Tie a Yellow Ribbon around a Dodge Vehicle?

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.

Cuts 1-6


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Cuts 7-12




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Shamrock Shake Salute....

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.

Enjoy!


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Mcd's......Food, Folks and Jingles.....

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.


1.My Old friend (Kathy Mattea)

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2.Angela Bofill


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3.Test Of Time (Tony Bennett)


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4.Doctor


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Off The Rack Jingles (part 3) Yes, we can sing about anything.......really.....

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!


Pepper Disc 5018 Side One.



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Pepper Disc 5018 Side Two.


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Valentines Day Jingle Compilation.....




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40 Year old....CHOCOOOOOOLATE!!!!

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!

Hershey Chocolate/Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
1970

Hershey-Country and Western



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Hershey-Mixed Vocal



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Hershey-Rhythm & Blues



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Reeses-Country & Western




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Reeses-Television Theme


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Reeses-Two Guys-Girl Vocal



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Topical Bonus! A Tribute To Zellers....

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.

Zellers Wiki History can be found HERE

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.

Enjoy!

Scott S.


Zellers Audio Montage (5:00)



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Complete Package (all the tape dubs and Tape Box Scans) (45 meg)

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GO For the GREED!!!!

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.


Enjoy!!!

Loto Canada "Go For the Big One" English



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Loto Canada "Go For the Big One" French



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