September 15, 2018 • 35 mins
You probably can recite five right now. Commercial jingles are designed to hijack your working memory and implant a product or service and they really work. In this classic episode, learn about the history of these insidious and catchy advertising vehicles with Chuck and Josh.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everyone, it's me Josh and for this week's s
Y s K Selects, I've chosen how Commercial Jingles Work.
You could also call it how commercial Jingles slash earworms work.
And I have to say, if you make it through
this episode with no earworms in your head, then your
brain is broke. Uh. This episode was also actually the
(00:20):
origin of the first commercial jingle, we got the Stuff
you Should Know, which was done by Rusty Maddius of
the Sheep Dogs, a Canadian band. And thanks again to
Rusty for kicking that tradition off for us. I hope
you enjoyed this episode. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know
(00:45):
from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant.
Have you noticed that Jerry has a were aggressive countdown
since we're shooting video now. We're shooting video now for
those of you not watching and just listening like old school, yeah,
(01:09):
we uh we have these video potentially. Yeah, Jerry's aggressively
counting down now. Yeah. He just yelled at us three
D one and I keep you know, we do two
of these uh at a time. Um, and I always
bring a shirt and always forget to change into it,
like changing. Yeah, I feel like a jerk. No, I
(01:31):
did change once the first time. Well, today you have
on your Mystery Science Theater three thousands. Shout out to
Kevin and Bill. Yeah, guys, if you're listening, you know everybody, Mike, Joel,
anybody Yeah that's ever had anything to do with that show.
TV's Frank, who's now a successful tweeter. Yeah, I don't
know if you follow him. No, he's he's pretty liberal.
(01:54):
You know. Joel went out and did his own thing
as well, Like they're both doing similar versions of their
previo his job, what is it? Cinematic Titanic is Joels
and then riff Tracks is Mike's. Uh yeah, I'm I'm
well aware, you know. Um, Robert Lamb interviewed Joel Hodgson
on and there's like a really awesome, lengthy blog interview
(02:17):
on the stuff to Blow your Mind blog. Check it out. Yeah,
so that's the intro for commercial jingles, which is what
we're talking about. Um, I really don't have anything except chuck.
Have you ever heard of a little uh songwriter named
Lynn Duddy? Nope, I had neither. Apparently, Lynn Duddy wrote
(02:42):
the I Love Bosco jingle, which I've never heard before,
but it's listed as a famous jingle, so I feel
like I'm missing out. I didn't know half of these.
Actually I Love Bosco jingle, that's the one that we list.
What's with this? And Barry Manila wasn't in here no,
which just get that out of the way, Hanelo, who
I love? You mean? I have seen him front Row
(03:04):
Center in Vegas. It was an awesome show. Did he
He looks so scary now, I He's a great guy.
I don't know if I'd want front Rows all I'm saying,
he h. It was cool. He said something to me.
I had to go to the bathroom, and I like
went and left in the middle of one of his songs,
and while he was singing, didn't miss a beat. He
says to my back, don't leave now it gets better,
(03:26):
and then just went into the song. Yeah, and you
mus like, Bryn did Josh, Yeah? Did you hear it?
Did you know it was? I didn't hear. I came
back and she was still like, oh my god, did
you hear wow? Yeah. But Barry Manelow, in addition to
his incredible singing career, also is Um one of the
(03:46):
better UM commercial jingle writers of all time. Yeah, performed
and co wrote uh jingles like like a good neighbor
state farm is there? That's a big one, man, they're
still using that stuck on the band aid because the
band aid stuck on me. That huge grab a bucket
of chicken. I haven't heard that one. Grab a bucket
(04:07):
of chicken. It was like seventies, yea. And that that
was for KFC obviously, and you deserve a break today
at McDonald's big one. And he apparently recently did one
for Dodge. I saw Randy Newman obviously, he writes whatever
pays the most. He wrote a bunch back in the day.
(04:28):
And then this guy Jim Brickman, who made quite a
name for himself with ads like we are flint Stone's Kids.
Oh yeah. For the vitamins. I used to love those,
but um, every once in a while, my mom would
just buy the cheaper knockoff one and the difference in
taste awful. So there was a spell where like she
(04:49):
would find like sticky knockoff flint Stone vitamins like in
my Lincoln logs just stuck to things because I'd just
be like it was Yeah, I just put it in
my Lincoln logs because I guess throwing it away was
too difficult. Yeah, it's pretty good, but yeah, and then
of course Lynn Duddy and Lynn Duddy and Brigman's other
(05:10):
big one was ge we bring good things to line.
Do you know how rich these people must be if
they had even just a halfway decent agent. Well, it
points out on this article. I don't know if it's
still the case, but if you wrote the jingle, you
own the rights to it. I know, I don't know
if that's still it seems like it should be. I
guarantee you. Manilow owns the rights to the ones that
(05:30):
he wrote. He didn't need a tour, but he still does,
although he likes to cancel once in a while. He
just came I had tickets for his Atlanta show. Really,
he just canceled. It canceled. I'm not playing sorry, huh
oh really yeah that's pretty lame. Yeah, I thought too. Well,
I hope he's all right. I was really into Barry
Manlo when I was a kid. I know, for someone
(05:51):
who ended up being like fairly cool with my music case. Hey,
I've gotten great music taste too, and I love man.
Oh yeah, no, I'm just saying alright, let's get into this, okay,
So Chuck, what is a commercial jingle. It's one of
these things that you know, you anybody can define it,
but it's actually a little specific. Uh yeah, Well it
(06:13):
is a song or a snippet um of a hopefully
memorable melody written about a product. And that's the original jingle.
We'll get into how it's changed over the years. So, um,
it can have just about anything in it, like a
slogan like like a good neighbor state farmers there. It
can have a phone number like a hundred five three
(06:35):
hundred Empire today. Yeah, good going. Um. It can have
call letters like NBC. Yeah that is um. I looked
into that. That is what they now call audio branding
or an audio logo. Um, like the sound your computer
makes when you open it. Oh yeah, you know Apple
(06:56):
has THEIRS, PC said theirs or the ding ding ding
from NBC like you just said. But that's a big
business now, that jingle, Like who can never get rid
of that one once it's in your head. Uh, but
that's a new thing. Like that's even more specific now
than jingles are what they call audio branding, and every
(07:17):
time I hear the word branding, a little piece of
me dieu. But the dude from the Human League, remember that, man,
he has a company. Now that's like getting rich doing this.
Oh yeah. Yeah. Basically it's a little more complex in
a jingle because they're trying to capture like the essence
of your brand with a few notes maybe, or in
the case of like an LG dryer, instead of hearing
(07:40):
at the end, it plays this little melody. It's like
laundrys ton No, what is that? Uh no, it's a
little melody, like a little dinging chiming melody. Who who
was it that wrote the Yahoo one Yahoo man? Who
was that? We were just talking about that recently. How's
the guy who wrote? Uh? Oh man, I can't remember. Oh, well,
(08:06):
somebody right in. It was a previous podcast. Yeah that's
less than two months old. Yeah, it's all gone now.
Uh alright, So anyway, that's audio branding. But oh we
left out one other one other part of a jingle.
It can also tout the benefits of a product. Yeah,
especially back in the day that was huge, Like you'll
wonder where the yellow went when you brush your teeth
(08:29):
with PEPs it in. Really you're not familiar? No, yeah,
I remember the Crest Um the Crest Patrol. Yeah, we
make holes in teeth remember that that? Oh man, I
wish I would look this stuff up. In the seventies,
that was the cartoon of the Crest. I remember that. Yeah.
And then there were the the the yup mouse who
(08:50):
were the bad people in that? I don't remember. The
enemies were the ones we make holes and teeth to
the cavity creeps. I know the cavity creeps. Alright, I'm
firing on all you know. Um. I remember being in
like third grade, I think, and we got a bunch
of promotional materials from the Crest Patrol and it included
a play of which I was I think a toothbrush
(09:13):
talk about infiltrating schools. Ye, seriously, like we put on
a play about the Crest Patrol in school. Wow, that
is weird. It's a little weird, So, Chuck Jingles, they've
been around since the Egyptians, as I understand it, that
is not true. Technically, it is true because the Egyptians
(09:34):
were around in the nineteen thirties. Funny guy Christmas Eve six.
They have credited the the Wheaties Quartet was singing about
the Wheaties Breakfast Cereal first ever jingle, UM, And apparently
Wheaties was in pretty bad shape and they're even gonna
(09:54):
get rid of it until they noticed that in markets
where they were playing this song on the radio, Wheaties
picked up and they said, hey, maybe this jingles. Maybe
he's got something to it. And they probably call it
a jingle at the time. Um. And then they put
it nationwide and Wheaties was saved. Yeah, you did you
listen to it? No? Is it pretty bad? No, it's great.
(10:14):
It sounds like the b Sharp's you know, it's barbershop quartet.
It sounds like Baby on Board, Yeah, except they're singing
about Wheaties. So that whole Wheaties thing is pretty well established,
but some still dispute it. And it depends on how
you look at, um what a jingle is, um, whether
that's the first one or not. But there's a song
that was written in nineteen o five called in My
(10:37):
Merry Old Mobile like Gus Edwards and Vincent Brian and
I didn't realize that people were named Vincent back in
like nineteen o five. Does that seem like a modern
name to you, it seems more like nineteen forties to
nineteen seventies. Maybe maybe you know there's a website that
charts popularity of names in a graph. I believe that
I bet you Vincent is pretty low back then. Um,
(11:00):
but those two guys made in my Mary Oldsmobile and
Oldsmobile used it in the thirties, but it wasn't originally
recorded or written for Oldsmobile to use. I think the
guys just really like their olds momentle, rely, and so um.
The author of this this article, Tim Faulkner, points out
that you're probably more accurately call it the first pop
(11:21):
song licensed for commercial use. Okay, that makes more sense.
So it's technically not a jingle. So the Wheaties quartet
still stands. Christmas Eve, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Is there any place
more desolate than Hey? It worked because we still have
wheaties today. So the whole reason jingles came about too
(11:52):
is because you know, I'm all about my like nineteen
thirties consumer history and like in in the thirties, like
consumer protection was like way stronger, and one of the
things was direct advertising was very strict. So funny. Now, yeah,
like this is so like no holds barred. Now you know,
Australia is like going to town, like preventing direct marketing
(12:15):
to kids. Yeah, they're really protecting their kids. It is
very cool. Plus here you can only market here, right exactly.
Do you remember when there used to be like cigarette
ads and oh yeah, cutty sark ads and things like that.
It's funny to look through uh if you go like
to uh antique places and they have old Life magazine stuff.
You just look at the ats and it's like these
(12:36):
happy people slowly killing themselves with merits. Um so. But
in the in the thirties, like if you wanted to
get an ad on the radio, you pretty much had
to buy some time like a half hour or an
hour and put on a program. And hence we have
things like the King Biscuit Flower Hour, you know um
(12:57):
or the General Motor Um Car Thriller Mysteries, you know whatever.
And at first I think it was really boring and
dull and dumb. And they figured out that consumers were
a little more savvy and we're not really willing to
share their time for something that's just an ad, like
(13:18):
an infomercial, right, so they started to make things like
the shadow and little or fanany um, and they made
them so they could advertise, but eventually it gave us
radio programming and then ultimately TV programming. As we understand
it today, we're basically born out of this desire to
advertise to radio listeners in the thirties. Pretty cool, yeah, um.
(13:43):
And I didn't realize this, or I realized, I guess,
But it's just hard to imagine these days because it's
so advertising is so all over the place. But back
then you had direct to consumer sales one on one
you go to a store, or you have a traveling
salesman come to your house to sell a vacuum cleaner
or whatever. And the ads back in the day, UH
(14:07):
kind of bore that out. They were basically real, matter
of fact and kind of dry and really just bullets.
Bullet pointed, how our product is better than the other exactly,
he's very boring, very dry, Like our spats are better
than our competitors spats because they're made with virgin baby
goat skin. That's right. But with the popularity of radio,
(14:29):
things changed and they realized that jingles UH could make
a real impact, you know, and they did because it's music.
As the Wheaties quartet proved pretty early on. Um, and
just right out of the gate, people started really paying
attention to this, and they brought the field of psychology
in and psychology started cranking out books that basically guided
(14:50):
advertisers and companies on how to reach these audiences like
who's listening when and like how to talk to them
and um. Yeah, but they just basically exploded overnight. And
it was all largely thanks to the jingle. Yeah, and
you know the early on and I think it still
holds true today. If you want to be a successful jingle,
(15:13):
it's got to be very simple. You gotta have a repetition. Um,
you gotta have Rhyming is good. It is helps stick
in your head a little more and before you know it,
it's become part of your consciousness for like life. Like
they point out here in the article the Oscar Meyer
Uh Bologney song, like, anyone who grew up in the
(15:34):
seventies can sing that word for word today unless you
just weren't paying attention as a kid. Do you want
to sing a little of it? Well, now do you
know my Bologny has a first name, It's O. S
C A R. And the plot plot fizz fizz. Oh,
what a relief. It is like these things get burned
into the collective consciousness. But umu Stanza, what's that from Seinfeld? Remember,
(15:57):
like George gets a girlfriend because he he associates his
name with that by men, and but he goes Costanza
and the woman doesn't even like him, but she can't
get him out of her head because that Costanzas in there,
which you would call an earworm, which we've talked about
it feels like before, right, I think so, But we
(16:19):
may as well talk about the or verm is in German,
it's or orm and everyone knows it what an earworm is.
It's when it a song or a part of a
song gets stuck in your head, sometimes an explicably inexplicably
we'd got stuck in your head, Like you wake up
(16:39):
in the morning and the song is in your head.
You hadn't heard it in weeks, months, years, who knows,
but it's just there. And they don't really know how
it works either. No, but a couple of very smart
guys in the seventies got together. Their names were Alan
Badley and Graham Hitch and they I think they're responsible
for coming up with the idea of the working memory
(17:02):
and sounds like a well, they went on to write
the hustle um, but the badly and hitch first. Um,
I guess I've investigated working memory. And they came up
with this thing called the the phonological loop, right, which
is an earworm or a snippet of music or a
(17:24):
a sentence, whatever, it's running around. You can almost see
it facing this track in your head over and over again.
That's the phonological loop. And it's made of two parts, right,
the phonological store, which is your inner ear which here's it,
and then the articulatory rehearsal system, which is you're driving
(17:45):
yourself totally insane by saying it over and over repeating.
It's how we learned to talk or learn a foreign language. Um.
And they think that this phonological um loop is basically
an earworm pitching a ride on this neurological process that
we have naturally and basically exploiting it for commercial purposes. Wow,
(18:09):
happens more in women, supposedly, more musicians, supposedly, And if
you have O c D. It might really present a
problem with you. That was a really good episode of ours.
If you ask me O c. D. David Sedaris licks
light switches. I think yeah, in his book he did.
(18:30):
I don't know if that's real. I think it is, though, Um,
how to get rid of an earworm? There's all kinds
of things you can try, like actually hearing the song
in full. Um, like, Um, if you can't get call me,
maybe out of your head, right, just go listen to
call me, maybe sometimes singing it yourself all the way through.
(18:51):
You can do it. You could sing call me, maybe
you could vanquish it from your mind. But there's really
no sure fire away that those redicible tricks. Yea, I
heard someone say something about listening to rush, we'll get
rid of it? Is that what it was? Because you
just get smart? Right? Um? Who's professor coloris? So he's
(19:13):
the one who's basically he's a University of Cincinnati professor.
He's in the ear warm article, okay, and he has
dedicated his career to basically exploring earworms figuring out how
to how they work. Um. I think he's made a
name for himself in it all. He appears in not one,
but two how Stuff Works articles? So true, he's arrived.
(19:37):
So what he's done, Um, through surveys. He said, it's
obviously all up to the person. It's very individual as
far as what songs get stuck in your head. But
he put together through some surveys what he calls the
Playlist from Hell, and I would have to agree, I'd
like to see this updated because it's a little dated,
a little bit. I mean, I'm sure that one Party
(19:58):
Rock is gotta be at the time of the list.
I don't know that one Party Rock is in the
house to not I don't know that at all. You're
there's it's literally impossible that you have not heard party
Is it a song? Yes, I have not heard it.
I will play it for You'll be like, oh, okay,
is it like a pop song. Yeah, it's not a commercial.
(20:19):
It's everything. It's inescapable, it is the alpha, and it's
just not possible you haven't heard it, all right, But
his playlist from Hell includes uh, the Baby back Ribs,
Chili's Jingle which we won't even say out loud, the
Baja Mens who let the Dogs Out. That's a good one.
(20:40):
Queens we will rock you. That's another good one. That's
a good one. But I don't I don't know. That
doesn't strike me as particularly you're wormy. Um, give me
a break. It's a good one. That kit kat bar uh.
The Mission Impossible theme. I think it's funny that this
is on here because I had an experience with that
when I lived in New Jersey. It was when I
(21:01):
think the first Mission Impossible movie came out in YouTube
did the update of the theme. That thing was stuck
in my head for like three days. I was walking
around just going Donne and coming up on corners really
quick and like looking around doing a tuck and roll.
It was crazy. So it didn't surprise me to see
that on here. Y m c A, there's nothing wrong
with that. I kind of like this playlist. I wouldn't
(21:24):
call it from Hell. I'd call it maybe from hack
at Best. Okay, Um, now I do hate um The
Lion Sleeps Tonight. I hate that song. I think that's
probably on there for the very favorite womb there. It
is by Tag Team and It's a Small World. I
guess that one because you go to Disney World and
(21:45):
you just hear it over and over and over. Um,
what ride is that? It's a Small World? Is that
the name of the ride to Yeah? I think so.
It's been a while, but yeah, so, um, there's still
(22:10):
plenty of jingles out there. I'm trying to think of
a of a new jingle. Well, they're they're all over
um sports radio. Oh yeah, because I listened to a
lot of sports talk and me and my lead guitarist
Eddie who you know, Eddie Vedder Eddie Cooper. Uh, we
have been joking around about doing um, like a medley
(22:32):
of of radio jingles. No, yeah, in our set, because
if you listen to sports radio, man, it's like the
same ones like what well, looky, looky, looky, here comes
cookie Cooks, Alarm Force. I haven't heard that one alarm Force. Uh, man,
I can't think of them, but yeah, I mean there's
just like if you listen to any kind of sports radio,
(22:53):
it's like the same ones. The ad that always sticks
out to me when I think of like sports radio
talk radio is that one guy who's he's like trying
to sell like some sort of um REFI like, he's
a refinance guy. He's like, it's the biggest no brainer
in the history. Remember that guy. I love that? Or
(23:13):
if you've heard and this isn't even a jingle but
a full on song, have you heard any of the
Blue Belt ice cream commercials. I don't know, it's pretty great. Oh,
I mean they're all different, but it's all like this
guy singing about like, you know, country morning and the
sound of birds chirping, and it's like the sound of
coming home is what you taste when you eat Blue
(23:36):
Belt ice cream, which is a lie. Um. But like
you said, they sort of have gone out of fashion
a little bit at least from the heyday, even though
they're still around. Yeah, they still they are viewed somewhat
as hokey. I think if you stop and think about
a commercial jingle or the concept of a jingle, it's hokey,
(23:57):
even though you probably have five hundred of them in
your head that you could recall at any moment. Exactly.
But yes, if you are, say, um, the company responsible
for running VW's advertising campaign, you're probably not going to
use a commercial jingle. You're trying to go the other route,
which is too appropriate a pop song. Yeah, and in
VWS case, they used Nick Drake, which great one, the
(24:21):
song Pink Moon. Yeah, that's how I came to find
out who Nick Drake was. That's how a lot of
people came to find out and That's what the article
points out is a lot of times they can resuscitate careers,
although his case he passed away, but uh, he definitely
like was way more popular after that commercial than he
was before. UM Stereo Lab was also VW. Uh who else? Um.
(24:43):
I don't think they needed any help, but it was
like a perfect fit. The Polyphonic Spree. Oh yeah, they
had that there. I can't remember the name of the time.
It was like they're huge hit. Um that was on
a VW commercial, Like when VW first came out with
the New Beatle. Hey and shout out to a Toby right, yeah,
Toby he was he's shooting him feature film right now.
(25:04):
Yeah in Louisiana, Like he's shooting it. Yeah. Toby's a
friend of Josh and Yumis who was in the Polyphonic Spree.
He played and now he is a How did he really?
I don't think I knew that. Yeah, he was like, uh,
friends with a couple of them and said, hey, you know,
I want to be in the band. What do you need?
And they're like, how about Theoremin? And back then anyone
(25:25):
could be in the Pox Spree and it was huge.
It was extensive. Um and he went out and bought
a theoreman and taught himself how to play it and
came back and was like, all I don't want to
be and he like went to Japan. Um toured the
world with the with the Spree for a while. That's
the Spree. Yeah, um, that's awesome. Yeah he's making a
(25:46):
movie now. Yeah. Well you know they had that short
he produced one starring Bonnie Prince Billy. It was amazing.
Now they're onto something else. It's like a feature film
the same same company. Yeah. Um, anyway, pop songs, getting
back to that, Uh they credit the Beatles um seven
(26:06):
Nike commercial. I would Nike famously use Revolution. Do you
remember that. Yeah, it's kind of starting this whole new
wave of let's use like pay a lot of money
to use really popular songs because it's not enough anymore.
You can't say our brand is better than yours. You
like you want to identify your brand with a uh
(26:27):
the public consciousness and a lifestyle and like um, that
Cat Stephen's song Wind of My Soul and like the
Timberland ad that's kind of struck where it's like put
these shoes on and you will automatically I'm surprised he
went for that. I am too. I'd like to look
into that. I wonder if he doesn't have the rights.
(26:47):
It doesn't seem like something he would do. There's no
way he doesn't have the rights to the song. But um,
it is kind of you. You raise a point like
it is surprising that he would have gone for that.
But apparently if you work on artists long enough, or
just wait for them to grow old and need money,
they will eventually cave. Sting he didn't need the money,
but who Sting? No. I doubt if he did it
(27:10):
because he needed the money. I guess that's right. He
has a castle. He did it for a reason, though,
and it was probably money. Um So in the eighties
when Sting was still because you know, the Police started
out as a punk band, yeah, um and in the
eighties it was post punk, but Sting still thought of
himself as a pretty cool dude. And apparently I don't
know the company, but they approached Sting and said, hey,
(27:33):
we want to use don't stand so close to me
for our deodoric commercial. It's a terrible idea, and he
very wisely said no way. But then Jaguar said, hey,
you know this terrible Desert Rose thing you have going on,
we want to use that for our egg campaign And
Stint said, way right, cheers to that. Uh and that's
(27:54):
a big you know, bands get accused of selling out
uh less these days, I think because especially smaller bands,
you just you know, you people think music is free now,
so they're not making money selling records like they used to.
They break even on tours, these small bands, so like
I've done a one eight. Used to think like I
(28:15):
don't sell out, but now I'm like, dude, make whatever
money you can while you can. I know, a band
of horses one of my favorite and Jerry's favorites. Um,
they were kind of taken into the map by some
of their fans because they did. They license her movie
to Chevy, and the dude, Ben Bridwell came out and
it's like, no, you know what, I drive a Chevy.
(28:35):
It's old and maybe now I can get the A
C fixed. You know, he drives an old pickup chucking.
He's like, what's what's the problem. Like, We're trying to
make a little dough here, and it's a product I
believe in, you know. Um, they're that part in the
movie the doors where like two Morrison's like off on
like whatever for a while and comes back and sees
(28:57):
that like, um light my fires and Chevy commercially the
ray con of singers or something doing it, and he's like,
let's catch you tune that starts breaking stuff that brings
up my My biggest pet peeve today is this new
thing and it's not super new because they've been doing it,
(29:18):
but it's like worse than it's ever been. When they
will take a great classic song and bastardize it and
have some like lady session singer come in and sing
like Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones, but in a different
way and talking about being like satisfied with your you know,
your new car, and it's just it's all over the
(29:41):
place now and it's just the worst. Like I would
rather hear someone licensed their real song then hear them
remake it with some awful session singer and change the
words to fit their product, you know what I'm saying.
But then that corporation would take the Ben Breadwell stands
and bread Well Ben Bridwell stance and be like, hey man,
(30:01):
we gotta make our quarterly earnings. Yeah it's not true.
I was being totally facetious. That doesn't count. It's not
the same thing or the other thing now that um, like,
the Black Keys are suing Pizza Hut right now because
what companies will do. And Tom Waits to sue people
a bunch of times, like every other year he sues
someone because they'll go in and they'll say, give us something,
(30:24):
Tom waitsy or boy, listened to the gold on the
ceiling by the Black Keys, can you do something like that?
And these you know dudes that write these songs basically
rip them off. And the Black Keys are watching Pizza
Hut and they're like, wait a minute, that's my song
in a different, slightly different way selling pozzones and so
we're going to see you and take you to court.
(30:45):
And that's when they get in court and like compare
them side by side, and you know Ray Parker Junior famously, yeah, yeah,
I got messed up because he apparently ripped off. I
need a new drug. He lose song, that's right, and
I never really hurt it. And then finally I it
clicked and I was right, oh wow, that is really sticky.
Settled He lost that he settled or what, But he
(31:08):
definitely lost that case. I guess finally we should talk
a little bit about product placement because, um, but we
had a whole product placement episode. Oh yeah, that's right. Well,
obviously with TiVo and DVRs now, people are speeding through commercials,
so you are going to find some product placement in
your shows, quite possibly our own even. Yeah, it happens,
(31:30):
but um, there are better ways than others to do it.
And if you want a good laugh, go to the
YouTube and google soap Opera Cereal and um, just watch
It's great. That's all I'm gonna say. I watched that
the other day, did you. It's so funny and awful.
It's just it's colossally bad. Yeah, but it's so bad
(31:53):
that like it's earned a place in the pantheon of
pop culture now, so it did his job then some Yeah,
I bet you. There's a lot of hits on that
on YouTube. Peoples, Honey, what are you doing? Just having
some delicious honey? That cheerios? Boy, these things really packed
in fiber and there the thing is like a seven
minute long scene. Yeah, it was like they just started
(32:14):
talking about cheerios the whole time. Yeah, it's pretty funny. Um,
and there was a little product placement right there for
your cheerio. So it was all over the place. Bonus. No,
I mean just now no, But I'm saying, jeez, all
we did was talking about brands stuff we don't cook's.
Pest controls is a check. Yeah, we're just combined. Get
the termites out of my house, be nice. I want
(32:35):
to check. Um. Let's see. If you want to learn
more about commercial jingles, you can type those words into
the search bar at how stuff works dot com. And
I said search bar, which means it's time for listener mail.
I'm gonna call this you remember you asked for good
uh good causes in the white collar crimes. Yeah, this
(32:55):
one's from math and Georgia. Hey, so it made the cut.
I've been there, love the show Eyes And now a
segue into a shameless plug right to the point. For
a nonprofit in Athens, Georgia. I represent Free I t
Athens FREDA. It's an all volunteer um nonprofit and it
is a grassroots organization dedicated to reclaiming discarded technology like computers,
(33:19):
refurbishing it and distribing it to those in need. That's great,
makes perfect sense too. I think, in fact, I have
some old stuff I could donate. You know, there's golden there.
There's like all sorts of rarer and precious metals that
like if you in the computer bind them like a
bunch of computers, you'd have a little gold nugget. Really yeah,
well maybe I'll do that instead. We serve mostly low
(33:41):
income populations that cannot afford the latest and greatest technology.
We also aimed to reduced e waste through computer reuse
and responsible recycling. We are currently in need of working
laptops for a volunteer program. I know a whole room
full of them. Seriously, laptops are distributed a volunteers to
complete our computer refurbishing program. We're interested in laptop computers
(34:04):
that have been made within the last five years with
little to no damage. Donating your computer can change someone's life.
And imagine you can write that stuff off. You know,
we really should see what they're going to do with this,
see if we can get it a discuss. Uh, donating
can change someone's life. I already said that, but it
can really change someone's life. Financial donations are also welcome,
(34:27):
so you can visit www dot free I t Athens
dot org and thank you so much. Guys. That is
from Joel Isler in Athens. Thanks Joel, appreciate that it
is a very good cause. We'll see if we can
help you. If not, we're in addition to hopefully there's
a lot of listeners in the Athens in Atlanta area
that can help. Agreed. Or maybe people can mail them
(34:50):
from all over I'm sure you could. Or just go
there and give them a little cash, give them tin bucks.
Oh yeah, you can do that too. What was it
a free I t Athens dot org. That's right. Nice. Um,
if you have a commercial jingle, we want to hear it.
Send us a link. Sure, some great forgotten commercial jingle,
(35:10):
we want to hear about it. Um, you're the worst
one ever. Yeah, let's just start talking about this. Let's
get a conversation going. You can tweet to us at
s y s K Podcasts. You can join us on
Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know, and you
can send us an email. For more on this and
thousands of other topics, visit how stuff Works dot com.
Hey everyone, it's me Josh and for this week's s
Y s K Selects, I've chosen how Commercial Jingles Work.
You could also call it how commercial Jingles slash earworms work.
And I have to say, if you make it through
this episode with no earworms in your head, then your
brain is broke. Uh. This episode was also actually the
(00:20):
origin of the first commercial jingle, we got the Stuff
you Should Know, which was done by Rusty Maddius of
the Sheep Dogs, a Canadian band. And thanks again to
Rusty for kicking that tradition off for us. I hope
you enjoyed this episode. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know
(00:45):
from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant.
Have you noticed that Jerry has a were aggressive countdown
since we're shooting video now. We're shooting video now for
those of you not watching and just listening like old school, yeah,
(01:09):
we uh we have these video potentially. Yeah, Jerry's aggressively
counting down now. Yeah. He just yelled at us three
D one and I keep you know, we do two
of these uh at a time. Um, and I always
bring a shirt and always forget to change into it,
like changing. Yeah, I feel like a jerk. No, I
(01:31):
did change once the first time. Well, today you have
on your Mystery Science Theater three thousands. Shout out to
Kevin and Bill. Yeah, guys, if you're listening, you know everybody, Mike, Joel,
anybody Yeah that's ever had anything to do with that show.
TV's Frank, who's now a successful tweeter. Yeah, I don't
know if you follow him. No, he's he's pretty liberal.
(01:54):
You know. Joel went out and did his own thing
as well, Like they're both doing similar versions of their
previo his job, what is it? Cinematic Titanic is Joels
and then riff Tracks is Mike's. Uh yeah, I'm I'm
well aware, you know. Um, Robert Lamb interviewed Joel Hodgson
on and there's like a really awesome, lengthy blog interview
(02:17):
on the stuff to Blow your Mind blog. Check it out. Yeah,
so that's the intro for commercial jingles, which is what
we're talking about. Um, I really don't have anything except chuck.
Have you ever heard of a little uh songwriter named
Lynn Duddy? Nope, I had neither. Apparently, Lynn Duddy wrote
(02:42):
the I Love Bosco jingle, which I've never heard before,
but it's listed as a famous jingle, so I feel
like I'm missing out. I didn't know half of these.
Actually I Love Bosco jingle, that's the one that we list.
What's with this? And Barry Manila wasn't in here no,
which just get that out of the way, Hanelo, who
I love? You mean? I have seen him front Row
(03:04):
Center in Vegas. It was an awesome show. Did he
He looks so scary now, I He's a great guy.
I don't know if I'd want front Rows all I'm saying,
he h. It was cool. He said something to me.
I had to go to the bathroom, and I like
went and left in the middle of one of his songs,
and while he was singing, didn't miss a beat. He
says to my back, don't leave now it gets better,
(03:26):
and then just went into the song. Yeah, and you
mus like, Bryn did Josh, Yeah? Did you hear it?
Did you know it was? I didn't hear. I came
back and she was still like, oh my god, did
you hear wow? Yeah. But Barry Manelow, in addition to
his incredible singing career, also is Um one of the
(03:46):
better UM commercial jingle writers of all time. Yeah, performed
and co wrote uh jingles like like a good neighbor
state farm is there? That's a big one, man, they're
still using that stuck on the band aid because the
band aid stuck on me. That huge grab a bucket
of chicken. I haven't heard that one. Grab a bucket
(04:07):
of chicken. It was like seventies, yea. And that that
was for KFC obviously, and you deserve a break today
at McDonald's big one. And he apparently recently did one
for Dodge. I saw Randy Newman obviously, he writes whatever
pays the most. He wrote a bunch back in the day.
(04:28):
And then this guy Jim Brickman, who made quite a
name for himself with ads like we are flint Stone's Kids.
Oh yeah. For the vitamins. I used to love those,
but um, every once in a while, my mom would
just buy the cheaper knockoff one and the difference in
taste awful. So there was a spell where like she
(04:49):
would find like sticky knockoff flint Stone vitamins like in
my Lincoln logs just stuck to things because I'd just
be like it was Yeah, I just put it in
my Lincoln logs because I guess throwing it away was
too difficult. Yeah, it's pretty good, but yeah, and then
of course Lynn Duddy and Lynn Duddy and Brigman's other
(05:10):
big one was ge we bring good things to line.
Do you know how rich these people must be if
they had even just a halfway decent agent. Well, it
points out on this article. I don't know if it's
still the case, but if you wrote the jingle, you
own the rights to it. I know, I don't know
if that's still it seems like it should be. I
guarantee you. Manilow owns the rights to the ones that
(05:30):
he wrote. He didn't need a tour, but he still does,
although he likes to cancel once in a while. He
just came I had tickets for his Atlanta show. Really,
he just canceled. It canceled. I'm not playing sorry, huh
oh really yeah that's pretty lame. Yeah, I thought too. Well,
I hope he's all right. I was really into Barry
Manlo when I was a kid. I know, for someone
(05:51):
who ended up being like fairly cool with my music case. Hey,
I've gotten great music taste too, and I love man.
Oh yeah, no, I'm just saying alright, let's get into this, okay,
So Chuck, what is a commercial jingle. It's one of
these things that you know, you anybody can define it,
but it's actually a little specific. Uh yeah, Well it
(06:13):
is a song or a snippet um of a hopefully
memorable melody written about a product. And that's the original jingle.
We'll get into how it's changed over the years. So, um,
it can have just about anything in it, like a
slogan like like a good neighbor state farmers there. It
can have a phone number like a hundred five three
(06:35):
hundred Empire today. Yeah, good going. Um. It can have
call letters like NBC. Yeah that is um. I looked
into that. That is what they now call audio branding
or an audio logo. Um, like the sound your computer
makes when you open it. Oh yeah, you know Apple
(06:56):
has THEIRS, PC said theirs or the ding ding ding
from NBC like you just said. But that's a big
business now, that jingle, Like who can never get rid
of that one once it's in your head. Uh, but
that's a new thing. Like that's even more specific now
than jingles are what they call audio branding, and every
(07:17):
time I hear the word branding, a little piece of
me dieu. But the dude from the Human League, remember that, man,
he has a company. Now that's like getting rich doing this.
Oh yeah. Yeah. Basically it's a little more complex in
a jingle because they're trying to capture like the essence
of your brand with a few notes maybe, or in
the case of like an LG dryer, instead of hearing
(07:40):
at the end, it plays this little melody. It's like
laundrys ton No, what is that? Uh no, it's a
little melody, like a little dinging chiming melody. Who who
was it that wrote the Yahoo one Yahoo man? Who
was that? We were just talking about that recently. How's
the guy who wrote? Uh? Oh man, I can't remember. Oh, well,
(08:06):
somebody right in. It was a previous podcast. Yeah that's
less than two months old. Yeah, it's all gone now.
Uh alright, So anyway, that's audio branding. But oh we
left out one other one other part of a jingle.
It can also tout the benefits of a product. Yeah,
especially back in the day that was huge, Like you'll
wonder where the yellow went when you brush your teeth
(08:29):
with PEPs it in. Really you're not familiar? No, yeah,
I remember the Crest Um the Crest Patrol. Yeah, we
make holes in teeth remember that that? Oh man, I
wish I would look this stuff up. In the seventies,
that was the cartoon of the Crest. I remember that. Yeah.
And then there were the the the yup mouse who
(08:50):
were the bad people in that? I don't remember. The
enemies were the ones we make holes and teeth to
the cavity creeps. I know the cavity creeps. Alright, I'm
firing on all you know. Um. I remember being in
like third grade, I think, and we got a bunch
of promotional materials from the Crest Patrol and it included
a play of which I was I think a toothbrush
(09:13):
talk about infiltrating schools. Ye, seriously, like we put on
a play about the Crest Patrol in school. Wow, that
is weird. It's a little weird, So, Chuck Jingles, they've
been around since the Egyptians, as I understand it, that
is not true. Technically, it is true because the Egyptians
(09:34):
were around in the nineteen thirties. Funny guy Christmas Eve six.
They have credited the the Wheaties Quartet was singing about
the Wheaties Breakfast Cereal first ever jingle, UM, And apparently
Wheaties was in pretty bad shape and they're even gonna
(09:54):
get rid of it until they noticed that in markets
where they were playing this song on the radio, Wheaties
picked up and they said, hey, maybe this jingles. Maybe
he's got something to it. And they probably call it
a jingle at the time. Um. And then they put
it nationwide and Wheaties was saved. Yeah, you did you
listen to it? No? Is it pretty bad? No, it's great.
(10:14):
It sounds like the b Sharp's you know, it's barbershop quartet.
It sounds like Baby on Board, Yeah, except they're singing
about Wheaties. So that whole Wheaties thing is pretty well established,
but some still dispute it. And it depends on how
you look at, um what a jingle is, um, whether
that's the first one or not. But there's a song
that was written in nineteen o five called in My
(10:37):
Merry Old Mobile like Gus Edwards and Vincent Brian and
I didn't realize that people were named Vincent back in
like nineteen o five. Does that seem like a modern
name to you, it seems more like nineteen forties to
nineteen seventies. Maybe maybe you know there's a website that
charts popularity of names in a graph. I believe that
I bet you Vincent is pretty low back then. Um,
(11:00):
but those two guys made in my Mary Oldsmobile and
Oldsmobile used it in the thirties, but it wasn't originally
recorded or written for Oldsmobile to use. I think the
guys just really like their olds momentle, rely, and so um.
The author of this this article, Tim Faulkner, points out
that you're probably more accurately call it the first pop
(11:21):
song licensed for commercial use. Okay, that makes more sense.
So it's technically not a jingle. So the Wheaties quartet
still stands. Christmas Eve, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Is there any place
more desolate than Hey? It worked because we still have
wheaties today. So the whole reason jingles came about too
(11:52):
is because you know, I'm all about my like nineteen
thirties consumer history and like in in the thirties, like
consumer protection was like way stronger, and one of the
things was direct advertising was very strict. So funny. Now, yeah,
like this is so like no holds barred. Now you know,
Australia is like going to town, like preventing direct marketing
(12:15):
to kids. Yeah, they're really protecting their kids. It is
very cool. Plus here you can only market here, right exactly.
Do you remember when there used to be like cigarette
ads and oh yeah, cutty sark ads and things like that.
It's funny to look through uh if you go like
to uh antique places and they have old Life magazine stuff.
You just look at the ats and it's like these
(12:36):
happy people slowly killing themselves with merits. Um so. But
in the in the thirties, like if you wanted to
get an ad on the radio, you pretty much had
to buy some time like a half hour or an
hour and put on a program. And hence we have
things like the King Biscuit Flower Hour, you know um
(12:57):
or the General Motor Um Car Thriller Mysteries, you know whatever.
And at first I think it was really boring and
dull and dumb. And they figured out that consumers were
a little more savvy and we're not really willing to
share their time for something that's just an ad, like
(13:18):
an infomercial, right, so they started to make things like
the shadow and little or fanany um, and they made
them so they could advertise, but eventually it gave us
radio programming and then ultimately TV programming. As we understand
it today, we're basically born out of this desire to
advertise to radio listeners in the thirties. Pretty cool, yeah, um.
(13:43):
And I didn't realize this, or I realized, I guess,
But it's just hard to imagine these days because it's
so advertising is so all over the place. But back
then you had direct to consumer sales one on one
you go to a store, or you have a traveling
salesman come to your house to sell a vacuum cleaner
or whatever. And the ads back in the day, UH
(14:07):
kind of bore that out. They were basically real, matter
of fact and kind of dry and really just bullets.
Bullet pointed, how our product is better than the other exactly,
he's very boring, very dry, Like our spats are better
than our competitors spats because they're made with virgin baby
goat skin. That's right. But with the popularity of radio,
(14:29):
things changed and they realized that jingles UH could make
a real impact, you know, and they did because it's music.
As the Wheaties quartet proved pretty early on. Um, and
just right out of the gate, people started really paying
attention to this, and they brought the field of psychology
in and psychology started cranking out books that basically guided
(14:50):
advertisers and companies on how to reach these audiences like
who's listening when and like how to talk to them
and um. Yeah, but they just basically exploded overnight. And
it was all largely thanks to the jingle. Yeah, and
you know the early on and I think it still
holds true today. If you want to be a successful jingle,
(15:13):
it's got to be very simple. You gotta have a repetition. Um,
you gotta have Rhyming is good. It is helps stick
in your head a little more and before you know it,
it's become part of your consciousness for like life. Like
they point out here in the article the Oscar Meyer
Uh Bologney song, like, anyone who grew up in the
(15:34):
seventies can sing that word for word today unless you
just weren't paying attention as a kid. Do you want
to sing a little of it? Well, now do you
know my Bologny has a first name, It's O. S
C A R. And the plot plot fizz fizz. Oh,
what a relief. It is like these things get burned
into the collective consciousness. But umu Stanza, what's that from Seinfeld? Remember,
(15:57):
like George gets a girlfriend because he he associates his
name with that by men, and but he goes Costanza
and the woman doesn't even like him, but she can't
get him out of her head because that Costanzas in there,
which you would call an earworm, which we've talked about
it feels like before, right, I think so, But we
(16:19):
may as well talk about the or verm is in German,
it's or orm and everyone knows it what an earworm is.
It's when it a song or a part of a
song gets stuck in your head, sometimes an explicably inexplicably
we'd got stuck in your head, Like you wake up
(16:39):
in the morning and the song is in your head.
You hadn't heard it in weeks, months, years, who knows,
but it's just there. And they don't really know how
it works either. No, but a couple of very smart
guys in the seventies got together. Their names were Alan
Badley and Graham Hitch and they I think they're responsible
for coming up with the idea of the working memory
(17:02):
and sounds like a well, they went on to write
the hustle um, but the badly and hitch first. Um,
I guess I've investigated working memory. And they came up
with this thing called the the phonological loop, right, which
is an earworm or a snippet of music or a
(17:24):
a sentence, whatever, it's running around. You can almost see
it facing this track in your head over and over again.
That's the phonological loop. And it's made of two parts, right,
the phonological store, which is your inner ear which here's it,
and then the articulatory rehearsal system, which is you're driving
(17:45):
yourself totally insane by saying it over and over repeating.
It's how we learned to talk or learn a foreign language. Um.
And they think that this phonological um loop is basically
an earworm pitching a ride on this neurological process that
we have naturally and basically exploiting it for commercial purposes. Wow,
(18:09):
happens more in women, supposedly, more musicians, supposedly, And if
you have O c D. It might really present a
problem with you. That was a really good episode of ours.
If you ask me O c. D. David Sedaris licks
light switches. I think yeah, in his book he did.
(18:30):
I don't know if that's real. I think it is, though, Um,
how to get rid of an earworm? There's all kinds
of things you can try, like actually hearing the song
in full. Um, like, Um, if you can't get call me,
maybe out of your head, right, just go listen to
call me, maybe sometimes singing it yourself all the way through.
(18:51):
You can do it. You could sing call me, maybe
you could vanquish it from your mind. But there's really
no sure fire away that those redicible tricks. Yea, I
heard someone say something about listening to rush, we'll get
rid of it? Is that what it was? Because you
just get smart? Right? Um? Who's professor coloris? So he's
(19:13):
the one who's basically he's a University of Cincinnati professor.
He's in the ear warm article, okay, and he has
dedicated his career to basically exploring earworms figuring out how
to how they work. Um. I think he's made a
name for himself in it all. He appears in not one,
but two how Stuff Works articles? So true, he's arrived.
(19:37):
So what he's done, Um, through surveys. He said, it's
obviously all up to the person. It's very individual as
far as what songs get stuck in your head. But
he put together through some surveys what he calls the
Playlist from Hell, and I would have to agree, I'd
like to see this updated because it's a little dated,
a little bit. I mean, I'm sure that one Party
(19:58):
Rock is gotta be at the time of the list.
I don't know that one Party Rock is in the
house to not I don't know that at all. You're
there's it's literally impossible that you have not heard party
Is it a song? Yes, I have not heard it.
I will play it for You'll be like, oh, okay,
is it like a pop song. Yeah, it's not a commercial.
(20:19):
It's everything. It's inescapable, it is the alpha, and it's
just not possible you haven't heard it, all right, But
his playlist from Hell includes uh, the Baby back Ribs,
Chili's Jingle which we won't even say out loud, the
Baja Mens who let the Dogs Out. That's a good one.
(20:40):
Queens we will rock you. That's another good one. That's
a good one. But I don't I don't know. That
doesn't strike me as particularly you're wormy. Um, give me
a break. It's a good one. That kit kat bar uh.
The Mission Impossible theme. I think it's funny that this
is on here because I had an experience with that
when I lived in New Jersey. It was when I
(21:01):
think the first Mission Impossible movie came out in YouTube
did the update of the theme. That thing was stuck
in my head for like three days. I was walking
around just going Donne and coming up on corners really
quick and like looking around doing a tuck and roll.
It was crazy. So it didn't surprise me to see
that on here. Y m c A, there's nothing wrong
with that. I kind of like this playlist. I wouldn't
(21:24):
call it from Hell. I'd call it maybe from hack
at Best. Okay, Um, now I do hate um The
Lion Sleeps Tonight. I hate that song. I think that's
probably on there for the very favorite womb there. It
is by Tag Team and It's a Small World. I
guess that one because you go to Disney World and
(21:45):
you just hear it over and over and over. Um,
what ride is that? It's a Small World? Is that
the name of the ride to Yeah? I think so.
It's been a while, but yeah, so, um, there's still
(22:10):
plenty of jingles out there. I'm trying to think of
a of a new jingle. Well, they're they're all over
um sports radio. Oh yeah, because I listened to a
lot of sports talk and me and my lead guitarist
Eddie who you know, Eddie Vedder Eddie Cooper. Uh, we
have been joking around about doing um, like a medley
(22:32):
of of radio jingles. No, yeah, in our set, because
if you listen to sports radio, man, it's like the
same ones like what well, looky, looky, looky, here comes
cookie Cooks, Alarm Force. I haven't heard that one alarm Force. Uh, man,
I can't think of them, but yeah, I mean there's
just like if you listen to any kind of sports radio,
(22:53):
it's like the same ones. The ad that always sticks
out to me when I think of like sports radio
talk radio is that one guy who's he's like trying
to sell like some sort of um REFI like, he's
a refinance guy. He's like, it's the biggest no brainer
in the history. Remember that guy. I love that? Or
(23:13):
if you've heard and this isn't even a jingle but
a full on song, have you heard any of the
Blue Belt ice cream commercials. I don't know, it's pretty great. Oh,
I mean they're all different, but it's all like this
guy singing about like, you know, country morning and the
sound of birds chirping, and it's like the sound of
coming home is what you taste when you eat Blue
(23:36):
Belt ice cream, which is a lie. Um. But like
you said, they sort of have gone out of fashion
a little bit at least from the heyday, even though
they're still around. Yeah, they still they are viewed somewhat
as hokey. I think if you stop and think about
a commercial jingle or the concept of a jingle, it's hokey,
(23:57):
even though you probably have five hundred of them in
your head that you could recall at any moment. Exactly.
But yes, if you are, say, um, the company responsible
for running VW's advertising campaign, you're probably not going to
use a commercial jingle. You're trying to go the other route,
which is too appropriate a pop song. Yeah, and in
VWS case, they used Nick Drake, which great one, the
(24:21):
song Pink Moon. Yeah, that's how I came to find
out who Nick Drake was. That's how a lot of
people came to find out and That's what the article
points out is a lot of times they can resuscitate careers,
although his case he passed away, but uh, he definitely
like was way more popular after that commercial than he
was before. UM Stereo Lab was also VW. Uh who else? Um.
(24:43):
I don't think they needed any help, but it was
like a perfect fit. The Polyphonic Spree. Oh yeah, they
had that there. I can't remember the name of the time.
It was like they're huge hit. Um that was on
a VW commercial, Like when VW first came out with
the New Beatle. Hey and shout out to a Toby right, yeah,
Toby he was he's shooting him feature film right now.
(25:04):
Yeah in Louisiana, Like he's shooting it. Yeah. Toby's a
friend of Josh and Yumis who was in the Polyphonic Spree.
He played and now he is a How did he really?
I don't think I knew that. Yeah, he was like, uh,
friends with a couple of them and said, hey, you know,
I want to be in the band. What do you need?
And they're like, how about Theoremin? And back then anyone
(25:25):
could be in the Pox Spree and it was huge.
It was extensive. Um and he went out and bought
a theoreman and taught himself how to play it and
came back and was like, all I don't want to
be and he like went to Japan. Um toured the
world with the with the Spree for a while. That's
the Spree. Yeah, um, that's awesome. Yeah he's making a
(25:46):
movie now. Yeah. Well you know they had that short
he produced one starring Bonnie Prince Billy. It was amazing.
Now they're onto something else. It's like a feature film
the same same company. Yeah. Um, anyway, pop songs, getting
back to that, Uh they credit the Beatles um seven
(26:06):
Nike commercial. I would Nike famously use Revolution. Do you
remember that. Yeah, it's kind of starting this whole new
wave of let's use like pay a lot of money
to use really popular songs because it's not enough anymore.
You can't say our brand is better than yours. You
like you want to identify your brand with a uh
(26:27):
the public consciousness and a lifestyle and like um, that
Cat Stephen's song Wind of My Soul and like the
Timberland ad that's kind of struck where it's like put
these shoes on and you will automatically I'm surprised he
went for that. I am too. I'd like to look
into that. I wonder if he doesn't have the rights.
(26:47):
It doesn't seem like something he would do. There's no
way he doesn't have the rights to the song. But um,
it is kind of you. You raise a point like
it is surprising that he would have gone for that.
But apparently if you work on artists long enough, or
just wait for them to grow old and need money,
they will eventually cave. Sting he didn't need the money,
but who Sting? No. I doubt if he did it
(27:10):
because he needed the money. I guess that's right. He
has a castle. He did it for a reason, though,
and it was probably money. Um So in the eighties
when Sting was still because you know, the Police started
out as a punk band, yeah, um and in the
eighties it was post punk, but Sting still thought of
himself as a pretty cool dude. And apparently I don't
know the company, but they approached Sting and said, hey,
(27:33):
we want to use don't stand so close to me
for our deodoric commercial. It's a terrible idea, and he
very wisely said no way. But then Jaguar said, hey,
you know this terrible Desert Rose thing you have going on,
we want to use that for our egg campaign And
Stint said, way right, cheers to that. Uh and that's
(27:54):
a big you know, bands get accused of selling out
uh less these days, I think because especially smaller bands,
you just you know, you people think music is free now,
so they're not making money selling records like they used to.
They break even on tours, these small bands, so like
I've done a one eight. Used to think like I
(28:15):
don't sell out, but now I'm like, dude, make whatever
money you can while you can. I know, a band
of horses one of my favorite and Jerry's favorites. Um,
they were kind of taken into the map by some
of their fans because they did. They license her movie
to Chevy, and the dude, Ben Bridwell came out and
it's like, no, you know what, I drive a Chevy.
(28:35):
It's old and maybe now I can get the A
C fixed. You know, he drives an old pickup chucking.
He's like, what's what's the problem. Like, We're trying to
make a little dough here, and it's a product I
believe in, you know. Um, they're that part in the
movie the doors where like two Morrison's like off on
like whatever for a while and comes back and sees
(28:57):
that like, um light my fires and Chevy commercially the
ray con of singers or something doing it, and he's like,
let's catch you tune that starts breaking stuff that brings
up my My biggest pet peeve today is this new
thing and it's not super new because they've been doing it,
(29:18):
but it's like worse than it's ever been. When they
will take a great classic song and bastardize it and
have some like lady session singer come in and sing
like Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones, but in a different
way and talking about being like satisfied with your you know,
your new car, and it's just it's all over the
(29:41):
place now and it's just the worst. Like I would
rather hear someone licensed their real song then hear them
remake it with some awful session singer and change the
words to fit their product, you know what I'm saying.
But then that corporation would take the Ben Breadwell stands
and bread Well Ben Bridwell stance and be like, hey man,
(30:01):
we gotta make our quarterly earnings. Yeah it's not true.
I was being totally facetious. That doesn't count. It's not
the same thing or the other thing now that um, like,
the Black Keys are suing Pizza Hut right now because
what companies will do. And Tom Waits to sue people
a bunch of times, like every other year he sues
someone because they'll go in and they'll say, give us something,
(30:24):
Tom waitsy or boy, listened to the gold on the
ceiling by the Black Keys, can you do something like that?
And these you know dudes that write these songs basically
rip them off. And the Black Keys are watching Pizza
Hut and they're like, wait a minute, that's my song
in a different, slightly different way selling pozzones and so
we're going to see you and take you to court.
(30:45):
And that's when they get in court and like compare
them side by side, and you know Ray Parker Junior famously, yeah, yeah,
I got messed up because he apparently ripped off. I
need a new drug. He lose song, that's right, and
I never really hurt it. And then finally I it
clicked and I was right, oh wow, that is really sticky.
Settled He lost that he settled or what, But he
(31:08):
definitely lost that case. I guess finally we should talk
a little bit about product placement because, um, but we
had a whole product placement episode. Oh yeah, that's right. Well,
obviously with TiVo and DVRs now, people are speeding through commercials,
so you are going to find some product placement in
your shows, quite possibly our own even. Yeah, it happens,
(31:30):
but um, there are better ways than others to do it.
And if you want a good laugh, go to the
YouTube and google soap Opera Cereal and um, just watch
It's great. That's all I'm gonna say. I watched that
the other day, did you. It's so funny and awful.
It's just it's colossally bad. Yeah, but it's so bad
(31:53):
that like it's earned a place in the pantheon of
pop culture now, so it did his job then some Yeah,
I bet you. There's a lot of hits on that
on YouTube. Peoples, Honey, what are you doing? Just having
some delicious honey? That cheerios? Boy, these things really packed
in fiber and there the thing is like a seven
minute long scene. Yeah, it was like they just started
(32:14):
talking about cheerios the whole time. Yeah, it's pretty funny. Um,
and there was a little product placement right there for
your cheerio. So it was all over the place. Bonus. No,
I mean just now no, But I'm saying, jeez, all
we did was talking about brands stuff we don't cook's.
Pest controls is a check. Yeah, we're just combined. Get
the termites out of my house, be nice. I want
(32:35):
to check. Um. Let's see. If you want to learn
more about commercial jingles, you can type those words into
the search bar at how stuff works dot com. And
I said search bar, which means it's time for listener mail.
I'm gonna call this you remember you asked for good
uh good causes in the white collar crimes. Yeah, this
(32:55):
one's from math and Georgia. Hey, so it made the cut.
I've been there, love the show Eyes And now a
segue into a shameless plug right to the point. For
a nonprofit in Athens, Georgia. I represent Free I t
Athens FREDA. It's an all volunteer um nonprofit and it
is a grassroots organization dedicated to reclaiming discarded technology like computers,
(33:19):
refurbishing it and distribing it to those in need. That's great,
makes perfect sense too. I think, in fact, I have
some old stuff I could donate. You know, there's golden there.
There's like all sorts of rarer and precious metals that
like if you in the computer bind them like a
bunch of computers, you'd have a little gold nugget. Really yeah,
well maybe I'll do that instead. We serve mostly low
(33:41):
income populations that cannot afford the latest and greatest technology.
We also aimed to reduced e waste through computer reuse
and responsible recycling. We are currently in need of working
laptops for a volunteer program. I know a whole room
full of them. Seriously, laptops are distributed a volunteers to
complete our computer refurbishing program. We're interested in laptop computers
(34:04):
that have been made within the last five years with
little to no damage. Donating your computer can change someone's life.
And imagine you can write that stuff off. You know,
we really should see what they're going to do with this,
see if we can get it a discuss. Uh, donating
can change someone's life. I already said that, but it
can really change someone's life. Financial donations are also welcome,
(34:27):
so you can visit www dot free I t Athens
dot org and thank you so much. Guys. That is
from Joel Isler in Athens. Thanks Joel, appreciate that it
is a very good cause. We'll see if we can
help you. If not, we're in addition to hopefully there's
a lot of listeners in the Athens in Atlanta area
that can help. Agreed. Or maybe people can mail them
(34:50):
from all over I'm sure you could. Or just go
there and give them a little cash, give them tin bucks.
Oh yeah, you can do that too. What was it
a free I t Athens dot org. That's right. Nice. Um,
if you have a commercial jingle, we want to hear it.
Send us a link. Sure, some great forgotten commercial jingle,
(35:10):
we want to hear about it. Um, you're the worst
one ever. Yeah, let's just start talking about this. Let's
get a conversation going. You can tweet to us at
s y s K Podcasts. You can join us on
Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know, and you
can send us an email. For more on this and
thousands of other topics, visit how stuff Works dot com.
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
Show Links
AboutOrder Our BookStoreSYSK ArmyRSSPopular Podcasts
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Decisions, Decisions
Welcome to "Decisions, Decisions," the podcast where boundaries are pushed, and conversations get candid! Join your favorite hosts, Mandii B and WeezyWTF, as they dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often-taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday, Mandii and Weezy invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, they share their personal journeys navigating their 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engaging in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that resonate with your experiences, "Decisions, Decisions" is your go-to source for open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections—tune in and join the conversation!