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.
Well, today hasn't been good, no water in the house and waiting for a plumber battling with dog poop where it shouldn't be (carpet cleaner is handy fortunately) and I broke the toilet tank lid.....You can see how my day is going. Still, I shall take a few minutes to look forward to this holiday season with some both local and "off the rack" material that I know you international people like. I'm probably scraping the bottom of the proverbial barrel for Christmas stuff this blog is known for, I've posted pretty much everything I have, but I might see what bits and pieces I can dig up for next year...no guarantees.
First....a bit of a footnote from last post....
SOBEYS has released the "Star Of Christmas" remade jingle this year as a free download on their website as of this writing. I mentioned and linked the original TV spot last time. The bonus is that they will donate $1/per download to charity, so even if you have no idea who or what Sobeys is in your area on the planet, it's a fun "warm and fuzzy" jingle you can incorporate for your holiday listening and help a good cause too. The link to their website is HERE! and if the link is dead by the time you read this, I've kept the jingle myself if you want it.
Continuing with local........
I don't endorse Irving Oil per say, but if you live here in Atlantic Canada and drive a car, you've probably stopped at one of their gas stations. I have. That's about as far an an endorsement I will give. They have made some neat Christmas jingles over the years though. I've kept a couple of them, and this being a "just in time for the holidays" moment (wow, how do I do that?) here's what we have.....
From 1983 and a dub from a master tape from CHSJ in Saint John NB. we have 2 versions with announcer
Finally, Bolands, a company who ran the local IGA franchise for a number of years (they were bought out by Loblaws and eventually discontinued the IGA brand) commissioned a locally produced jingle and song in the early 1990s that got quite a bit of play in December 1993, and was sort of forgotten about. We try not to forget things at the jetsam, in fact we always understand that today's jingles are tomorrows nostalgia. That's always been the reason we keep these tapes (and they're catchy too!!) below is the :60 version. The full 2 minute version was posted just over 3 years ago here on This Page on the Jetsam with full credits either way, enjoy both.
I bought this production music LP some 6 years ago at a record sale in Portland Maine....always wish I had the whole library, as this stuff too often gets tossed when the CD libraries too over. Yeah, it's a bit dated, it's 1977 after all, but no disco feel for this stuff....more like warm and fuzzy. For you christmas compilation folks....I'm sure this will fit in nicely. As you know, I'm too lazy to cut it up for you, but hey, I did clean it up with noise reduction software, so it's nice and clean overall.
i've scanned the contents as best as I can....listed below
In the years since I have started the Jetsam largely to share some of the hundreds of tapes I collected in my years working in radio station production, I have focused on the national or US based creative for national sponsors of products.....
Until now......
Recently, a largely regional, that turned national grocery chain decided to redo a TV spot they produced in the 1980s, called "Stars Of Christmas" People have such fond memories of this local TV ad as that was played to death for many years every holiday season that some people feel their Christmas isn't just right without it. Thanks to youtube, the memory continues long after it's off the air. If you have no idea what I am talking about, see it HERE!
That got me thinking.....
I've got some local jingles that have not been heard in years, and in some cases DECADES since anyone else has heard them but me.
I've saved my share of tapes over the years....when I say "often rescued from the dumpster and tape eraser" I'm NOT kidding. Tapes have often been erased after airing, lost to those who can remember these quick little songs. My philosophy was if it catches my ear, I want a copy of it.
Jingle packages are especially interesting. Advertisers are putting a brand to a song that is meant to be an earworm to remember, yet they are discarded all too quick like the rest of radio commericals to be tossed. They are kept around however more then the rest as ad copy can be changed and the brand earworm remains. but, they too, often fade into the past.
The material over the next few posts collects some jingles local to my area of the Halifax Regional Municipality here in Nova Scotia Canada from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. That doesn't mean they were recorded here (though some were) but mainly local businesses in the area. Some are still in business, some are not, and even if you have never heard of them before, I think it's fair to say, they're catchy, like most jingles ever produced. Note selected cuts are available for listening here, not the entire package.
But first, some details regarding the terminology you'll hear here.
A "Full Sing" is a complete 30 or 60 sec jingle with lyrics that brands the product or service. These jingles are actually seldom heard complete on air, as usually the advertiser has an announcer with copy to read with the jingle. To hear these is rare outside the industry I used to work in.
A "Donut" or "Jingle with Donut" is not something you eat, but very much like the one you eat. It's a jingle that had only part singing, and somewhere in the middle there's just instrumental music so an announcer can read ad copy over the music, then the end part is the rest of the jingle. The fun part is getting the announcer to read the ad copy fast enough so he doesn't talk over the end part of the jingle....that can certainly cause a few outakes and 4 letter words when he reads it just a wee bit too slow.
SUBJECT-MALLS
Let's start off with one of the largest Malls in the area MIC MAC MALL. Crazy as it sounds, every christmas time for many years, this mall took another approach to the traditional mall santa, and created "Woody The Talking Christmas Tree" which took up massive space in center court with kids lining up to talk to Woody. The happened over many years, until it was abruptly ended a couple of years ago with the mall finally scrapping the tradition causing outrage with local people who grew up with Woody. The rage eventually died down. people moved on, but endearing memories of woody survive, as does this Christmas Concept package from likely the 2nd half of the 1980s (no specific date) You'll hear both the full sing and jingle with donut which includes 2 "woody" 60 sec spots.
Halifax Shopping Centre was one of the first malls in the area, opening in 1962 at the site of the original airport and still thrives to this day, current under going major renovations (what mall doesn't do that regularly?) This jingle with donut was produced by Mark Century Corporation NYC in the late 1960s-early 1970s era, and certainly has the sound from then. I wish I had the exact date.
This jingle appears to be produced locally....Scotia Square is also involved with major renos right now. It used to be two levels of shops and services, but is now restricted to the lower level with offices taking the top level. Interesting how malls brag in their jingles what they are. For Scotia Square, I think they lay it on a big thick, but maybe that's just me.
Another mall in downtown Halifax, Maritime Mall, sits below a massive office tower. Back in 1984 it was thriving, but has since been more office and empty space the last time I was there. Still very catchy. You could dance to this one...remix anybody?
From 1986 comes this full sing from Woodlawn Mall. Like a lot of smaller malls in the area, this one was turned into a strip mall with numerous businesses and technically is still doing well
Finally, This is a unique one, taking the 80's "Hot Hot Hot" song by Buster Poindexter or Arrow and customizing it for a mall. did anyone pay royalties to the song's writer? We wonder......
Feedback is encouraged below.....and let's face it, it drives me to do this, as it has taken more then a few hours this week to put this together and the future posts with transferring and scanning and well you get the idea. Stay tuned and check back....gotta go and bake some tapes.
Well, with a statement like that on the jetsam, it's not what you think, but hell you knew that right? All we have around here is jingles, and it's not a seedy part of a city where anything is for sale for the right amount of cash. There's probably a blog for it out there somewhere.
This month, we feature a mixed back of material, taking a break from the generic jingles on production LP's. It's very time consuming to do those. These are easy. just grab a few jingle tapes from my archive and awwwaaaaaay we go.
This first one is a nice find, some musical stars of the 70s, doing their thing on 4 Schlitz Beer ads from 1977. There are 5 cuts on the tape, but the last one it seems are studio singers musicians. details are on the tape box label pic below.
Canada Day Is July 1st, and the start of the summer.....YAY!!!! Let's check in to see what Mcdonalds offer as a promotion in Canada in the summer of 1989.
Finally, here's the "Romp" full sing jingle for Shopper Drug Mart, also from 1989. Shoppers Drug Mart is the biggest chain of drug stores north of the 49th, and certainly is up there with Canadian Tire and Tim Horton's as a well known canadian brand (despite using some american TV stars to be in their TV spots around this time!). It's everything I want in a drug store...I go there regularly.
We have more off the rack generic commericals they used to tie into a local sponsor, often as a start off to get your attention, and this stuff, likely from the late 1950s or early 1960s will do that. You could air this today to get someone's attention (with probably a bit of WTF moments by a listener) for nostalgia purposes I suppose. The great thing about virtually anything connected to advertising is that it's dated for the times, and is often why it's so great. Advertising defined the era it was in and this doesn't disappoint.
This disc has the same thing on both sides, so no sense is putting up 2 pics of the label. This company also did radio station jingles of the same era and a wide range of other services for radio stations. check out this link in a 1963 Billboard magazine HERE
Moving into the 1970s we bring you another reel of Beer spots from 40 years ago....likely they were on the air around this time in the year of 1976. Not sure who "Morrison" is, though I think it's safe to say it's not Van Morrison. If you know, post below. always fun to know more details regarding the stuff I post.
After being sick last month around good friday, I decided to take the month off for a jetsam post. Yeah, lazy me.
We're back with jingles reflecting a invention of the mid 20th century....the TV dinner. Swanson was the first to have success, when sitting down in front of the TV to eat was the 1950s equilvalent of people and staring at their smartphones today (and people act like staring at screens is new!!! geesh). It was a time to give mom a break for cooking (Mcdonalds was just starting to have success around that time so fast food as we know it today was hardly known) and the family bonding in front of the TV while they watch their favorite shows. Some more details on the wiki page HERE
Banquet has been a Swanson competitor for almost as long as Swanson has turned out TV dinners, well according to their details on their own WEBSITE Banquet though started out with meat pies and that is reflected on the spots on this disc (see the labels for details!). One can argue which tastes better, Banquet or Swanson, but i've had both, so I'll leave the preferences for another day and let you enjoy these banquet radio spots from I believe 1960 to get you in the mood to head to the microwave and throw in your own TV dinner as you are too lazy to cook yourself something. Even after 60+ years, they are still cheaper then going out even for fast food. Enjoy..the spots and your TV dinner :)
Happy Feb 29th! I was watching "The Goldbergs" on TV the other night and the story told how Murray's furniture store wasn't doing great, and resisted selling those new futon's (the series is set in the 1980s!) while he was pushing the waterbeds. The show goes on eventually having him sleeping in his own store and having him not sleeping well in the waterbeds, but slept like a baby on the futon. This makes me wonder, did he need one of these off the rack jingles we are featuring on the jetsam this month? You know that might have helped clean out the waterbeds so he can move on to the futons. Funny how the show did say what happened to that waterbed, but hell, can you even get them today? They certainly see to be a relic of the 70s and 80s.
Here we go with another off the rack LP, this time from tanner's TTS series. I'm guessing 70s, but it could be 80s, not really sure, but I hope you like them. I have more and will consider posting them in the future, but right now, I think we'll mix up the postings from a variety of material I have. Posted per side, the contents are to the left here
Finally, we're getting closed to vacations and a busy time for rental car companies, so time to dig out the jingle package for Budget car Sales. This is where they sell off their rentals cars after the typical renter has run the cars though god knows what and you decide you need a nice clean used car to roll down the highway of your life. Hey, who am I to say otherwise? Well, I can't think of any other reason to post this one, so enjoy!
We focus on Radio Commerical Jingles and those "off the rack" jingles I've come across over the years working in radio production at radio stations. I was always sucker for "full sings" of jingles and packages when I worked in the industry, I'd make copies for me, and i'd take home the LP's of various off the rack stuff, or know someone getting ready to toss it out. I actually trained a creative director (those who write the copy for the commericals) to let me go through the tapes he was about to toss to see if I wanted anything. That certainly came in handy.
I've also helped out a few people come across this page over the years in getting dubs of the exhibits, as what I had was better then what they had. It's great that the jetsam has done this. I won't lie, it takes some time to record edit, clean up (in some cases) and post to this board. I wonder sometimes if it's worth it. I recently received some download links from a visitor of the jetsam which made me think it just might be, so I think it was time to get back to the jetsam. Let's get back on track for 2016.
One word about requests. I do get them now and then. Sadly, I usually can't help them. The reality is that most of the time, the request is such an odd niche impossible to find request, it's likely I will NOT have it, despite the fact that
we have some rather niche rare and odd stuff here. I focus on material found in Canada in my radio station days. That off US spot from a certain state that aired in the month of april 1991 will not be found here. Sure, you can ask, I encourage it, but I'll tell you right now, don't hold hope I can actually help you. It's likely that I cannot, as anything I have usually gets posted here.
And now.....on with this month's exhibits.
From 40 years ago (I just kick myself I didn't save more of these!!) the Masterplan series from TM was a "off the rack" package that seemed to be able to be customized for the client. There are examples for both these jingles and all the workparts and donuts to customize them to your liking. There dated as hell, and yet, not dated at the same time, that is, if you don't take them seriously. Some fun stuff. The department store jingle gave me a few WTF moments...uh....women say that today? Perhaps. My wife doesn't though.
I've tried to make a scan of the contents of Side 1 and 2, hopefully you can read it reasonably well. I've broke it down to Side 1 and 2 as I usually do
Finally, a really DUMB campaign......literally....
Mark's Work Warehouse, a canadian clothing store chain mainly leaning towards work wear turned out this package in August 0f 1991. I don't think i've heard any other jingle using the word "dumb" so creatively. It's clever, catchy and hey, you get a "dumb donut" to play with. Just be careful what you do with it. REALLY!
Enjoy!
From 1991, Mark's Work Warehouse "Dumb Dumb"
Produced by Ogilvy and Mather West, Calgary
see tape box scan for tape contents list.
