle posts I've done. It's partial laziness, but it's at that point of do we really care? There's going to be more coming as I have my cool LP's from the Pepper Tanner library to play with.
WOW GEE...and it's "just in time for the holiday" don't ya hate that phrase being used for Christmas? It always works itself in some advertising around Christmas time. It's like nothing was planned out for you. It was just a coincidence. Yeah Right.
Well....just in time for the Easter weekend....as it took me a whole 1/2 hr to dig these out and transfer and upload them for you, because I didn't really plan much of anything in this case (yes, see, there are coincidences after all!) here are 3 Easter "off the racks" for you. As we figure, most of this library is mid-late 1960s into the early 70s...so they are delightfully dated.
Sometimes material of the past really stands the test of time and sounds as fresh as it did when it was created new, years even decades previous.
And then again, there's stuff that sounds as dated as a 70s wah wah pedal or 80s synthesized drums. You dig it out now and then maybe chuckle a little bit, then put it on the shelf again for when you feel nostalgic and maybe time for another chuckle and a WTF I can't believe someone produced this s*** moment.
Wanna guess which catagory this month's exhibit belongs?
Tie a Yellow Ribbon by Tony Orlando and Dawn was a Monster # 1 hit from 1974. According to Wikipedia "sold 3 million records in three weeks" and was "the sign a released convict requested from his wife or lover to indicate that she would welcome him home. He would be able to see it from the bus driving by their house, and would stay on the bus in the absence of the ribbon."
You can see where the song ends can't ya? Even if you never heard it before...yes, 100 yellow ribbons are on the tree and so the song ends on a happy note.
How this emotion translates to selling Dodge Trucks and Cars is something I could ponder for eternity. The only answer I can come up with is someone thought it would be cute to redo a popular song as a jingle for Dodge. Geesh, couldn't pick something more upbeat and happy? If anyone is familiar with the song and it's meaning, it just...well, sounds bad, back then, and 37 years later this month.
Still, it's these little "gems of corporate embarrasement" we like to pride ourselves in digging out now and then here at the jetsam. This is for everyone who wants a bit of a chuckle in your otherwise cloudy day. Pop these mp3's into the ipod and grin from ear to ear thinking that modern day advertising isn't as bad as this.
Enjoy!
NOTE: The quality on these jingles is below what we usually post here, the source material is to blame, a dub of a dub and possibly more generations down. As displayed on the pic of the tape box, it isn't a dub right from the agency. It looks like one station typed the label for a dub for another station, which is often standard practice until tape usage stopped some 10 years ago.
I've broken the reel into 2 files of 6-:60 sec spots each for easier downloading. please see the tape box pic above for detailed cut listing.
In Canada,currently for a limited time, we have have the Shamrock Shake back at Mcdonalds. It's part of the restaurant's pop culture for decades. According to Wikipedia, it was first introduced in 1970. Here's the LINK if you want to know more.
From a buy of commericals on ebay some years ago, here's 2 spots from a 1978 US radio campaign for the Shamrock Shake. 1-60 sec and 1-30 sec national spot promoting that rather grossly looking green milkshake, which I have to say certainly tastes better then it looks.
After I had a taste of the Flu for the past couple of weeks, we get back on track here on the jetsam with some no doubt rare Mcdonald's Jingles from 1990, back when Tony Bennett was in a career renaissance...and sang for the fast food chain. Country singer Kathy Mattea covered the country version and Angela Bofill did things for the R&B market. All full sings here. There's one called "Doctor" that really doesn't fall under any music genre...it's just..well....wacky. In any event, enjoy.
Here's another LP from the Pepper Tanner Library, and part of a collection of Library LP's I received in Fall 2010.
I grabbed this disc more of a random selection then anything else, but it certainly leans toward what the title of this exhibit is.
We go from Farm Machinery, to dry cleaning storage to mobile homes (I was told once on the TV Series WKRP that god hates mobile homes because tornados always hit them first, so I wouldn't recommend them as living quarters) to apartments (there's an idea) to air conditioning. All in this delightfully pleasant sound that was common in the 60s.
I've made two files, one for side 1, one for side two, to make it easier to post.
BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE!
As a valentines day bonus, I am posting 3 jingles together in one file from various discs within the pepper library...AT ABSOLUTELY NO ADDITIONAL COST TO YOU!!!
No operators are standing by....just download and enjoy!
Well, sorta stale but always enjoyable to the ear.
I don't even remember where this record came from, just found it yesterday and thought it would make a great contribution to the jetsam to end off the month.
I'm sure you know Hershey is a king of chocolate and has been around for almost 120 years. Hershey, PA USA is their headquarters and even give tours of a chocolate factory that a friend of mine went on a couple years ago. More details from their WIKI PAGE if your curious.
It's 1970, and the Hershey company's latest jingles are issued on a record to be played on air. On the flip side, Reese's peanut butter cups also have their new jingles, after being bought out by Hershey just 7 years previous from The H. B. Reese Candy Co. Details on their WIKI PAGE
A lot of advertisers were very anal about the quality of their commericals in the 1960s and early 70s, and thought pressing them on vinyl was the best quality they could obtain on air. They often frowned and discouraged any local radio stations to transfer them to the fairly new broadcast tape cartridge (the father of the 8 track) because the quality was poorer.
Eventually reel to reel tape replaced records for commerical delivery and the standard for airing the spots was broadcast cartridge for decades until computers started to replace carts in the 1990s.
Fortunately, records can't be erased, and we have these sounds for you to enjoy!
While I strive for 2 postings per month, from time to time, there may be some additional postings based on relevant topics in the news. This is my first one in that context, and there will no doubt be more in the future.
It was announced this week, that Zellers, a major retailer in Canada for 80 years and the last of the Canadian retail brands with such a history, had its store leases sold to Target in the US for $1.8 billion. Within the next 2 to 3 years, plans are to convert most of the Zellers stores to Target stores and the remainder will be closed and properties sold off.
It's a sad day for Canadian retail. Now all the brands that people my age (in my early 40s) grew up with in Canada are largely gone. Eaton's, Woolco, and now Zellers leaves just The Bay, or the Hudson Bay Company as the one Canadian brand left. It's the oldest company in North America, dating back to the Hudson Bay Trading Co of the 1600's. I'm hoping they'll be around for a little more time.
Likewise, the Hudson Bay Company has a Wiki history also HERE
Here at the Jetsam, with me being the Curator Of Nostalgia Commericals I thought I'd dig into the vault (well, it's cardboard boxes, but vault sounds so much better!) and see what I can find. What I did find was material, mostly from the late 1980s and early 1990s, when they were pushing two main promotions - Club Z (pronounced the canadian way of "ZED" not "ZEE") and "The Lowest Price is the Law" positioning statement.
Club Z was a points system now very common today with retail, but was fairly unheard of in the late 80s to reward loyal customers to your brand. It started out ok, but as people tended to hoard their points for something they wanted, the company started pushing up the points you needed. It likely PO'd more then a few people.
"The Lowest Price Is The Law" was also an effective way to retain people to your brand. It really takes a commitment to retain that statement however, so eventually that statement disappeared, likely due to the arrival in canada of the rather aggressive pricing retailer Walmart when it bought the bankrupt Woolco chain in the mid 1990s.
I have also included a no doubt rare "disco" jingle package for Zellers from 1979 that is as dated sounding as you think and were likely hoping for :)
For the purpose of this exhibit as there is quite a bit of audio when we factor in all the versions from 7 tapes, I have compiled a 5 minute montage of the Zellers creative to stream and download here.
For those who want everything, a 45 meg zip file with all the tape reel dubs and scans of the tape boxes is also available. It also includes the montage.
We start off 2011 with a 45 that's a bit of a mystery.
This record was likely produced during the early days of lotteries in Canada, at least national lotteries, likely mid-late 1970s or into the early 80s. We actually had nationally televised draws at one point.
Most of the lotteries today in Canada are regionally run, though some tickets like Lotto 6-49 can be bought across Canada. Times have changed, but the drive to buy more tickets with the bigger jackpots because the average joe sees dollar signs in their eyes certainly hasn't
The puzzle lies in the actual use of the 45. Not for sale or broadcast the label says...so what was it used for? handing out to lottery players so they can take it home and play it over and over and psyche themselves up to buy lots of lottery tickets? At Loto Canada promotional events to play in the background?
One thing is for sure, it's a fun upbeat 2 1/2 minute jingle that can be a bad earworm very easily and get stuck in your brain. The label is also wrong in that the audio is actually stereo, not mono.
As Canada is the home of two official languages, you'll find the french version here also as it was the opposite side of the 45.
