Speaker 1: Welcome to you stuff you should know from house stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Have you noticed
Speaker 1: that Jerry has a more aggressive countdown since we're shooting video.
Speaker 1: We're shooting video now for those of you not watching
Speaker 1: and just listening like old school, Yeah, we uh we
Speaker 1: have these on video potentially. Yeah, Jerry's but you're simply
Speaker 1: counting down now. Yeah, he just yelled at us three
Speaker 1: D one and I keep you know, we do two
Speaker 1: of these uh at a time. Um, and I always
Speaker 1: bring a shirt and always forget to change into it,
Speaker 1: like changing. Yeah, I feel like a jerk. No, I
Speaker 1: did change once the first time. Well, today you have
Speaker 1: on your mystery signed feed at three thousands. Shout out
Speaker 1: to Kevin and Bill. Yeah, guys, you're listening. You know, everybody, Mike, Joel,
Speaker 1: anybody ever had anything to do with that show. TV's
Speaker 1: Frank who's now a successful tweeter. Yeah, I don't know
Speaker 1: if you follow him. He's he's pretty liberal. You know.
Speaker 1: Joel went out and did his own thing as well.
Speaker 1: Like they're both doing similar versions of their previous job.
Speaker 1: What is it. Cinematic Titanic is Joel's and then Riff
Speaker 1: Tracks is Mike's. Uh yeah, I'm I'm all aware, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: Robert Lamb interviewed Joel Hodgson on and there's like a
Speaker 1: really awesome, lengthy blog interview on the stuff to blow
Speaker 1: your mind blog cool check it out. Yeah, so that's
Speaker 1: the intro for commercial jingles, which is what we're talking about. UM,
Speaker 1: I really don't have anything except chuck. Have you ever
Speaker 1: heard of a little uh songwriter named Lynn Duddy? Nope?
Speaker 1: I had neither. Apparently Lynn Duddy out the I Love
Speaker 1: Bosco jingle, which I've never heard before, but it's listed
Speaker 1: as a famous jingle, So I feel like I'm missing out.
Speaker 1: I didn't know the actually I Love Bosco jingle. That's
Speaker 1: the one that we list. What's with this? And Barry
Speaker 1: Manelo wasn't in here, no, which let's just get that
Speaker 1: out of the way. Hanelo, Who I love? You mean?
Speaker 1: I have seen him front Row Center in Vegas. It
Speaker 1: was an awesome show. Did he he looks so scary now?
Speaker 1: I he's a great guy. I don't know if I
Speaker 1: want in front Rows all I'm saying, he h. It
Speaker 1: was cool. He said something to me, I had to
Speaker 1: go to the bathroom, and I like went and left
Speaker 1: in the middle of one of his songs, and while
Speaker 1: he was singing, didn't miss a beat. He says to
Speaker 1: my back, don't leave now it gets better, And then
Speaker 1: just like went into the song yeah, and you was like, man,
Speaker 1: did Josh Yeah? Did you hear it? Did you know
Speaker 1: it was? I didn't hear. I came back and she
Speaker 1: was still like, oh my god, did you hear? Yeah?
Speaker 1: But Barry Manelo, in addition to his incredible singing career,
Speaker 1: also is um one of the better UM commercial jingle
Speaker 1: writers of all time. Yeah, performed and co wrote h
Speaker 1: jingles like like a good neighbor state farm is there?
Speaker 1: That's a big one. Man. They're still using that stuck
Speaker 1: on the band aid because the band aid stuck on me.
Speaker 1: That's huge. Grab a bucket of chicken. I haven't heard
Speaker 1: that one. Grab a bucket of chicken. It was like seventies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that that was for KFC, obviously, and you deserve
Speaker 1: a break today at McDonald's Big one, And he apparently
Speaker 1: recently did one for Dodge. I saw Randy Newman obviously.
Speaker 1: He writes whatever pays the most. He wrote a bunch
Speaker 1: back in the day. And then this guy Jim Brickman,
Speaker 1: who made quite a name for himself with ads like
Speaker 1: We're flint Stone's Kids. Oh yeah, for the vitamins. I
Speaker 1: used to love those, but um, every once in a
Speaker 1: while my mom just buy the cheaper knockoff ones and
Speaker 1: the difference in taste. So there is a spell where
Speaker 1: like she would find like sticky knockoff flint Stone vitamins
Speaker 1: like in my Lincoln Logs, just stuck to things because
Speaker 1: I'd just be like, yeah, I just put it in
Speaker 1: my Lincoln Logs because I guess throwing it away was
Speaker 1: too difficult. It's pretty good, but yeah. And then of
Speaker 1: course Lynn Duddy and Brickman's other big one was Gere
Speaker 1: Good Things to Do. You know how rich these people
Speaker 1: must be if they had even just a halfway decent agent. Well,
Speaker 1: it points out on this article. I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's still the case, but if you wrote the jingle,
Speaker 1: you own the rights to it. I know, I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's still it seems like it should be.
Speaker 1: I guarantee you Manilow owns the rights to the ones
Speaker 1: that he wrote. He didn't need a dour, but he
Speaker 1: still does, although he likes to cancel once in a while.
Speaker 1: He just came I had tickets for his Atlanta show. Really,
Speaker 1: he just cancel it. Cancel I'm not playing sorry, huh
Speaker 1: they are? Oh really Yeah that's pretty lame. Yeah, I thought, well,
Speaker 1: I hope he's all right. I was really into Barry
Speaker 1: Manly when I was a kid, I know, for someone
Speaker 1: who ended up being like fairly cool with my music, daste.
Speaker 1: I've got great music taste too, and I love Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, all right, let's get into this, okay,
Speaker 1: So Chuck, what is a commercial jingle? It's one of
Speaker 1: these things that you know, you anybody can define it,
Speaker 1: but it's actually a little specific. Uh yeah, Well it
Speaker 1: is a song or a snippet um of a hopefully
Speaker 1: memorable melody written about a product. And that's the original jingle.
Speaker 1: We'll get into how it's changed over the years. So. Um,
Speaker 1: it can have just about anything in it, like a
Speaker 1: slogan like like a good neighbor, state farmers there. It
Speaker 1: can have a phone number like a hundred five hundred
Speaker 1: Empire today, Yeah, good going. Um. It can have a
Speaker 1: call letter like NBC. Yeah, that is um I looked
Speaker 1: into that. That is what they now call audio branding
Speaker 1: or an audio logo. Um, like the sound of your
Speaker 1: computer makes when you open it. You know, Apple has theirs,
Speaker 1: PC said theirs or the ding ding ding from NBC
Speaker 1: like you just said, but that's a big business now,
Speaker 1: Or that jingle like who can never get rid of
Speaker 1: that one once it's in your head. Uh, but that's
Speaker 1: a new thing. Like that's even more specific now than
Speaker 1: jingles are what they call audio branding. And every time
Speaker 1: I hear the word branding, a little piece of me die. Um.
Speaker 1: But the dude from the Human League, remember that band? Ye,
Speaker 1: he has a company now that's like getting rich doing this. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Basically it's a little more complex in a jingle because
Speaker 1: they're trying to capture like the essence of your brand
Speaker 1: with a few notes maybe or in the case of
Speaker 1: like an LG dryer instead of hearing at the in
Speaker 1: it plays this little melody. It's like laundrys time. No,
Speaker 1: what is that? Uh No, it's a little melody, like
Speaker 1: a little dinging chiming melody. Who who was it that
Speaker 1: wrote the Yahoo one Yahoo man? Who was that? We
Speaker 1: were just talking about that recently? How was the guy
Speaker 1: who wrote? Uh? Oh man, I can't remember. Oh, well,
Speaker 1: somebody right in it was a previous podcast that's less
Speaker 1: than two months old. It's all gone now. Uh alright,
Speaker 1: So anyway, that's audio branding. But oh we left out
Speaker 1: one other, one other part of a jingle. It can
Speaker 1: also tout the benefits of a product. Yeah, especially back
Speaker 1: in the day, that was huge. Like you'll wonder where
Speaker 1: the yellow went when you brush your teeth with PEPs
Speaker 1: it in Really you're not familiar, No, I remember the
Speaker 1: crest Um the Crest Patrol. Yeah, we make holes and teeth.
Speaker 1: Remember that? No? That that? Oh man, I wish I
Speaker 1: would look this stuff up. In the seventies, that was
Speaker 1: the cartoon of the Crest, I remember that. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: then there were the the the yup mouse who were
Speaker 1: the bad people in that? I don't remember. The enemies
Speaker 1: were the ones we make holes and teeth, the cavity creeps.
Speaker 1: I know, the cavity creeps. Alright, I'm firing on all
Speaker 1: you know. Um. I remember being in like third grade,
Speaker 1: I think, and we got a bunch of promotional materials
Speaker 1: from the Crest Patrol and it included a play of
Speaker 1: which I was I think a toothbrush talk about infiltrating schools,
Speaker 1: like we put on a play about the Crest Patrol
Speaker 1: in school. Wow, that is weird. It's a little weird,
Speaker 1: So Chuck Jingles. They've been around since the Egyptians, as
Speaker 1: I understand it, that is not true. Technically, it is
Speaker 1: true because the Egyptians were around in the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 1: Funny Guy Christmas Eve six they have credited the um.
Speaker 1: The Wheaties Quartet was singing about the Wheaties Breakfast Cereal
Speaker 1: first ever jingle, UM, And apparently Wheaties was in pretty
Speaker 1: bad shape and they're even gonna get rid of it
Speaker 1: until they noticed that in markets where they were playing
Speaker 1: this song on the radio, Wheaties picked up and they said, hey,
Speaker 1: maybe this jingles. Maybe he's got something to it. And
Speaker 1: they probably call it a jingle at the time. UM.
Speaker 1: And then they put it nationwide and Wheaties was saved. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Have you did you listen to it? No? Is it
Speaker 1: pretty bad? No, it's great. It sounds like the b Sharp's,
Speaker 1: you know, it's barbershop quartet. It sounds like Baby on Board, Yeah,
Speaker 1: except singing about Wheaties. So that whole Wheaties thing is
Speaker 1: pretty well established, but some still dispute it. And it
Speaker 1: depends on how you look at, um what a jingle is, um,
Speaker 1: whether that's the first one or not. But there's a
Speaker 1: song that was written in nineteen o five called in
Speaker 1: My Merry Old Mobile, like Gus Edwards and Vincent Brian
Speaker 1: and I didn't realize that people were named Vincent back
Speaker 1: in nineteen o five. Does that seem like a modern name.
Speaker 1: It seems more like nineteen forties to nineteen seventies. Maybe
Speaker 1: maybe you know there's a website that charts popularity of
Speaker 1: names in a graph. I believe that I bet you
Speaker 1: Vincent is pretty low back then. Um, but those two
Speaker 1: guys made in My Mary Oldsmobile and Oldsmobile used it
Speaker 1: in the thirties, but it wasn't originally recorded or written
Speaker 1: four Oldsmobile to use. I think the guys just really
Speaker 1: like their Oldsmobile and so um. The author of this article,
Speaker 1: Tim Faulkner, points out that you're probably more accurately call
Speaker 1: it the first pop song licensed for commercial use. Okay,
Speaker 1: that makes more sense. So it's technically not a jingle.
Speaker 1: So the Weaties Quartet still stands Christmas Eve, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Speaker 1: Is there any place more desolate than Hey it worked, yeah,
Speaker 1: because we still have wheaties today. So the whole reason
Speaker 1: Jingles came about was because you know, I'm all about
Speaker 1: my like nineteen thirties consumer history. Yeah, and like in
Speaker 1: in the thirties, like consumer protection was like way stronger,
Speaker 1: and one of the things was direct advertising was very strict.
Speaker 1: So funny now yeah, it's so like no holds bart
Speaker 1: Now you know Australia is like going to town like
Speaker 1: preventing direct marketing to kids. Yeah, they're really protecting their kids.
Speaker 1: It is very cool. Plus beer you can only market
Speaker 1: here exactly. If you remember when there used to be
Speaker 1: like cigarette ads and oh yeah, cutty sark ads and
Speaker 1: things like that. It's funny to look through. Uh if
Speaker 1: you go like to uh antique places and they have
Speaker 1: old life magazine stuff, you just look at the ads
Speaker 1: and it's like these happy people slowly killing themselves with merits.
Speaker 1: Um So. But in the in the thirties, like if
Speaker 1: you wanted to get an ad on the radio, you
Speaker 1: pretty much had to buy some time like a half
Speaker 1: hour or an hour and put on a pro rim
Speaker 1: and Hence we have things like the King Biscuit Flower
Speaker 1: Hour you know um, or the General Motors Um car
Speaker 1: Thriller Mysteries, you know whatever. And at first I think
Speaker 1: it was really boring and dull and dumb. And they
Speaker 1: figured out that consumers were a little more savvy and
Speaker 1: we're not really willing to share their time for something
Speaker 1: that's just an ad like an infomercial, right, so they
Speaker 1: started to make things like the Shadow and Little or
Speaker 1: fanany um, and they made them so they could advertise.
Speaker 1: But eventually it gave us radio programming and then ultimately
Speaker 1: TV programming. As we understand it today, we're basically born
Speaker 1: out of this desire to advertise to radio listeners in
Speaker 1: the thirties. Pretty cool, yeah, um. And I didn't realize this,
Speaker 1: or I realized, I guess, But it's just hard to
Speaker 1: imagine these days because it's so advertising is so all
Speaker 1: over the place. But back then, you had direct to
Speaker 1: consumer sales one on one you go to a store,
Speaker 1: or you have a traveling salesman come to your house
Speaker 1: to sell a vacuum cleaner or whatever. And the ads
Speaker 1: back in the day, uh kind of bore that out.
Speaker 1: They were basically real matter of fact and kind of
Speaker 1: dry and really just bullet bullet pointed, how our product
Speaker 1: is better than the other's, very boring, very dry, Like
Speaker 1: our spats are better than our competitors spats because they're
Speaker 1: made with virgin baby goat skin. That's right. But with
Speaker 1: the popularity of radio, things changed and they realized that
Speaker 1: jingles uh could make a real impact, you know, and
Speaker 1: they did because it's music, as the Wheaties Quartet proved
Speaker 1: pretty early on. Um, and just right out of the gate,
Speaker 1: people started really paying attention to this, and they brought
Speaker 1: the field of psychology in and psychology started cranking out
Speaker 1: books that basically guided advertisers and companies on how to
Speaker 1: reach these audiences like who's listening when, and like how
Speaker 1: to talk to them and um yeah. But they just
Speaker 1: basically exploded overnight, and it was all largely thanks to
Speaker 1: the jingle. Yeah, and you know, the early on and
Speaker 1: I think it still holds true today. If you want
Speaker 1: to be a successful jingle, it's got to be very simple.
Speaker 1: You gotta have a repetition. Um, you gotta have Rhyming
Speaker 1: is good, it is, It helps stick in your head
Speaker 1: a little more and before you know it, it's become
Speaker 1: part of your consciousness for like life, like they point
Speaker 1: out here in the article the Oscar Meyer uh Bolognay song,
Speaker 1: Like anyone who grew up in the seventies can sing
Speaker 1: that word for word today unless you just weren't paying
Speaker 1: attention as a kid. Do you want to sing a
Speaker 1: little of it? Well? Now do you know Bologne has
Speaker 1: a first name? It's O S c A R. And
Speaker 1: the plot plot fiz fizz. Oh, what a relief. It
Speaker 1: is like these things get burned into the collective consciousness.
Speaker 1: But um costanza, what's that from Seinfeld? Remember? Like George
Speaker 1: gets a girlfriend because he uh, he associates his name
Speaker 1: with that by men, and he goes Stanza and the
Speaker 1: the woman doesn't even like him, but she can't get
Speaker 1: him out of her head because that castanzas in there,
Speaker 1: which you would call an earworm, which we've talked about
Speaker 1: it feels like before, right, I think so, But we
Speaker 1: may as well talk about the or verm. Is that
Speaker 1: in German it's or verm and everyone knows it what
Speaker 1: an earworm is. It's when it a song or a
Speaker 1: part of a song gets stuck in your head. Sometimes
Speaker 1: an explicably splica inexplicably, something weird got stuck in your head.
Speaker 1: Like you wake up in the morning and the song
Speaker 1: is in your head. You hadn't heard it in weeks, months, years,
Speaker 1: who knows, but it's just there. And they don't really
Speaker 1: know how it works either. No, but a couple of
Speaker 1: very smart guys in the seventies got together. Their names
Speaker 1: were Alan Badly and Graham Hitch, and they I think
Speaker 1: they're responsible for coming up with the idea of the
Speaker 1: working memory. Well they went on to write The Hustle Um,
Speaker 1: but the Badly and Hitch first, Um, I guess I've
Speaker 1: investigated working memory. And they came up with this thing
Speaker 1: called the the phonological loop, right, which is an earworm
Speaker 1: or a snippet of music or a a sentence, whatever,
Speaker 1: it's running around. You can almost see it facing this
Speaker 1: track in your head over and over again. That's the
Speaker 1: phonological loop. And it's made of two parts, right, the
Speaker 1: phonological store, which is your inner ear which here's it,
Speaker 1: and then the articulatory rehearsal system, which is you're driving
Speaker 1: yourself totally insane by saying it over and over repeating.
Speaker 1: It's how we learned to talk or learn a foreign language. Um,
Speaker 1: and they think that this phonological um loop is basically
Speaker 1: an earworm, hitching a ride on this neurological process that
Speaker 1: we have naturally and basically exploiting it for commercial purposes. Wow,
Speaker 1: happens more in women, supposedly, more musicians supposedly, And if
Speaker 1: you have O c D. It might really present a
Speaker 1: problem with you. That was a really good episode of ours.
Speaker 1: If you ask O c D. We talked about David
Speaker 1: Sedaris licks light switches. I think yeah, in his book
Speaker 1: he did. I don't know if that's real. I think
Speaker 1: it is, though, Um, how to get rid of an earworm?
Speaker 1: There's all kinds of things you can try, like actually
Speaker 1: hearing the song in full um, Like, Um, if you
Speaker 1: can't get call me maybe out of your head, right,
Speaker 1: just go listen to call me. Maybe sometimes singing it
Speaker 1: yourself all the way through. You can do it. You
Speaker 1: could sing call me. Maybe you could vanquish it from
Speaker 1: your mind. But there's really no sure fireway that those
Speaker 1: are justiciable tricks. I heard someone say something about listening
Speaker 1: to rush, We'll get rid of its? Was that what
Speaker 1: it was? Because you just gets smart? Right? Um? Who's
Speaker 1: professor Colaris. So he's the one who's basically he's a
Speaker 1: University of Cincinnati professor. He's in the ear Warm article, okay,
Speaker 1: and he has dedicated his career to basically exploring earworms
Speaker 1: figuring out how to how they work. Um, I think
Speaker 1: he's made a name for himself in it. He appears
Speaker 1: in not one, but two how Stuff Works articles. So
Speaker 1: he's arrived. So what he's done, um through surveys, he said,
Speaker 1: it's obviously all up to the person is very individual
Speaker 1: as far as what songs get stuck in your head.
Speaker 1: But he put together, through some surveys what he calls
Speaker 1: the playlist from Hell, and I would have to agree,
Speaker 1: I'd like to see this updated because it's a little
Speaker 1: dated a little bit. I mean, I'm sure that One
Speaker 1: Party Rock is gotta be at the top of the list.
Speaker 1: I don't know that One Party Rock is in the
Speaker 1: pust to not do that at all. You're there's it's
Speaker 1: literally impossible that you have not heard party Is it
Speaker 1: a song? Yes, I have not heard it. I will
Speaker 1: play it for you. You'll be like, oh, okay, is
Speaker 1: it like a pop swan? Yeah, it's not a commercial.
Speaker 1: It's everything. It's inescapable. It is the alpha and it's
Speaker 1: just not possible. You haven't heard it all right, But
Speaker 1: his playlist from Hell includes uh, the baby back ribs,
Speaker 1: Chili's jingle which we won't even say out loud, the
Speaker 1: Bajamans who let the Dogs out. That's a good one. Queens,
Speaker 1: we will rock you. That's another good one. That's a
Speaker 1: good one. But I don't, I don't know. That doesn't
Speaker 1: strike me as particularly you're wormy. Um, give me a break.
Speaker 1: It's a good one to ki at bar Uh the
Speaker 1: Mission Impossible theme. I think it's funny that this is
Speaker 1: on here because I had an experience with that when
Speaker 1: I lived in New Jersey. It was when I think
Speaker 1: the first Mission Impossible movie came out in YouTube did
Speaker 1: the update of the theme. That thing was stuck in
Speaker 1: my head for like three days. I was walking around
Speaker 1: just going done up corners really quick and like looking
Speaker 1: around doing a tuck and roll. It was crazy. So
Speaker 1: it didn't surprise me to see that on here. Y
Speaker 1: m c A, there's nothing wrong with that. I kind
Speaker 1: of like this playlist. I wouldn't call it from Hell,
Speaker 1: I'd call it maybe from hack at Best. Okay, Um,
Speaker 1: Now I do hate. Um, the Lion Sleeps Tonight. I
Speaker 1: hate that song. I think that's probably on there for
Speaker 1: the very fav womb there it is by Tag Team
Speaker 1: and other good It's a Small World. I guess that
Speaker 1: one because you go to Disney World and you just
Speaker 1: hear it over and over and over. Um, what ride
Speaker 1: is that? It's a Small World? Is that the name
Speaker 1: of the ride too? Yeah? I think so. It's been
Speaker 1: a while, but yeah, so, Um, there's still plenty of
Speaker 1: jingles out there. I'm trying to think of a of
Speaker 1: a new jingle. Well, they're they're all over um sports radio.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, because I listened to a lot of sports
Speaker 1: talk and me and my lead guitarist Eddie who you
Speaker 1: know Eddie Eddie Cooper. Uh, we have been joking around
Speaker 1: about doing um, like a medley of radio jingles in
Speaker 1: our set, because if you listen to sports radio, man,
Speaker 1: it's like the same ones like what well, looky, looky, looky,
Speaker 1: here comes cookie alarm Force. I haven't heard that one.
Speaker 1: Alarm Force. Ah. Oh man, I can't think of them,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean there's just like if you listen
Speaker 1: to any kind of sports radio, it's like the same ones.
Speaker 1: The had that always sticks out to me when I
Speaker 1: think of like sports radio, talk radio. Is that one
Speaker 1: guy who's he's like trying to sell like some sort
Speaker 1: of um REFI like, he's a refinance guy. He's like,
Speaker 1: it's the biggest no brainer in the history. Or if
Speaker 1: you've heard and this isn't even a jingle but a
Speaker 1: full on song, if you heard any of the Blue
Speaker 1: Belt ice cream commercials, I don't know, it's pretty great. Oh,
Speaker 1: I mean they're all different, but it's all like this
Speaker 1: guy singing about like you know, country morning and the
Speaker 1: sound of birds chirping, and it's like the sound of
Speaker 1: coming home is what you taste when you eat Blue
Speaker 1: Belt ice cream, which is a lie. Um. But like
Speaker 1: you said, they sort of have gone out of fashion
Speaker 1: a little bit at least from the heyday, even though
Speaker 1: they're still around. Yeah, they still they are viewed somewhat
Speaker 1: as hokey. I think if you stop and think about
Speaker 1: a commercial jingle or the concept of a jingle, it's hokey,
Speaker 1: even though you probably have five hundred of them in
Speaker 1: your head that you could recall at any moment exactly.
Speaker 1: But yes, if you are say, um, the company responsible
Speaker 1: for running VW's advertising campaign. You're probably not going to
Speaker 1: use a commercial jingle. You're trying to go the other route,
Speaker 1: which is to appropriate a pop song. Yeah, and the
Speaker 1: v WS case, they used Nick Drake, which great one,
Speaker 1: the song Pink Moon. Yeah, that's how I came to
Speaker 1: find out who Nick Drake was. That's how a lot
Speaker 1: of people came to find out. And that's what the
Speaker 1: article points out as a lot of times they can
Speaker 1: resuscitate careers, although in his case he passed away, but uh,
Speaker 1: he definitely like was way more popular after that commercial
Speaker 1: than he was before. Um. Stereo Lab was also VWA.
Speaker 1: Uh who else? Um. I don't think they needed any help,
Speaker 1: but it was like a perfect fit. The Polyphonic Spree,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they had that there. I can't remember the
Speaker 1: name of the song was like their huge hit. Um
Speaker 1: that was on a VW commercial, Like when VW first
Speaker 1: came out with the New Beatle Hey and shout out
Speaker 1: to a Toby right yeah, Toby he he's shooting him
Speaker 1: feature film right now? Yeah in Louise Na, Like he's
Speaker 1: shooting it. Yeah. Toby's a friend of Josh and Yummis
Speaker 1: who was in the Polyphonic Spree. And now he is
Speaker 1: Ah did he really? I don't think I knew that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was like, uh, friends with a couple of them
Speaker 1: and said, hey, you know, I want to be in
Speaker 1: the band. What do you need? And they're like, how
Speaker 1: about Theoreman? And back then anyone could be in the
Speaker 1: Polyox Spree and it was huge, it was extensive. Um.
Speaker 1: And he went out and bought a Thereman and taught
Speaker 1: himself how to play it and came back. I was like, ah,
Speaker 1: I don't want to be in and he like went
Speaker 1: to Japan. Um like toured the world with the with
Speaker 1: the spree for a while. That's the spree. Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: that's awesome. And he's making a movie now. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: you know they had that short he produced one Ye
Speaker 1: starring Bonnie Prince Billy. It's amazing. Now they're onto something else.
Speaker 1: It's like a feature film the same same company. Um. Anyway,
Speaker 1: pop songs getting back to that, Uh they credit the Beatles,
Speaker 1: UM seven Nike commercial. I would Nike famously use Revolution.
Speaker 1: Do you remember that. Yeah, it's kind of starting this
Speaker 1: whole new wave of let's use like pay a lot
Speaker 1: of money to use really popular songs because it's not
Speaker 1: enough anymore. You can't say our brand is better than yours.
Speaker 1: You like, you want to identify your brand with a uh,
Speaker 1: the public consciousness and a lifestyle like um, that Cat
Speaker 1: Stephen's song Wind of My Soul and like the Timberland
Speaker 1: ad that kind of struck where it's like, put these
Speaker 1: shoes on and you will automatically went for that. I
Speaker 1: am too. I'd like to look into that. I wonder
Speaker 1: if he doesn't have the rights. It doesn't seem like
Speaker 1: something he would do. There's no way he doesn't have
Speaker 1: the rights to the song. But um, it is kind
Speaker 1: of you. You raise a point like it is surprising
Speaker 1: that he would have gone for that. But apparently if
Speaker 1: you work on artists long enough, or just wait for
Speaker 1: them to grow old and need money, they will eventually
Speaker 1: cave or think he didn't need the money. But who Sting? No,
Speaker 1: I doubt if he did it because he needed the money.
Speaker 1: I guess that's right. He has a castle. He did
Speaker 1: it for a reason though, and it was probably money.
Speaker 1: Um So in the eighties when Sting was still because
Speaker 1: you know the Police started out as a punk band, yeah, um,
Speaker 1: and in the eighties it was postpunk, but Sting still
Speaker 1: thought of himself as a pretty cool dude, and apparently
Speaker 1: I don't know the company, but they approached Sting and said, hey,
Speaker 1: we want to use don't stand so close to me
Speaker 1: for our deodoric commercial. It's a terrible idea, and he
Speaker 1: very wisely said no way. But then Jaguar said, hey,
Speaker 1: you know this terrible desert rose thing you have going on,
Speaker 1: we want to use that for our egg campaign and
Speaker 1: Sting said, way right. The cheers to that, uh and
Speaker 1: that's a big you know, bands get accused of selling
Speaker 1: out uh less these days, I think because especially smaller bands,
Speaker 1: you just you know, you people think music is free now,
Speaker 1: so that making money selling records like they used to.
Speaker 1: They break even on tours, these small bands, So I like,
Speaker 1: I've done a one eight. Used to think like, I
Speaker 1: don't sell out, but now I'm like, dude, make whatever
Speaker 1: money you can while you can. I know, Band of
Speaker 1: Horses one of my favorite and Jerry's favorites. Um, they
Speaker 1: were kind of taken in the map by some of
Speaker 1: their fans because they did they license her movie to Chevy,
Speaker 1: and the dude Ben Bridwell came out. It was like, no,
Speaker 1: you know, I drive a Chevy it's old and maybe
Speaker 1: now I can get the A C fixed. You know,
Speaker 1: he drives an old pickup chucking. He's like, what's what's
Speaker 1: the problem, Like, we're trying to make a little dough here,
Speaker 1: and it's a product I believe in, you know. Um
Speaker 1: they're that part in the movie The Doors where like
Speaker 1: two Morrissons like off on like whatever for a while
Speaker 1: and comes back and sees that, like, um, light my
Speaker 1: fire has been Chevy commercially the ray Coniff singers or
Speaker 1: something doing it, and he's likes catchy tune that starts
Speaker 1: breaking sty that brings up my my biggest pet peeve
Speaker 1: today is this new thing and it's not super new
Speaker 1: because they've been doing it, but it's like worse than
Speaker 1: it's ever been. When they will take a great classic
Speaker 1: song and bastardize it and have some like Lady Session
Speaker 1: singer come in and sing like Satisfaction by the Rolling
Speaker 1: Stones but in a different way and talking about being
Speaker 1: like satisfied with your you know, your new car, and
Speaker 1: it's just it's all over the place now and it's
Speaker 1: just the worst. Like I would rather hear someone licensed
Speaker 1: their real song then hear them remake it with some
Speaker 1: awful session singer and change the words to fit their product,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. But then that corporation would
Speaker 1: take the Ben Bradwell stands and Ben Bridwell Ben Bridwell
Speaker 1: stance and be like, hey man, we gotta make our
Speaker 1: quarterly earnings. Yeah or not true. I was being totally facetious.
Speaker 1: That doesn't count. It's not the same thing or the
Speaker 1: other thing now that um like, the Black Keys are
Speaker 1: suing Pizza Hut right now because what companies will do.
Speaker 1: And Tom Waits to sue people a bunch of times,
Speaker 1: like every other year he sees someone because they'll go
Speaker 1: in and they'll say, give us something, Tom Waits, he
Speaker 1: or boy listened to Gold on the Ceiling by the
Speaker 1: Black Keys, can you do something like that? And these
Speaker 1: you know dudes that write these songs basically rip them off.
Speaker 1: And the Black Keys are watching Pizza Hut and they're like,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, that's my song in a different, slightly
Speaker 1: different way selling pozzones and so we're going to see
Speaker 1: you and take you to court. And that's when they
Speaker 1: get in court and like compare them side by side,
Speaker 1: and you know Ray Parker Junior famously yeah, yeah, got
Speaker 1: messed up because he apparently ripped off I need a
Speaker 1: new drug. We lose song, that's right, and I never
Speaker 1: really heard it, and then finally I it clicked and
Speaker 1: I was right, Oh wow, that is really sicky. Settled
Speaker 1: he lost that would be settled or what, But he
Speaker 1: definitely lost that case. I guess finally we should talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about product placement because, um, but we
Speaker 1: had a whole product placement episode. Oh yeah, that's right. Well,
Speaker 1: obviously with TiVo and DVRs now, people are speeding through commercials,
Speaker 1: so you are going to find some product placement in
Speaker 1: your shows, quite possibly our own even it happens. But um,
Speaker 1: there are better ways than others to do it. And
Speaker 1: if you want a good laugh, go to the YouTube
Speaker 1: and google soap Opera Cereal and um just watch it's great.
Speaker 1: That's all I'm gonna say. I watched that the other day.
Speaker 1: It's so funny and awful. It's just it's colossally bad.
Speaker 1: But it's so bad that like it's earned a place
Speaker 1: in the pantheon of pop culture now, so it did
Speaker 1: his job. Yeah, I bet you. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: hits on that on YouTube. Honey, what are you doing?
Speaker 1: Just having some delicious hunting that cheerios. Boy, these things
Speaker 1: really packed in fiber and the thing. It's like a
Speaker 1: seven minute long scene. Yeah, it was like they just
Speaker 1: started talking about cheerios the whole time. Yeah, it's pretty funny. Um.
Speaker 1: And there was a little product placement right there for
Speaker 1: your cheerio. So it's all over the place. Bonus. No,
Speaker 1: I mean just now, no, but I'm saying, jeez, all
Speaker 1: we did was talking about brands. If we don't cook's
Speaker 1: pest control is a check. Yeah, we're just combined. Get
Speaker 1: the termites out of my house. I want to check. Um,
Speaker 1: let's see. If you want to learn more about commercial jingles,
Speaker 1: you can type those words into the search bar at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. And I said search bar,
Speaker 1: which means it's time for listener mail. I'm gonna call this.
Speaker 1: You remember you asked for good uh good causes in
Speaker 1: the white collar crimes. Yeah, this one was from matthe
Speaker 1: Ands Georgia. Oh hey, so it made the cut. I've
Speaker 1: been there. Uh love the show, guys. And now a
Speaker 1: segue into a shameless plug right to the point for
Speaker 1: a nonpro off it in Athens, Georgia, I represent free
Speaker 1: I t Athens FREDA. It's an all volunteer um nonprofit
Speaker 1: and it is a grassroots organization dedicated to reclaiming discarded
Speaker 1: technology like computers, refurbishing it and distributing it to those
Speaker 1: in need. That's great, it makes perfect sense too. I think,
Speaker 1: in fact, I have some old stuff I could donate.
Speaker 1: He know, there's golden There's like all sorts of rarrors
Speaker 1: and precious metals that like, if you in the computer
Speaker 1: bind them like a bunch of computers, you'd have low
Speaker 1: cold nugget. Yeah, well maybe I'll do that instead. We
Speaker 1: serve mostly low income populations that cannot afford the latest
Speaker 1: and greatest technology. We also aim to reduced e waste
Speaker 1: through computer reuse and responsible recycling. We are currently in
Speaker 1: need of working laptops for a volunteer program. I know
Speaker 1: a whole room full of them. Seriously, laptops are distributed
Speaker 1: to volunteers that complete our computer refurbishing program. We're interested
Speaker 1: in laptop computers that have been aid within the last
Speaker 1: five years with little to no damage. Donating your computer
Speaker 1: can change someone with life, and imagine you can write
Speaker 1: that stuff off. You know, we really should see what
Speaker 1: they're gonna do with those, see if we can get
Speaker 1: good to discuss. Uh, donating can change someone's life. I
Speaker 1: already said that, but it can really change someone's life.
Speaker 1: Financial donations are also welcome, so you can visit www
Speaker 1: dot free I t Athens dot org and thank you
Speaker 1: so much guys. That is from Joel Isler in Athens.
Speaker 1: Thanks Joel, appreciate that. It is a very good cause.
Speaker 1: We'll see if we can help. Thank you. If not,
Speaker 1: we're in addition to hopefully there's a lot of listeners
Speaker 1: in the Athens in Atlanta area that can help. Agreed,
Speaker 1: or people can mail them from all over I'm sure
Speaker 1: you could, or just go there and give them a
Speaker 1: little cash, give him tin bucks. Oh yeah, you can
Speaker 1: do that too. What was it a free I t
Speaker 1: Athens dot org. That's right. Nice. Um. If you have
Speaker 1: a commercial jingle, we want to hear it. Send us
Speaker 1: a link some great forgotten commercial jingle we want to
Speaker 1: hear about it, um, or the worst one ever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's just start talking about this. Let's get a conversation going.
Speaker 1: You can tweet to us at s y s K podcast.
Speaker 1: You can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff
Speaker 1: you should know, and you can send us an email
Speaker 1: to Stuff podcast at Discovery dot com. For more on
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com