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, 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.
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.
Two well known food brands with no real relation to each other, except showing up in this post on the Jetsam. I'm sure I wouldn't recommend each both at the same time, but i'm guessing eating worse things at the same time has happened over the years, so by all means if you have a hankering to do so, go for it. Just don't tell me about it, OK?
We start with Nabisco's Cream Of Wheat, a breakfast cereal around for decades, actually more like centuries, as it's creation dates back to 1893 in Grand Forks, North Dakota. It's the next best thing to oatmeal on those cold days where you want something warm to stick to your insides, or maybe you prefer it to oatmeal? Either way, we fast forward to January 1965 with these spots produced for a particular type of day voiced by a well known actor of the time, Mason Adams.
Mason's voice did quite a few of Madison Avenues TV and Radio commerical offerings through the 60's and 70s. He would also do on camera roles as a character actor, the most famous likely was managing editor Charles Hume on the TV series "Lou Grant" His wiki entry is HERE
These spots hold up very well for being over 45 years old. That's sometimes the power of good basic copywriting and a strong delivery by the VO actor
From 1965, National Biscuit Co (Nabisco) Cream Of Wheat
Produced by Ted Bates & Co, NY, NY
:55 second Radio Announcements
This reel of tape was mixed amongst another pile of reels, so I slapped it on the machine, and next thing I know, I find a 1970s sounding Mcdonalds spot. Well, I think it's safe to say it's 1970s, probably early 1970s, with the "You Deserve A Break Today" jingle singing out the spot. I can't confirm the VO voice, but it really sounds like Canadian Keith Hampshire, who we've mentioned on the Jetsam before, and had a couple records out around this time. he sings and does voice overs for TV and radio...busy guy! Apologies that the quality isn't the greatest, but given I stumbled on this spot that should have been long ago erased, I think we can overlook that a bit, doncha think?
