Speaker 1: The music commercials you are about to hear were created
Speaker 1: for advertising agencies by star As International. Ephemeral is a
Speaker 1: production of I Heeart three D audio for full exposure
Speaker 1: listen with that phone? Hey, well Hi, can you hear
Speaker 1: this if I play this? Yeah? Fabulous? As long time
Speaker 1: listeners already know, this is Bob Purse, would you mind
Speaker 1: introducing yourself, just just for those that maybe don't know
Speaker 1: you already? All right, my name is Bob Purse. I
Speaker 1: live in Arcton Heights, Illinois, and I have been a
Speaker 1: serious collector of all manner of recorded sounds since my
Speaker 1: early twenties. Let's let's I've estimated that I probably have
Speaker 1: had close to ten thousand recordings, albums, real, real tapes, videos,
Speaker 1: anything else that's something might have been recorded on. Though
Speaker 1: I never asked him whether or not he'd like to be,
Speaker 1: Bob is kind of the godfather of this podcast. Our
Speaker 1: pilot begins with a tape he found, and we focused
Speaker 1: on parts of his collection in our episodes Reputation, The
Speaker 1: Tallest Rock, Oh See Black, and the Musical Memories of
Speaker 1: Camp Navn. Something about hearing stuff from an era that
Speaker 1: I didn't live through for whatever reason that that just
Speaker 1: fascinates me. My family was one of the first to
Speaker 1: obtain a real to real machine when they were pretty
Speaker 1: much only used in studios. So when I was a
Speaker 1: little kid, we had recordings of my family from before
Speaker 1: I was born. Obviously, that's what everybody has now and
Speaker 1: has had for years and years, But in nineteen sixty four,
Speaker 1: when I was four, I guarantee you nobody I knew
Speaker 1: had recordings of their older siblings or their parents from
Speaker 1: before they were born. So I was fascinated by it.
Speaker 1: As my mother used to say, her main concern about
Speaker 1: me was how to get me to stop playing with
Speaker 1: the tape recorder, And there are endless recordings of me
Speaker 1: on whatever available space. There was What I think of?
Speaker 1: What did I think of? By the time I was
Speaker 1: a teenager, fourteen or fifteen, we had upwards of a
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty hundred forty tapes recorded by our family.
Speaker 1: Some of them are our family, a lot of them
Speaker 1: off the air. My mom was a professional singer, so
Speaker 1: some of them were of her performances. I decided that
Speaker 1: we needed to have these in some sort of order,
Speaker 1: which entailed me listening to every moment of every one
Speaker 1: of those tapes and writing down exactly what was on them,
Speaker 1: where it was on them, and then making a separate
Speaker 1: listing of where anything that could possibly be considered important
Speaker 1: or the people would want to hear again, and turning
Speaker 1: that into a catalog. I want to say I did
Speaker 1: that from the summer seventy four, probably to the end
Speaker 1: of the summer seventy I'm sixty one now, so it
Speaker 1: was a while ago. At some point my uncle Stu,
Speaker 1: who was my mom's brother, heard about what I had
Speaker 1: done and said he had a much smaller box of tapes,
Speaker 1: and would I do the same thing with his tapes?
Speaker 1: And I said, yeah, I didn't really have any sort
Speaker 1: of emotional connection to what was on his tapes. And
Speaker 1: if you think about yourself at age sixteen, that's when
Speaker 1: your world is expanding, and there was a lot more
Speaker 1: going on in my life at sixteen than there had
Speaker 1: been at fourteen. I don't think I ever really started
Speaker 1: his project, but four the tapes in the box sort
Speaker 1: of intrigued me, and they were labeled star Ads by
Speaker 1: Hums one, two, three, and six. The first three were
Speaker 1: nothing but examples of commercials produced by this company. Volume
Speaker 1: one was clearly their big shot. You know, these are
Speaker 1: the ads we've done for either national businesses or which
Speaker 1: came out really, really well and and portray what we
Speaker 1: can do. The second volume seemed to be either regional
Speaker 1: ads or in some cases I'm guessing what were demos
Speaker 1: that perhaps were never produced as full commercials. They have
Speaker 1: sort of an unfinished quality to them in a couple
Speaker 1: of cases. But there were several ads for local newspapers,
Speaker 1: particularly the Detroit News, then a whole bunch of commercials
Speaker 1: for the phone company, and then at the end six
Speaker 1: fabulous ads for a company called Puritan Meets Real. Three
Speaker 1: definitely sounded like locally produced ads for local businesses, and
Speaker 1: had a whole series of radio station jingles done for
Speaker 1: both Canadian and American stations. See I had a bunch
Speaker 1: of partials for Simpson Sears, which is the version of
Speaker 1: Spears that they add in Canada. And then fourth one
Speaker 1: which was labeled six, but I always called it Tape four.
Speaker 1: I only had four tapes. Was a presentation by the
Speaker 1: head of the company. This is Bruce Davis, president of
Speaker 1: Star Ads, explaining the business. In the past thirteen years,
Speaker 1: we have produced over twenty three hundred commercial majority in
Speaker 1: the national and regional category that the salesman there had
Speaker 1: hundreds of samples of ads that he could play for
Speaker 1: the prospective client. Should this presentation prove of interest, please
Speaker 1: ask our representative for more samples of our work. He
Speaker 1: is knowledgeable and has over two hundred examples with him
Speaker 1: talking about how the business worked, what would happen if
Speaker 1: you hired them, etcetera, etcetera. For each of these commercials,
Speaker 1: we did the composition, scoring, and production, and with the
Speaker 1: exception of one or two who we did the lyrics
Speaker 1: as well. My uncle Stu worked for Star Ads. He
Speaker 1: would have been the I with the tape recorder and
Speaker 1: the tapes who walked into somebody's office and said, here's
Speaker 1: what my company can do. How long he worked for them,
Speaker 1: I don't know. He um had several jobs and sales
Speaker 1: during the years I was growing up, so I can't
Speaker 1: give you an exact date for them. I think the
Speaker 1: date on the speech one is seventy, which would mean
Speaker 1: that anything on the realists from then or earlier. I've
Speaker 1: always figured those ads probably are from about the mid
Speaker 1: sixties to nineteen seventy. Let me say something completely graceless.
Speaker 1: The Star ads are weird. Some of the production is
Speaker 1: really great, and the ad copy tends to be awful clever.
Speaker 1: They certainly give a fascinating window into an esoteric time
Speaker 1: and place. It's hard to put your finger on just
Speaker 1: what it is, but there's something a bit off kilter
Speaker 1: about all of them. There was something different about these commercials,
Speaker 1: even from the humorous and musically appealing ones that were
Speaker 1: around at that time. They tried things that I've never
Speaker 1: heard from other ad companies. There's just a freewheeling, loose
Speaker 1: field to these commercials, almost as if some of the
Speaker 1: people that were writing the copy were like, well, let's
Speaker 1: just try this. And the other thing that makes the
Speaker 1: star Ads particularly alluring is that, aside from hints given
Speaker 1: on the four tapes, we really don't know anything about them.
Speaker 1: I have done searches for products from star Ads, but
Speaker 1: the phrase star ads in terms of the recording medium
Speaker 1: has literally never come up. There's a guy that sings
Speaker 1: and talks on a certain high percentage of the commercials
Speaker 1: that I've called the voice of Star Ads, like I
Speaker 1: have no idea who he was or is, and I'm
Speaker 1: not the only one who's tried to figure it out.
Speaker 1: I can't say that I've spent a whole lot of
Speaker 1: time on it because I wouldn't really know where to start.
Speaker 1: Maybe somebody hearing this will know we're going to listen
Speaker 1: to some stars after the break. I was thinking instead
Speaker 1: of me just picking a bunch of tracks this time,
Speaker 1: and we could just go back and forth and play
Speaker 1: like star ed Roulette a little bit. Is there a
Speaker 1: star Eds song that you would like to hear right now? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Puritan doubled him? Whose versions? Then we'll talk about we
Speaker 1: can we can we can talk about my version? Do
Speaker 1: you know what to pack four Tomorrows lunch to satisfy
Speaker 1: that hungry bunch. Puritan has an idea for you. Were
Speaker 1: sure the family will like it too. Take a can
Speaker 1: of Puritan deviled ham and add salary chopped up fine,
Speaker 1: four hard boiled eggs, and some mayonnaise, and for taste
Speaker 1: a dash of wine. Now mix salt together, add pepper
Speaker 1: and salt, and a pinch of cay in is great,
Speaker 1: and pack an extra sandwich. We know they'll say it's
Speaker 1: the best they ever ate. That's the guy I've called
Speaker 1: the voice of star Ads. He does sing to some
Speaker 1: of them. He sung at the beginning of that one,
Speaker 1: but mostly he just talks over music. There's a guitar
Speaker 1: solo in the middle, which is where whoever is playing
Speaker 1: the commercially supposed to keep the voice over for the
Speaker 1: specials and current meats in the local supermarket this week.
Speaker 1: And then you got that lovely jingle at the end
Speaker 1: with the happy turkey women made for you. It did
Speaker 1: a bunch of spots for purits and meats. Right, They're
Speaker 1: all set up more or less the same way. There's
Speaker 1: a couple of different templates, but they all end with
Speaker 1: the same jingle, and some of them have organ behind them.
Speaker 1: That one had a guitar, there's one with a harmonica.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna play your version of the Let's just say
Speaker 1: Yeah in nine nineties six or six ninety seven when
Speaker 1: I was I've recorded my own music since I was sixteen,
Speaker 1: and in n or ninety seven, when I was making
Speaker 1: what I considered to be my fourth sort of collection
Speaker 1: of humorous music, I decided to record a version of
Speaker 1: that commercial because I loved it so much. Do you
Speaker 1: know what to backboard tomorrow? Lunch? To satisfy that bunch
Speaker 1: utan has an idea for you? Where sure the family
Speaker 1: will lock it to take a can of Puritan deviled
Speaker 1: ham and add celery chopped up five four hard boiled eggs,
Speaker 1: and some mayonnaise and tasted dash of wine. That makes
Speaker 1: all together at pepper and salt and a twitch of cayenne.
Speaker 1: It's great. Back an extracise, which we know those days.
Speaker 1: It's the best thing ever. I was low fi in
Speaker 1: those days. I was using a basic four track reel
Speaker 1: to real machine, not a studio one by the time,
Speaker 1: that just plays stereotapes and a sound on sound if
Speaker 1: you bounce things back and forth. So the cloney is
Speaker 1: not great. But this is all me except for the line.
Speaker 1: They're delicious too. I had my five year old daughter
Speaker 1: provide that particular line. Time made you for me. When
Speaker 1: I'm starting the background vocals, there is that you too,
Speaker 1: the whole, Yeah, the whole. All three of those are
Speaker 1: sped up. I was recording with the pitch control pulled
Speaker 1: out so that I would sound higher. So you're up again.
Speaker 1: No I picked that? Oh no, I see, I see,
Speaker 1: I picked your version. Um, forget what you have. I
Speaker 1: have like sixties things. Let's do the Big Boy in
Speaker 1: got you Meet you at the Big Boy at eight
Speaker 1: am for the best hotcakes in town or the precious
Speaker 1: eggs in that coffee that's great. Let French host Golden Brown.
Speaker 1: Meet you at the Big Boy at twelve pm along
Speaker 1: with the rest of the punch. Or a crisp green
Speaker 1: salad and a Big Boy burgergir or Slim Jim sandwich
Speaker 1: for bunch. Meet Chat at the Big Boy at six
Speaker 1: pm four and honest the goodness neal chicken or ham
Speaker 1: or shrimp or beet or pies with homemade taste of feel.
Speaker 1: Meet yet at the Big Boy after talk to that
Speaker 1: late that you can't beat. Meet Jet the Big Boy
Speaker 1: and meet Jet the Big boyle favorite place to eat,
Speaker 1: Meat Jet the Big Boy, and a time for that
Speaker 1: good food you can't beat. Meet Jet the Big Boy
Speaker 1: and meet jat the Big boil favorite place to eat.
Speaker 1: Meet at the Big Boy and meet Chat the Big
Speaker 1: while favorite place to eat. I'll tell you what, man,
Speaker 1: that really swings. That band is really swinging on that.
Speaker 1: That's from the first real the one where they really
Speaker 1: kind of demonstrate their big accounts, and that probably their
Speaker 1: most saleable work. And that's that's a solid commercial. You
Speaker 1: could tune that in. I would think on a certain
Speaker 1: station at least and think you were hearing a record
Speaker 1: that they were playing rather than a commercial. What's odd
Speaker 1: about that is that there's this other commercial from the
Speaker 1: third reel called Hamburger House. Besides the amount of money
Speaker 1: that would into it, it's the same at the Hamburger
Speaker 1: House for the best hotcakes in town, all the finest eggs,
Speaker 1: and the coffee that's great in the toast so goody
Speaker 1: brown meat at noon at the Hamburger House along with
Speaker 1: the rest of them. I can't imagine that, having done
Speaker 1: a national ad for Big Boy, that they then turned
Speaker 1: around for the Hamburger House wherever that was. But the
Speaker 1: other option is just as obnoxious, which would be that
Speaker 1: they wrote a commercial for the Hamburger House and then
Speaker 1: turned around and rewrote it for Big Boy when they
Speaker 1: got a Big Boy at Hamburger House. The Hamburger Houses
Speaker 1: our favorite place to eat. It's hot, and I can't
Speaker 1: imagine a salesman playing both of them potential customer because
Speaker 1: of what it indicates about what they were willing to
Speaker 1: do at the Hamburger House. Where that good Bojivan meet
Speaker 1: to there, soon meet to there. Now our favorite place
Speaker 1: to eat, the Hamburger House. Any old town aren't favorite
Speaker 1: place to eat, Yes, son, I think my preference also
Speaker 1: goes to the ones that are maybe like the catchy
Speaker 1: is the one that sound like almost proper pop songs
Speaker 1: until you like digging at the lyrics. So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I'll play you this one. Rewar across the continent wherever
Speaker 1: black gold is found, to hear the rhythm of the
Speaker 1: oil raps pumping up foil from the ground, through desert
Speaker 1: plains and over mountains, piped in an endless line, are
Speaker 1: going to make from all left fruit to chroleum speed
Speaker 1: Play seventy nine. When it gets to the great refiner, read,
Speaker 1: there's the big job yet to do to strip banteets
Speaker 1: and cook and squeeze and alclated two same fraction e
Speaker 1: plimer rise and tracting solar replines take from all that
Speaker 1: rich pachroleum feet Place seventy nine. S feet place made
Speaker 1: the big change and the benefits yours and mine, So
Speaker 1: why don't you make the big change to speed Play
Speaker 1: seventy nine. There's a big change in all of those
Speaker 1: stations under the frightful sign sillar up, pillar up, where
Speaker 1: the miners gas get speet Play seventy nine, Super regular
Speaker 1: Steed play seventy nine. This one, I think, and a
Speaker 1: lot of them do. This one does a really good
Speaker 1: job showing how um professional and trained their songwriters were. Yeah,
Speaker 1: somebody had to sit down with the engineers at the
Speaker 1: oil company, now not the executives, but the engineers, and say,
Speaker 1: tell me about how gasoline is made. We're gonna put
Speaker 1: it in a song. It's almost like a TV theme song,
Speaker 1: like Gillian's Island or something. They're laying it out for
Speaker 1: you so you understand when you get to the gas
Speaker 1: station exactly what you're putting into your car. I would
Speaker 1: offer that it's more like Beverly Hill Bill is sure. Sure.
Speaker 1: But also just in the song crap, it's got such
Speaker 1: a build right, Like it's got two key changes in it.
Speaker 1: It's got the percussion ads a layer like every verse,
Speaker 1: the vocals um comeing just with like who's the person
Speaker 1: that turned the os and they turn like call and
Speaker 1: response or there or there or the turning to chorus. No,
Speaker 1: their their production values were incredible given what they did
Speaker 1: for a lot of companies where they didn't have the
Speaker 1: need for the production value. Clearly that they sometimes charge
Speaker 1: people plenty of money for good production because a lot
Speaker 1: of their regional and local ads some of them sound
Speaker 1: like three or four people in a room, and they
Speaker 1: don't do badly with that. But it's just a completely
Speaker 1: it's you wouldn't believe that some of them come from
Speaker 1: the same company. You're turning roulette, Bob, which what you
Speaker 1: want to hear next? Well, let's take a walk. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's take a walk through the yellow Pages. See what
Speaker 1: you have in store. Let's browse around through the nicest
Speaker 1: places and never leave your own front door. Check every page.
Speaker 1: It's a real adventure. Find what you're looking for. Let's
Speaker 1: take a walk through the yellow Pages. Let's take a
Speaker 1: walk once more. You find rosters, coasters, pop up coasters,
Speaker 1: king size beds and old proposers, doctors, lawyers when they
Speaker 1: need them, keats and what you feed them, vender's, vendor's money, lenders,
Speaker 1: quickly pairs, unt defenders, and baby things highlands. Find what
Speaker 1: you're looking for just breading cards and okay, that commercial
Speaker 1: is certifiably insane. It's creative and clever as hell, But
Speaker 1: it's who changes tempos in the middle of a commercial?
Speaker 1: And then who has two sets of people singing two
Speaker 1: different things for the last third of their commercials. And
Speaker 1: they're saying such interesting things too, and she's singing over them. Roasters, coasters,
Speaker 1: pop up toasters, king sized beds and old four posters, doctors,
Speaker 1: lawyers when you need them, parakeets and what you feed them.
Speaker 1: That one is wholly unique. I think, I'm not sure
Speaker 1: I've ever heard anything remotely like that on the radio.
Speaker 1: In terms of ad funding, exactly the same. There's another
Speaker 1: Yellow Page's add that sounds exactly the same as the
Speaker 1: Kmart to me, I'll give you a splash of the
Speaker 1: elevators that I'll play you Kmart home Gersburgers, paints and
Speaker 1: plastics are bills forward your home, gymnastics, come drops, goldfish, pranks,
Speaker 1: engages to find them all in the Yellow Pages, Yellow Pages,
Speaker 1: theemow yellow Pages miss them. And that's this bones what
Speaker 1: they do alphabetically, it's there for you. This is Kmart.
Speaker 1: They got fined with beerware, pots and paints. They got
Speaker 1: Johnson's waxon universal fans, they got DV sets by our Cia,
Speaker 1: They got all the best friends made today, stopped and
Speaker 1: shop that game, got the best in pain friends. They
Speaker 1: guarantee that quality stop the price, Well, yes it is
Speaker 1: similar music. The Yellow Pages add they sound like zombies
Speaker 1: ship start fits not saying it in the balls park
Speaker 1: as broods and foodles. And again the lyrics are fantastic,
Speaker 1: just all sorts of creative but nobody sounds like they
Speaker 1: have any interests. It sounds like they all have a
Speaker 1: dost appointment to get to the kmart. And those guy
Speaker 1: sound engaged to me, like they're excited to be there
Speaker 1: and that you should want to go there, and then
Speaker 1: the chorus. I don't think there's any comparison. Of course,
Speaker 1: the Keymard is indelible. Stop that shop that came charge
Speaker 1: it there. That's very nice. That, by the way, is
Speaker 1: the only commercial on the tape that I actively could
Speaker 1: say I remember hearing this back in the old days
Speaker 1: on the radio. I think the fact that they did.
Speaker 1: But you know, some of these brands and Kymard, it's
Speaker 1: just about his you know, naturally recognized that at least
Speaker 1: at a period of time, just about as big a
Speaker 1: brand as you can get. I mean, like that shows
Speaker 1: just like how how big a client they were getting
Speaker 1: as an advertising company. Yeah, they had a few, and
Speaker 1: Big Boy would be another one. I don't have the
Speaker 1: impression that this was a huge outfit, you know, a
Speaker 1: huge publishing house of any sort, and most of their
Speaker 1: stuff is regional or local. But they attracted with god
Speaker 1: knows how much money a couple of really big stars
Speaker 1: of a previous day. Let let's hear the ptato chip.
Speaker 1: But the chips I don't lie to you getting them
Speaker 1: day and like they said, it's by your after five
Speaker 1: birds the dinner grade for brunch and instant bed will lunch.
Speaker 1: Dast chips just made too much sire alone and great
Speaker 1: and didn't side fat chip made with tender love and care.
Speaker 1: That's quality there. Trying or try it done. Either way,
Speaker 1: it's bag to funnel the chip sat down. There's only
Speaker 1: one I said before Detroit was as far west as
Speaker 1: they went. This is for our potato chip company that
Speaker 1: was regional in Fort Wayne. This is Frankie Lane, who
Speaker 1: was huge in the very end of the forties and
Speaker 1: throughout the early to mid fifties. He was probably ten
Speaker 1: or fifteen years past his prime at this point, but
Speaker 1: still that's a pretty big name to attract for a
Speaker 1: commercial that's gonna run in part of one stage. I
Speaker 1: just gonna try it, Toney. Either way, it's back to funnel,
Speaker 1: the chip sat down. There's only one. Five birds debato chips.
Speaker 1: If anybody listening has ever seen the clip of Johnny
Speaker 1: Carson with the lady that kept potato chips and would
Speaker 1: grab ones that look like famous people are looked like items,
Speaker 1: she worked at the Cipherg's potato chip factory. I have
Speaker 1: a lot of apples and pears and pumpkins, potato chips,
Speaker 1: potato chips. I particularly like an instant vegetable for lunch. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan would approve. I'll give you another food one here.
Speaker 1: This one I found particularly uh weird. Pixels Burgers, Tucky Burgers,
Speaker 1: god best burger. Let me say first off that as
Speaker 1: a musician and as a music lover, I am forever
Speaker 1: in love with people singing sixth chords. You bring me
Speaker 1: somebody singing six chords, and I'll marry you. So that
Speaker 1: one's right up my alley. You've got all those tight harmonies,
Speaker 1: You've got all those those neat little six and seventh
Speaker 1: chords in there. To Kentucky. Kentucky switched to Kentucky around
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine. Apparently, Kentucky Fried Chicken tried to spin
Speaker 1: off into the beef market. It's kind of funny that
Speaker 1: they're advertising hamburgers there, because apparently Kentucky Beef was much
Speaker 1: more about roast beef sandwiches and trying to compete with Arby's.
Speaker 1: I think it's weird, number one, that they tried to
Speaker 1: move on from what they were successful with and tried
Speaker 1: something as niche as as Arby's to to compete with.
Speaker 1: And I'm doubly weird that if they started advertising it,
Speaker 1: they made it all about hamburgers, which apparently was not
Speaker 1: their main product, and the whole thing seems to have
Speaker 1: died a very rapid depth. Anyway, I had never heard
Speaker 1: of Kentucky Beef. No, I'll do the other celebrity one,
Speaker 1: which is Text Williams. He had had a number one
Speaker 1: hit in the late fourties with Smoke that Cigarette, which
Speaker 1: is off the Truck's Great record st. Peter at the
Speaker 1: Golden Gate that you hates to make him wait, but
Speaker 1: you just gotta have another cigarette. His voice had deep,
Speaker 1: and considerably since that was already deep by the time
Speaker 1: he made that record, but on his later records it's
Speaker 1: it's extremely deep. He's the right voice for the tone
Speaker 1: of this commercial. Does your car sound like an Ovi seventeen.
Speaker 1: Are you losing power and waste and gasoline? Does your
Speaker 1: car sound like it's shot because the muzzler's gone to pot.
Speaker 1: We'll just bring it down to the day the smugglers shop.
Speaker 1: I don't know how you can get more local. Baby
Speaker 1: David's Muffler was a global chain, but I don't think
Speaker 1: that was a big chain across the whole card. You're
Speaker 1: like Big Boy, and yet here's somebody spending a ton
Speaker 1: of money on a celebrity and a big band. You
Speaker 1: get your muffler in a wink follow a lot less
Speaker 1: than you think, So come on down to the day Muffler.
Speaker 1: Pretty much the same band as I'm Big Boy, I suppose,
Speaker 1: don't you think. Yeah they're swinging, man, the way they
Speaker 1: make those horns squeal, I mean they're all good. I'm
Speaker 1: not all good. No, no, no no. Did I send
Speaker 1: you that other Hamburger House one with a weird jazz backing, Yeah?
Speaker 1: You earth go for it to live good? Thanks, come
Speaker 1: to something special burn. The harmonies on the phrase hamburger
Speaker 1: house are frightening. If a band hit those in the
Speaker 1: midst of going from one thing to another during some
Speaker 1: sort of bebop tun that'll be fine. That's not what
Speaker 1: they're doing. Something special Burger. If you turn this on
Speaker 1: and I don't think you think it was a hit record.
Speaker 1: I don't think you think it was a commercial. I
Speaker 1: think you wonder what the hell was going on any
Speaker 1: kind of me consentation of me to something special Burger
Speaker 1: House and Burger Burger Burger. I also don't think that
Speaker 1: the pitch is so strong and that one like like
Speaker 1: flavor comes alive, things come alive. I don't think I
Speaker 1: don't think that that's the right pitch for a restaurant
Speaker 1: at all. I'll give you a weird one here this
Speaker 1: please for Speedways guided tour please. Now they're crude oil
Speaker 1: comes and clopping up through this and not not amizer
Speaker 1: and round she goes and over and up and comes
Speaker 1: out here like a guys. And then she's fibulized and
Speaker 1: these copper pipes and electro bobulated. Then she sits so
Speaker 1: hip footballized and astro Did you know that's the hardest part.
Speaker 1: I love that it's so weird. What would you think
Speaker 1: coming across that in nineteen sixty seven or sixty eight,
Speaker 1: probably think it was some goofball DJ with a special
Speaker 1: feature or something. I mean, I was eight and sixty
Speaker 1: eight and I remember distinctly my brother listening to Top
Speaker 1: forty radio and all the goofy things that DJs did
Speaker 1: and that would have fit right in, but not as
Speaker 1: a commercial. I mean, it's funny, it's a really really
Speaker 1: funny commercial, but it's not the right length. I think
Speaker 1: it's about forty seconds long. They must have been voiceover
Speaker 1: but for or aption or something, because it's really unclear
Speaker 1: that I've just heard a commercial and I don't know
Speaker 1: what the product is. I'm sure they say speedway guided
Speaker 1: to her right at the top, but this is so
Speaker 1: much weird stuff and you have no idea by the
Speaker 1: end of it. At least I don't like what I
Speaker 1: just heard. After the break, more star ads, including maybe
Speaker 1: the weirdest, each of our least favorites and what seems
Speaker 1: to be their proudest achievement. Um, all right, Kmart, we
Speaker 1: did Big Boy, we did Save Words. We did in
Speaker 1: Davis clover Land Dairy, which is probably my least favorite. Okay,
Speaker 1: we don't have to use that, no, I mean, we
Speaker 1: could play it if you have something interesting to say.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't I don't know that I don't know that
Speaker 1: I do. It's just I'll play It's just a splash
Speaker 1: of it land whom meals where the prize cow slowly
Speaker 1: brows and the clover Since for what it's worth, this
Speaker 1: song has been stuck in my head ever since. Burns
Speaker 1: and milk, sing of French cream, sing of country eggs,
Speaker 1: and but as smooth as so everything comes so far
Speaker 1: fresh from the dairy with cows to you. If you
Speaker 1: don't own account, call north nine to to to to
Speaker 1: sing a song off clover Land and I will sing
Speaker 1: it to everyone. Sings of the farm fresh things that
Speaker 1: come from clover Land to you. I will say where
Speaker 1: the prize cows slowly browsed is one of the greatest
Speaker 1: lines in history. Do you everything about cows browsing? And
Speaker 1: also I I also like if you don't want a cow,
Speaker 1: that's a good line, don't all North nine to to
Speaker 1: to man talk is probably my least favorite out of them,
Speaker 1: being Oh man, mantalk is great. I'm playing mantalk right now.
Speaker 1: Ok Man talk. They make the cause that get the
Speaker 1: wheels to move so forcefully. The telephone the most important
Speaker 1: cogging in the stream. When work is done. They plan
Speaker 1: the fishing for vacation days, and then they talk about
Speaker 1: the giant ones that got away. They plan a lot day,
Speaker 1: do a lot. The phone is what they use for
Speaker 1: man talk, man talking. The phone is what they need
Speaker 1: for business calls of urgency, and what a friend the
Speaker 1: telephone is at veges. It's like it was there a
Speaker 1: need to to like masculize the telephone. I think you
Speaker 1: could listen to that commercial and actually not be sure
Speaker 1: what it was advertising. I also think that sounds like
Speaker 1: a really pretentious set piece from a really bad Broadway musical.
Speaker 1: There's also a kid Talk one if you want to
Speaker 1: hear it, kid Talk Wow. Oh, I definitely want to
Speaker 1: want to run two phones, that ring is one. And
Speaker 1: I want to mention I've had people say that I'm
Speaker 1: overblowing this, but again, these commercials were probably made in
Speaker 1: the mid to late sixties. One of the best hits
Speaker 1: of that entire era, in my opinion, is King of
Speaker 1: the Road by Roger Miller. Traders spot see Rooms split
Speaker 1: fifty cents to my year's song two Phones, that ring
Speaker 1: is one, lift the opening melody in chords from the
Speaker 1: King of the Road. Two Poes, That ring is one,
Speaker 1: make bar easier living. And when you gather up boat,
Speaker 1: that's all the road that really is stop boat giving
Speaker 1: except jim phone, safe time and steps. So don't wait
Speaker 1: to have it done. Busy households, maasy need to phones
Speaker 1: that ring as one. I think that's I think it's
Speaker 1: really catchy. I think that it's got a nice little
Speaker 1: swinging be to it. But it seems like the feel
Speaker 1: of it is definitely to be Stone from Roger Miller record,
Speaker 1: and the first six or eight notes of the melody
Speaker 1: as well extend jim phone, safe time and steps. Don't
Speaker 1: wait to have it done. I don't think you get
Speaker 1: away with that today. Two phones that ring is one,
Speaker 1: make poor easier living. And when you gather up pope,
Speaker 1: that's all there roll that really it is not booking.
Speaker 1: Let's do fun full originals, questions on the crazy side,
Speaker 1: made to autograph, goofy, cookie colorful. Each one is worth
Speaker 1: the laugh. There's the soccer to me friends who kill me,
Speaker 1: friends who send me too, and one for friends of
Speaker 1: fracture me that could be you or you. Fund full
Speaker 1: of reginals. Fun Full of originals want to play me
Speaker 1: to cutter within the stuff playmate line, we have a
Speaker 1: bearer called Raisin Barnaby, who really flipped your mind. There's
Speaker 1: a monkey much and Monty, Roguish Rodney Roding, dig Fat
Speaker 1: Punge and Penelope the super groovy big fun Full of Originals.
Speaker 1: Fun Full Originals original heroic. Herby is a pin cow.
Speaker 1: He's a hippoll kind of guy. Daffy daff means a donkey,
Speaker 1: cuppy Titus. He's not shy and he's furies kind of foxy.
Speaker 1: Joined the income and be cool. Get your friends to
Speaker 1: autograph from when you grooping there at school. Keep all
Speaker 1: the cut of characters and charming chums around my quiver
Speaker 1: and quincy quarterback or homesick homer Hound. Here's the Leopard,
Speaker 1: lopan Lonnie chorus Koy because she's a coyle. Harmonious Harvey
Speaker 1: he's a hippie, lovable lords Jeess, a dog put cowardy
Speaker 1: culvert in your cave Man events is actually man. He's high.
Speaker 1: So we have twenty one Matt character. Is he just
Speaker 1: something kind of guy? Now you've met the members of
Speaker 1: our fun Field family tree that your very favorite playmates.
Speaker 1: Enjoying the family Originals fun Full Originals Originals. I want
Speaker 1: to know how many times he had to do that,
Speaker 1: and how much they had to stitch together, because that's
Speaker 1: a bravado performance. I hear one cross fade. There could
Speaker 1: be more, but I hear one where he actually overlaps himself.
Speaker 1: That one is so so sixties psychedelias. I would love
Speaker 1: to see the products. Whatever the fund full originals were,
Speaker 1: it certainly lost to time. I think I've looked that
Speaker 1: up without any sort of success. Either it was something
Speaker 1: very local or something that simply didn't take off. Let's
Speaker 1: do the new tiger in town. All right, there's a
Speaker 1: new tiger in town. There's a new tiger in town.
Speaker 1: It's the big new Marcus fifty. It's got the tiger's
Speaker 1: power and the tiger's drive. Again, there's probably a national
Speaker 1: contract for mercury beneath that coats so keen and sleek.
Speaker 1: The sin was was rippled like a lightning, streaking glides
Speaker 1: island as a cat, and it gets where you're going
Speaker 1: and nothing flattened. With a really interesting arrangement. It's a
Speaker 1: savage beauty with a brand new name. At hers politely
Speaker 1: if you like a tame, but give it the gas
Speaker 1: and watch chip pounds. There's steely muscle in every ounce.
Speaker 1: That a whole lot of commercials I've ever heard that
Speaker 1: sounds remotely like that. That's the big numeric as fifty
Speaker 1: with the motor that feels like it's alive. The dealer's
Speaker 1: got one caged for you, and you can be a
Speaker 1: tiger tamer to come in and ride the tiger. There's
Speaker 1: a new tiger in town. Get the car with the
Speaker 1: tiger's power and drive. Get the big numeric as fifty five. Okay,
Speaker 1: people size ads, right, that's the one I was thinking.
Speaker 1: News classified ads are people's size ads, and people reach
Speaker 1: people with people's size ads. It's people mostly who read
Speaker 1: the news, so people's size ads are what people choose
Speaker 1: to use. I'm Mrs Green got a new sewing machine.
Speaker 1: I'd sell my old one gladly. I'm Mrs Brown. I
Speaker 1: live across town and I need that machine quite badly.
Speaker 1: Now how do they get together? These two each has
Speaker 1: what the other could use. Well, this people's size problem
Speaker 1: is easily solved with un classified ad in the news.
Speaker 1: Say I've got to finish my barbecue. Can I find
Speaker 1: some secondhand break with just one of those little old
Speaker 1: people size ads? You bet you can, and it's quick
Speaker 1: and that's just why so many people use those people
Speaker 1: size ads in the news. To place people size ads,
Speaker 1: the number to know is wood word three seventy wood
Speaker 1: word three seventy five. Oh to place people size ads.
Speaker 1: That number to know let me hear. If you got
Speaker 1: it ready, goold word three. There's a bunch of commercials
Speaker 1: for the Detroit News with various aspects of their salesforce.
Speaker 1: I think there's at least three people's size ad ads
Speaker 1: on the tape. The first thing I remember thinking is, well,
Speaker 1: the sound quality has really gone down. It doesn't stay
Speaker 1: like that, but that the sound quality on that is
Speaker 1: not something that I would use to try to sell
Speaker 1: somebody on my ability because it's tinny and it just
Speaker 1: doesn't sound very well produced. But there's still a lot
Speaker 1: of creativity in there. I love the guy with the
Speaker 1: rhyme right in the middle of his spiel by some
Speaker 1: secondhand brick you bet you can, and it's quick. I like, um,
Speaker 1: it's mostly people who read the news. Let's do customer relations.
Speaker 1: I handle customer relations for our color telephones, and I
Speaker 1: do my very best to see there's one in every home.
Speaker 1: I must admit I stumbled on a problem rather quaint.
Speaker 1: When a man came in the other day and this
Speaker 1: was his complaint. I like your color telephones. I was
Speaker 1: happy when I found them, and so I ordered seven,
Speaker 1: and I built my home around them. There's a blue
Speaker 1: one in the kitchen. In the bedroom, there's a pink
Speaker 1: a quiet beiges in the study. That's where I like
Speaker 1: to think. I've got a red one in the playroom.
Speaker 1: It brings the room alive. In the living room it's yellow,
Speaker 1: the accounts for five. The bathroom phone is ivory. And
Speaker 1: there's a green one in the hall. So I've got
Speaker 1: seven color telephones and I dearly love them all. So
Speaker 1: I said, got it, what's your problem? Sounds like everything's
Speaker 1: all right. Well, the people that I talked to only
Speaker 1: speak in black and white. If your friends are colorful,
Speaker 1: match them with a color telephone. I was talking before
Speaker 1: about one of the commercials being a really bad, pretentious
Speaker 1: set piece in the Broadway show that's like a pattern
Speaker 1: song that that's like the high point of Act two
Speaker 1: and some Broadway show. The whole story. I built my
Speaker 1: holl around them. That's just funny on his face, And
Speaker 1: he bought seven phones before he had a house and
Speaker 1: built a house so that you could have seven rooms phones.
Speaker 1: What a concept. Their approach seems to be wacky. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good word. Yeah. Like it seems to me
Speaker 1: that it kind of reflects on the company or at
Speaker 1: least the marketing people at these brands to to choose this.
Speaker 1: You know, like these are people that were like willing
Speaker 1: to kind of do something a little experimental to go
Speaker 1: along with the customer relationship. We should do save steps
Speaker 1: because that's kind of a partner one to what I think.
Speaker 1: They're kind of similar. Hey, here we go. We were
Speaker 1: sitting in the office one blustery day discussing the means
Speaker 1: and the proper way to tell everyone what we know
Speaker 1: is true, what that extra phone in your home can do.
Speaker 1: Then Joni spoke up, she's our office miss with some
Speaker 1: words of wisdom, and they went like this, it takes
Speaker 1: steps to get to that telephone line, and going to
Speaker 1: and from takes a lot of time. So calling our
Speaker 1: efficiency expert Dave to see what steps and extra phone
Speaker 1: can say. He took the size of an average home
Speaker 1: and the distancing feet from the telephone. The average step
Speaker 1: is two feet or more, and he multiplied by a
Speaker 1: family of four to that he had a ten calls
Speaker 1: a day multiplied by seven, got a week that way
Speaker 1: times fifty two, and he had a year. Drew a
Speaker 1: line of the map there to hear with this trusty divider.
Speaker 1: He marked off the line was a clocked off portion
Speaker 1: of the waste of time. Add the extra phone? Did
Speaker 1: id bye do? And here pubs the answer all done
Speaker 1: for you. All the step that you say this way
Speaker 1: would reach to China in a year and a day,
Speaker 1: unless you have a house with the second floor in
Speaker 1: which gage you have to do it all once more.
Speaker 1: See we approved it from the evidence and extra phone
Speaker 1: makes a lot of sins. Thank you, Dave, Hey, where
Speaker 1: are you going down the hole? The order one of
Speaker 1: my own? It would it act like that be for
Speaker 1: the telephone company. Yeah, let's trying to sell people on
Speaker 1: the on the need and the desire and the benefit
Speaker 1: of getting a second phone in your house, going back
Speaker 1: to a time when a lot of people only had
Speaker 1: one phone. You're selling bill telephone that's gotta be their
Speaker 1: biggest client. Then you're probably right. And yet the telephone
Speaker 1: commercials on these tapes are noticeably lower expense than some
Speaker 1: of the other ones that had a bass player at
Speaker 1: pianist and a drummer, right, and maybe three vocalists. The
Speaker 1: phone ones are not big productions at all. You want
Speaker 1: to do the octopus one, Sure, here we go. An
Speaker 1: octopus down in the Chesapeake found the case of beer
Speaker 1: and he said, I guess the peak wouldn't hurt. So
Speaker 1: he took just the peak and it was full the
Speaker 1: National Beer. So every bottle was identical. There he sits
Speaker 1: with one in every tentacle. That poor squit such a
Speaker 1: mixed up kit. But the point is very clear. It's
Speaker 1: as simple as this. When you've got a thirsty it's
Speaker 1: National Beer, National Beer. You like to taste of National Beer.
Speaker 1: I love those tightly harmonized suits in the middle. That's
Speaker 1: kind of gorgeous. And again there's a ton of money
Speaker 1: spent on that commercial. There's a lot of people on
Speaker 1: that recording. National Beer. Bob was around, it is still around.
Speaker 1: It's known as Natty Ball in the Baltimore area, rude
Speaker 1: on the shores of the Chesapeake Bear. What's the instrument
Speaker 1: that leads it off? What instrument is that? I think
Speaker 1: that's a also known as a contra bassoon, an octave
Speaker 1: lower than a bassoon. We should get to the Bastion
Speaker 1: beer recipe at all right, I'll play the original first.
Speaker 1: Now I've got a pleasant living recipe here. That's a
Speaker 1: wonderful dish with national beer. We call it Heavenly Devil
Speaker 1: clam and we know you're gonna love it. Yes, ma'am,
Speaker 1: you're ready. Now top a pint of clams that are
Speaker 1: tender and sweet. I have a cup of shrimp. I
Speaker 1: half a cup of crab meat at Worcestershire and tabasco too,
Speaker 1: and on the side, make a little rue. Did he say, rude? Well,
Speaker 1: what do you do? Flower water? That's all you do.
Speaker 1: If that's the rude, that's the rude. Will hoop do
Speaker 1: you do? Now? Eat the meat and at the rude,
Speaker 1: stir till it's stick, and you're nearly through. Put it
Speaker 1: in clamshells with cracker crumbs, baked three and she comes
Speaker 1: with the chesapeake. Now that's there. That's the thing of beauty.
Speaker 1: The first tape, you know you're you're gonna try to
Speaker 1: sell somebody, and you're gonna put your best foot forward. Right.
Speaker 1: The first tape opens with a version of the old
Speaker 1: song The Halls of Ivy, and then a fifty and
Speaker 1: second version of the National Beer jingle which we heard
Speaker 1: at the end of that commercial, and then it goes
Speaker 1: straight into that ad with the notation that the National
Speaker 1: Beer jingle was used in somewhere like three D commercials.
Speaker 1: So National Bohemian Beer out of Baltimore was apparently their
Speaker 1: biggest client, and they knew that they had something good
Speaker 1: because that's the first full sixty second commercial they put
Speaker 1: on the tape. And there we have the voices star
Speaker 1: ads again telling us how to cook an entire meal
Speaker 1: in about thirty five seconds, complete with a little Joe
Speaker 1: in the middle, which they got wrong. This is a
Speaker 1: National here commercial that they think is that maybe the
Speaker 1: best thing they've ever done, because it's the first thing
Speaker 1: on the tape and they tell you that you make
Speaker 1: rue by mixing flour and water, which is how you
Speaker 1: make paste. I had the opportunity to upgrade my ability
Speaker 1: to record, first by visiting my brother who had a
Speaker 1: home recording studio, and then later on getting my own equipment.
Speaker 1: When I was at his place actually for his wedding
Speaker 1: in the spring of two thousand, I brought that commercial
Speaker 1: along with with the intention of trying to make a
Speaker 1: note for a note copy of it with good equipment.
Speaker 1: My daughters were with us, and they were eight and six.
Speaker 1: I spent a couple of days before and then I
Speaker 1: did the vocals on the day before the wedding and
Speaker 1: had about half a dozen people come and enjoin me
Speaker 1: to sing the chorus. That was the start of a
Speaker 1: project that took me nineteen years to make, nineteen songs
Speaker 1: that I released, and that this was the first thing
Speaker 1: I recorded. Now I've got a pleasant living list. That's
Speaker 1: one her for beshol Basha beer. We call it Heavenly
Speaker 1: Deviled clam and we know you're gonna love it. Yes, ma'am,
Speaker 1: you're ready now, chop a pint of clams that are
Speaker 1: tender and sweet. I have a cup of shrimp. I
Speaker 1: have a cup of crap Worcestershire and tabasco too. And
Speaker 1: on the side of little rude, did you s? Yeah?
Speaker 1: What do you do? Mixed flower? And but that's all
Speaker 1: you do, that's all you do, And that's a rude Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a who well, whooped you do? Now beat the
Speaker 1: meeting at the room, struitily thinking put it in clamshells
Speaker 1: with cracker crowns, a fake nationally say. I should have
Speaker 1: mentioned beforehand my younger daughter or had not quite developed
Speaker 1: the ability to say are yet, which I think makes
Speaker 1: it cuter. I also fixed the recipe that it's flour
Speaker 1: and butter that makes a row in that flower in water.
Speaker 1: I think that you really, you really were successfully conjured
Speaker 1: the voice of star ads, and that in that particular performance,
Speaker 1: I think you told me that it lines up like
Speaker 1: second for second with the original Yeah, beat for beat.
Speaker 1: I remember listening to it very carefully along with my
Speaker 1: brother and trying to figure out whether there was an
Speaker 1: extra clarinet tone in there playing a sixth note. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna press you on this one. I mean, what, what,
Speaker 1: what what compelled you to remake like, uh, beat for
Speaker 1: beat cover of this of this old ad um. I
Speaker 1: don't I don't know, I I don't know. I guess
Speaker 1: I just wanted to see if I could do it
Speaker 1: and see see what it would see what it was
Speaker 1: something like, I don't know. I don't understand the way
Speaker 1: my mind works. I should win out that that almost
Speaker 1: everything else on that nineteen songs in nineteen years, they're
Speaker 1: almost all originals, but there's a handful of covers or
Speaker 1: what you might call remix in the midst of that,
Speaker 1: all right, I'm gonna roll. This is the last one.
Speaker 1: Let me let me speak about this a little bit
Speaker 1: so that the Northwest Horritories of Canada, I'm assuming their
Speaker 1: tourism department wanted an advertising. Here's a consultation demo that
Speaker 1: was submitted to one of our clients. This is the
Speaker 1: actual demo the client the Northwest Territories the hundred years Sententennial.
Speaker 1: On tape six, which is the fourth of the four
Speaker 1: that I have, the head of the company does his feel,
Speaker 1: and near the end of it, if I remember correctly,
Speaker 1: he talks about the process of making a commercial from
Speaker 1: beginning to end. Our procedure is as follows. For a
Speaker 1: nominal consultation fee, we create to produce and deliver to
Speaker 1: you a demo containing at least three spots, done with
Speaker 1: varying approaches based on our research. These are recorded on
Speaker 1: tape or disk, whichever you prefer, and done with sufficient
Speaker 1: vocal and instrumental substance to enable you to demonstrate to
Speaker 1: your client the inherent potential of the material. He indicates
Speaker 1: which one they chose, and then includes the final add
Speaker 1: which is like a whopping two and a half minutes
Speaker 1: long it's a pop song, and that's how we'll go
Speaker 1: out here. More audio treasures from Bob Purse on his
Speaker 1: blog inches per Second that's inches dash per dash second
Speaker 1: dot blog spot dot com, and find his twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: album a few more plans at Bob Purse dot bancamp
Speaker 1: dot com links to all these are other episodes featuring
Speaker 1: Bob and more on our website Ephemeral dot Show. And
Speaker 1: now from Starts International. This is the Northwest Territories. Well,
Speaker 1: there's a land, a lovely land stretching Barbara's eye can see,
Speaker 1: and late at night, when the wind is right, I
Speaker 1: can hear it speak to me. Northwest where is quiet now,
Speaker 1: where the north wind blows, it covers the earth, where
Speaker 1: the winter snows. There's a highway of ice where the
Speaker 1: river flows in. The silence speaks to me. The lonesome
Speaker 1: sounds of the north West do not all ago? When
Speaker 1: the earth was green, there was that everywhere, and the
Speaker 1: carabou grazed on the tundrad grass and the bars, the
Speaker 1: light in the skies of the sun night with one
Speaker 1: of gosmos, wondrous and love, the so size of the
Speaker 1: lad arby. But now it's cold and flying south for
Speaker 1: while geese feel the sky, and late that night, when
Speaker 1: the wind is right, you can hear the mournful crime God,
Speaker 1: when this white land turns to green again the sun
Speaker 1: was shine on other men. The haunting sounds gonna last
Speaker 1: till then hear the sounds of the land for me,
Speaker 1: the sounds I love as they speak to me. Last
Speaker 1: God West, that where they're still singing, that refrain. It
Speaker 1: makes you want to go there, doesn't it. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for listening.