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.
It's been 55 years this year that Coca Cola rolled out their still rather memorable "I'd like to teach the world to sing" campaign shot on a hillside in Italy. It's still really relevant given the state of the world in 2026 and how wide spread the soft drink still is globally.
I did a look at the campaign in an exhibit in 2015 when the TV series Mad Men used it in their series finale. It seems coke put out a promotional 45 some 55 years ago in Canada with the 60 second original version in additional to a couple longer covers from Canadian artists the Laurie Bower Singers and Dr. Music. You can find the details on the original blog page HERE
This page though will focus on what Pepsi was doing in two "ET's" or Electrical Transcriptions delivered for that year to radio in Canada. Technically they're just usually louder then normal LPs to help keep down surface noise over multiple plays on AM radio. Back then, a lot of national commericals were still coming in on vinyl, the 1970s had a transition from transcription to reel to reel tape before the end of the decade. After the cam[paign wass older , it made for a fun collectible and in the way of soft drinks, a delightful time capsule of an era focused on the soft drink. It certainly was a cultural staple for most of the 20th century and continues to be in the 21st century, albeit to a lesser degree with health drink options also on store shelves. Let's throw back to the early 1970s now though.
Pepsi covered the genre's of commerical music with this disc and likely got played over many radio stations for that year. Play and download below.
We have 3 instrumental music beds for Diet Pepsi from 1971. To me, all 3 are the same, and it wasn't uncommon to put the same audio multiple times on a ET, likely because of one cut got a bad scratch, you can play another cut to solve the problem of getting a new disc, but I dubbed all 3 anyway. It's delightful early 70s background music you'd expect to hear behind a commerical of the era.
We lost another Canadian comedy pioneer recently in Catherine O'Hara. Going back to the 70s, even before SCTV, she was doing kid shows like "Coming Up Rosie" for the CBC along with other SCTV stars like John Candy and SNL Pioneer Dan Ackroyd. Her big break into the American scene was "Home Alone" in 1990 and more recently the Canadian produced Schitt's Creek that saw amazing success in the US. But it's after Home Alone's success we find this exhibit that is largely off the radar for Catherine O'Hara showing up in....yet...it REALLY sounds like her.
The late Alan Thicke, a well known Canadian in Hollywood as I am sure you know by now, for a variety of things from writing games show music cues, to his own failed syndicated talk show which he sang the theme for, finally hit paydirt with the TV Series "Growing Pains" as the latest version of the all American "have all the answers" TV dad in the 80s. In 1991 his star was still riding high near the end of the series run so it seems the Woolco Department Store chain decided to sponsor a campaign for "Saturday Sales" to air in the latter part of the year. The chain itself would suffer it's demise less then 5 years later being bought out my Walmart as the mega US chain's entry into Canada. Canadians of a certain age still have a fondness for Woolco and it's 1.44 Days they used to have.
Alan is the pitchman for this series of 60 secs spots, but the fun here is that some of the other voice talent is a bit surprising. It seems Catherine O'Hara is here playing "Fran" (maybe as a favor to Alan?) along with character actors Edie Mcclurg playing "Rose" and David Huddleston as "Fred". I confess this is what my ears tell me as I am familiar with the actors voice over years of watching TV and knowing when they pop up in TV series. Edie played Lucille Tarlek in WKRP In Cincinatti one of my favorite TV sitcoms, so I could be wrong as no one is credited other then Alan Thicke. I'll stick with the thought that I am right as they have distinct voices I am familiar with, but who knows for sure.
Regardless, it's a fun campaign from 35 years ago, and hope you enjoy a listen.
It's a sad day in Canadian Retail. The longest existing retailer in North America, The Hudson's Bay company with their "The Bay" and "Zellers" store across Canada closed their remaining stores on June 1st, 2025. The plus side is that it's legacy will continue under control of another well known Canadian brand with over 100 years in retail in this country, Canadian Tire. There's little comparable in the US, so it's probably why CT lasted so long especially with the US retail giants Walmart and Home Depot just to mention two who have invaded the retail landscape over the last few decades. I can't think of a better Canadian company to hold the brand rights to the HBC brand and am looking forward to see what happens in the coming years with what they bought.
One can argue and comment on the Hudson's Bay Company demise, but Wiki has a great article HERE if you want to learn more. For people of a certain age, both The Bay and Zellers were brands we grew up with and shopped at and now they are both gone as they were best known as over the decades and certainly can say centuries for this company at least
This is the only "The Bay" radio spot I have in my reels....likely from 1993. They had their "One Day Sale" back then, and this spot took Bobby Bloom's 1970 hit "Montego Bay" and had some fun in promoting the event. It's well done too.
Enjoy
HBC Media The Bay-One Day Sale "Montego Bay" BR-93-94 :30 English with slate
Years ago I put up 1 spot from this disc on my personal web page, but that's pretty much it. recently, I decided to dig out the disc and do a proper posting
The company goes back almost a century as this paragraph on wikipedia explains:
In 1921, Lester Haft filed a patent for a system to interconnect multiple strings. In late 1925, Joseph Bloch and Albert Sadacca organized a trade association of 15 of Haft patent licensees, all small manufacturers, including C. D. Wood. Block named the trade group National Outfit Manufacturer's Association, or N. O. M. A., and later, simply NOMA. By joining together, the companies could consolidate purchasing and gain other efficiencies to improve their competitiveness. This was successful for the 1925 and 1926 seasons, and by the end of 1926, the companies agreed to formally merge into a single manufacturer bearing the NOMA name. NOMA branded light outfits were sold starting in the 1927 season
This campaign is believed to be from the 1940s, possibly the late 1940s as other discs that I found many years ago with this one, were dated around that time, but as there is nothing on the label, I cannot confirm.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Basch Radio Productions NYC.
NOMA TOYS 1-10 Inclusive 60 xsec Radio spots
I have 100s of these things and the machines to play them on. The grandfather of the 8 track cartridge, celebrating 65 years old this year. I have music, PSAs, music, and old commericals on these things. If you ran a radio station from the 1960s into the mid 1990s, you bought into this format. They were replaced by computers, but the format was so prominent, the software was designed to look like a cart machine to assumingly making it easy to make the DJ's understand the computer. Who knows
The funny thing with this one, i'm amazed that this 37 year old spot never got erased as it was traditionally a format to air the spot for the specific dates then erased. In this case, it didn't and that's a good thing.
The narrator was Canadian Actor Percy Rodriguez which was an in demand voice over artist for Movie promotion in the 1970s and 1980s, besides his on screen roles in movies and television. He did the original Jaws trailers and promotion...yeah, we'll being him back for the sequel.
It's been 30 years since the final 2 hour episode of Star Trek The Next Generation titled "All Good Things..." and the juggernaut that is probably the most successful science fiction franchise in history just keeps on going with one series wrapping up this month (Discovery) and another wrapping up production of season 3 (Strange New Worlds) in Toronto. It's technically been 60 years this year since the production of the first pilot "The Cage" in late 1964, with the series being 58 years old. The franchise has taken breaks periodically, but still has legions of fans intense about it's message and beliefs for a better world then exists today.
This little nugget was saved by me in 1994 when the local TV station would periodically buy time (or was it barter?) to promote various programs. Often it was news shows, but in this case it was a big deal. After 7 years, the show was ending and it was good to promote it. Paramount had the audio promos produced no doubt for this reason, to cross promote each ep on radio. Shipped on a reel to TV stations, it was tagged by a local announcer.
Sadly the 30 sec promo was lost, but the 60 sec remains and WOW, a lot is going on, but still very listenable. Voice by the king of the movie trailer's himself Don Lafontaine, it was slickly produced and after having it for so long, it's time to share here. The TV station slapped a local TV station label on the box, but I managed to get off a lot of the label to see it was marked for wiping before the spot was sent to the radio station. A dang shame
Enjoy what we have here though.
Star Trek The Next Generation EP 747 "All Good Things".... :60 audio promo with slate
We start our first post of 2024 on a sad note, with the passing of Joe Flaherty veteran comic actor and comedian for decades but is probably best know for his characters on SCTV , including Big Jim McBob (of Farm Film Report fame), Count Floyd/Floyd Robertson, and station owner/manager Guy Caballero, who goes around in a wheelchair only for respect and undeserved sympathy.
It is with the Guy Caballero character that we are going to look at on the Jetsam. The canadian movie channel First Choice, brought back Guy for a series of radio spots (and maybe TV? i'm not sure) to promote it's free preview in early 1991. They were so well written that maybe Joe or the SCTV crew were involved as it really went with the rather greasy nature of Guy on SCTV to promote something TV related. It was a great match really, and we are glad to have these spots live another day, despite the timely reason.
So enjoy these great pieces of comedy as they are part of a comedic icon's body of work for those of us that are a certain age. We visited the SCTV cast on a regular basis in the world of Melonville and will continue to do so. Thanks Joe.
