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SYSK Selects: How Commercial Jingles Work · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey everyone, it's me Josh and for this week's s
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Y s K Selects, I've chosen how Commercial Jingles Work.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: You could also call it how commercial Jingles slash earworms work.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: And I have to say, if you make it through
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: this episode with no earworms in your head, then your
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: brain is broke. Uh. This episode was also actually the
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: origin of the first commercial jingle, we got the Stuff
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: you Should Know, which was done by Rusty Maddius of
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: the Sheep Dogs, a Canadian band. And thanks again to
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Rusty for kicking that tradition off for us. I hope
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: you enjoyed this episode. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Have you noticed that Jerry has a were aggressive countdown
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: since we're shooting video now. We're shooting video now for
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: those of you not watching and just listening like old school, yeah,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: we uh we have these video potentially. Yeah, Jerry's aggressively
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: counting down now. Yeah. He just yelled at us three
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: D one and I keep you know, we do two
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: of these uh at a time. Um, and I always
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: bring a shirt and always forget to change into it,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: like changing. Yeah, I feel like a jerk. No, I
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: did change once the first time. Well, today you have
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: on your Mystery Science Theater three thousands. Shout out to
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Kevin and Bill. Yeah, guys, if you're listening, you know everybody, Mike, Joel,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: anybody Yeah that's ever had anything to do with that show.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: TV's Frank, who's now a successful tweeter. Yeah, I don't
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: know if you follow him. No, he's he's pretty liberal.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: You know. Joel went out and did his own thing
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: as well, Like they're both doing similar versions of their
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: previo his job, what is it? Cinematic Titanic is Joels
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: and then riff Tracks is Mike's. Uh yeah, I'm I'm
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: well aware, you know. Um, Robert Lamb interviewed Joel Hodgson
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: on and there's like a really awesome, lengthy blog interview
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: on the stuff to Blow your Mind blog. Check it out. Yeah,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: so that's the intro for commercial jingles, which is what
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: we're talking about. Um, I really don't have anything except chuck.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of a little uh songwriter named
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Lynn Duddy? Nope, I had neither. Apparently, Lynn Duddy wrote
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: the I Love Bosco jingle, which I've never heard before,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: but it's listed as a famous jingle, so I feel
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: like I'm missing out. I didn't know half of these.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Actually I Love Bosco jingle, that's the one that we list.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: What's with this? And Barry Manila wasn't in here no,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: which just get that out of the way, Hanelo, who
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: I love? You mean? I have seen him front Row
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Center in Vegas. It was an awesome show. Did he
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: He looks so scary now, I He's a great guy.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I'd want front Rows all I'm saying,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: he h. It was cool. He said something to me.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: I had to go to the bathroom, and I like
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: went and left in the middle of one of his songs,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: and while he was singing, didn't miss a beat. He
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: says to my back, don't leave now it gets better,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: and then just went into the song. Yeah, and you
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: mus like, Bryn did Josh, Yeah? Did you hear it?
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Did you know it was? I didn't hear. I came
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: back and she was still like, oh my god, did
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: you hear wow? Yeah. But Barry Manelow, in addition to
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: his incredible singing career, also is Um one of the
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: better UM commercial jingle writers of all time. Yeah, performed
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: and co wrote uh jingles like like a good neighbor
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: state farm is there? That's a big one, man, they're
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: still using that stuck on the band aid because the
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: band aid stuck on me. That huge grab a bucket
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: of chicken. I haven't heard that one. Grab a bucket
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: of chicken. It was like seventies, yea. And that that
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: was for KFC obviously, and you deserve a break today
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: at McDonald's big one. And he apparently recently did one
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: for Dodge. I saw Randy Newman obviously, he writes whatever
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: pays the most. He wrote a bunch back in the day.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: And then this guy Jim Brickman, who made quite a
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: name for himself with ads like we are flint Stone's Kids.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah. For the vitamins. I used to love those,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: but um, every once in a while, my mom would
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: just buy the cheaper knockoff one and the difference in
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: taste awful. So there was a spell where like she
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: would find like sticky knockoff flint Stone vitamins like in
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: my Lincoln logs just stuck to things because I'd just
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: be like it was Yeah, I just put it in
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: my Lincoln logs because I guess throwing it away was
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: too difficult. Yeah, it's pretty good, but yeah, and then
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: of course Lynn Duddy and Lynn Duddy and Brigman's other
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: big one was ge we bring good things to line.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: Do you know how rich these people must be if
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: they had even just a halfway decent agent. Well, it
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: points out on this article. I don't know if it's
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: still the case, but if you wrote the jingle, you
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: own the rights to it. I know, I don't know
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: if that's still it seems like it should be. I
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: guarantee you. Manilow owns the rights to the ones that
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: he wrote. He didn't need a tour, but he still does,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: although he likes to cancel once in a while. He
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: just came I had tickets for his Atlanta show. Really,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: he just canceled. It canceled. I'm not playing sorry, huh
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: oh really yeah that's pretty lame. Yeah, I thought too. Well,
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: I hope he's all right. I was really into Barry
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: Manlo when I was a kid. I know, for someone
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: who ended up being like fairly cool with my music case. Hey,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: I've gotten great music taste too, and I love man.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, no, I'm just saying alright, let's get into this, okay,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: So Chuck, what is a commercial jingle. It's one of
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: these things that you know, you anybody can define it,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: but it's actually a little specific. Uh yeah, Well it
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: is a song or a snippet um of a hopefully
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: memorable melody written about a product. And that's the original jingle.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: We'll get into how it's changed over the years. So, um,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: it can have just about anything in it, like a
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: slogan like like a good neighbor state farmers there. It
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: can have a phone number like a hundred five three
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: hundred Empire today. Yeah, good going. Um. It can have
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: call letters like NBC. Yeah that is um. I looked
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: into that. That is what they now call audio branding
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: or an audio logo. Um, like the sound your computer
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: makes when you open it. Oh yeah, you know Apple
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: has THEIRS, PC said theirs or the ding ding ding
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: from NBC like you just said. But that's a big
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: business now, that jingle, Like who can never get rid
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: of that one once it's in your head. Uh, but
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: that's a new thing. Like that's even more specific now
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: than jingles are what they call audio branding, and every
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: time I hear the word branding, a little piece of
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: me dieu. But the dude from the Human League, remember that, man,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: he has a company. Now that's like getting rich doing this.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah. Yeah. Basically it's a little more complex in
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: a jingle because they're trying to capture like the essence
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: of your brand with a few notes maybe, or in
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: the case of like an LG dryer, instead of hearing
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: at the end, it plays this little melody. It's like
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: laundrys ton No, what is that? Uh no, it's a
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: little melody, like a little dinging chiming melody. Who who
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: was it that wrote the Yahoo one Yahoo man? Who
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: was that? We were just talking about that recently. How's
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: the guy who wrote? Uh? Oh man, I can't remember. Oh, well,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: somebody right in. It was a previous podcast. Yeah that's
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: less than two months old. Yeah, it's all gone now.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Uh alright, So anyway, that's audio branding. But oh we
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: left out one other one other part of a jingle.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: It can also tout the benefits of a product. Yeah,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: especially back in the day that was huge, Like you'll
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: wonder where the yellow went when you brush your teeth
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: with PEPs it in. Really you're not familiar? No, yeah,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: I remember the Crest Um the Crest Patrol. Yeah, we
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: make holes in teeth remember that that? Oh man, I
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: wish I would look this stuff up. In the seventies,
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: that was the cartoon of the Crest. I remember that. Yeah.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: And then there were the the the yup mouse who
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: were the bad people in that? I don't remember. The
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: enemies were the ones we make holes and teeth to
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: the cavity creeps. I know the cavity creeps. Alright, I'm
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: firing on all you know. Um. I remember being in
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: like third grade, I think, and we got a bunch
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: of promotional materials from the Crest Patrol and it included
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: a play of which I was I think a toothbrush
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: talk about infiltrating schools. Ye, seriously, like we put on
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: a play about the Crest Patrol in school. Wow, that
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: is weird. It's a little weird, So, Chuck Jingles, they've
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: been around since the Egyptians, as I understand it, that
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: is not true. Technically, it is true because the Egyptians
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: were around in the nineteen thirties. Funny guy Christmas Eve six.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: They have credited the the Wheaties Quartet was singing about
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: the Wheaties Breakfast Cereal first ever jingle, UM, And apparently
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Wheaties was in pretty bad shape and they're even gonna
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: get rid of it until they noticed that in markets
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: where they were playing this song on the radio, Wheaties
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: picked up and they said, hey, maybe this jingles. Maybe
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: he's got something to it. And they probably call it
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: a jingle at the time. Um. And then they put
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: it nationwide and Wheaties was saved. Yeah, you did you
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: listen to it? No? Is it pretty bad? No, it's great.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: It sounds like the b Sharp's you know, it's barbershop quartet.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: It sounds like Baby on Board, Yeah, except they're singing
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: about Wheaties. So that whole Wheaties thing is pretty well established,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: but some still dispute it. And it depends on how
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: you look at, um what a jingle is, um, whether
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: that's the first one or not. But there's a song
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: that was written in nineteen o five called in My
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Merry Old Mobile like Gus Edwards and Vincent Brian and
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: I didn't realize that people were named Vincent back in
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: like nineteen o five. Does that seem like a modern
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: name to you, it seems more like nineteen forties to
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventies. Maybe maybe you know there's a website that
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: charts popularity of names in a graph. I believe that
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: I bet you Vincent is pretty low back then. Um,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: but those two guys made in my Mary Oldsmobile and
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Oldsmobile used it in the thirties, but it wasn't originally
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: recorded or written for Oldsmobile to use. I think the
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: guys just really like their olds momentle, rely, and so um.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: The author of this this article, Tim Faulkner, points out
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: that you're probably more accurately call it the first pop
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: song licensed for commercial use. Okay, that makes more sense.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: So it's technically not a jingle. So the Wheaties quartet
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: still stands. Christmas Eve, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Is there any place
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: more desolate than Hey? It worked because we still have
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: wheaties today. So the whole reason jingles came about too
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: is because you know, I'm all about my like nineteen
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: thirties consumer history and like in in the thirties, like
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: consumer protection was like way stronger, and one of the
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: things was direct advertising was very strict. So funny. Now, yeah,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: like this is so like no holds barred. Now you know,
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: Australia is like going to town, like preventing direct marketing
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: to kids. Yeah, they're really protecting their kids. It is
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: very cool. Plus here you can only market here, right exactly.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Do you remember when there used to be like cigarette
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: ads and oh yeah, cutty sark ads and things like that.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: It's funny to look through uh if you go like
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: to uh antique places and they have old Life magazine stuff.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: You just look at the ats and it's like these
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: happy people slowly killing themselves with merits. Um so. But
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: in the in the thirties, like if you wanted to
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: get an ad on the radio, you pretty much had
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: to buy some time like a half hour or an
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: hour and put on a program. And hence we have
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: things like the King Biscuit Flower Hour, you know um
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: or the General Motor Um Car Thriller Mysteries, you know whatever.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: And at first I think it was really boring and
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: dull and dumb. And they figured out that consumers were
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: a little more savvy and we're not really willing to
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: share their time for something that's just an ad, like
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: an infomercial, right, so they started to make things like
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: the shadow and little or fanany um, and they made
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: them so they could advertise, but eventually it gave us
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: radio programming and then ultimately TV programming. As we understand
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: it today, we're basically born out of this desire to
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: advertise to radio listeners in the thirties. Pretty cool, yeah, um.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: And I didn't realize this, or I realized, I guess,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: But it's just hard to imagine these days because it's
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: so advertising is so all over the place. But back
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: then you had direct to consumer sales one on one
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: you go to a store, or you have a traveling
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: salesman come to your house to sell a vacuum cleaner
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: or whatever. And the ads back in the day, UH
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: kind of bore that out. They were basically real, matter
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: of fact and kind of dry and really just bullets.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Bullet pointed, how our product is better than the other exactly,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: he's very boring, very dry, Like our spats are better
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: than our competitors spats because they're made with virgin baby
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: goat skin. That's right. But with the popularity of radio,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: things changed and they realized that jingles UH could make
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: a real impact, you know, and they did because it's music.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: As the Wheaties quartet proved pretty early on. Um, and
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: just right out of the gate, people started really paying
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: attention to this, and they brought the field of psychology
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: in and psychology started cranking out books that basically guided
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: advertisers and companies on how to reach these audiences like
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: who's listening when and like how to talk to them
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: and um. Yeah, but they just basically exploded overnight. And
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: it was all largely thanks to the jingle. Yeah, and
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: you know the early on and I think it still
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: holds true today. If you want to be a successful jingle,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: it's got to be very simple. You gotta have a repetition. Um,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: you gotta have Rhyming is good. It is helps stick
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: in your head a little more and before you know it,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: it's become part of your consciousness for like life. Like
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: they point out here in the article the Oscar Meyer
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: Uh Bologney song, like, anyone who grew up in the
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: seventies can sing that word for word today unless you
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: just weren't paying attention as a kid. Do you want
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: to sing a little of it? Well, now do you
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: know my Bologny has a first name, It's O. S
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: C A R. And the plot plot fizz fizz. Oh,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: what a relief. It is like these things get burned
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: into the collective consciousness. But umu Stanza, what's that from Seinfeld? Remember,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: like George gets a girlfriend because he he associates his
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: name with that by men, and but he goes Costanza
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: and the woman doesn't even like him, but she can't
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: get him out of her head because that Costanzas in there,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: which you would call an earworm, which we've talked about
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: it feels like before, right, I think so, But we
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: may as well talk about the or verm is in German,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: it's or orm and everyone knows it what an earworm is.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: It's when it a song or a part of a
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: song gets stuck in your head, sometimes an explicably inexplicably
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: we'd got stuck in your head, Like you wake up
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: in the morning and the song is in your head.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: You hadn't heard it in weeks, months, years, who knows,
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: but it's just there. And they don't really know how
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: it works either. No, but a couple of very smart
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: guys in the seventies got together. Their names were Alan
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Badley and Graham Hitch and they I think they're responsible
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: for coming up with the idea of the working memory
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: and sounds like a well, they went on to write
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: the hustle um, but the badly and hitch first. Um,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: I guess I've investigated working memory. And they came up
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: with this thing called the the phonological loop, right, which
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: is an earworm or a snippet of music or a
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: a sentence, whatever, it's running around. You can almost see
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: it facing this track in your head over and over again.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: That's the phonological loop. And it's made of two parts, right,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: the phonological store, which is your inner ear which here's it,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: and then the articulatory rehearsal system, which is you're driving
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: yourself totally insane by saying it over and over repeating.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: It's how we learned to talk or learn a foreign language. Um.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: And they think that this phonological um loop is basically
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: an earworm pitching a ride on this neurological process that
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: we have naturally and basically exploiting it for commercial purposes. Wow,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: happens more in women, supposedly, more musicians, supposedly, And if
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: you have O c D. It might really present a
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: problem with you. That was a really good episode of ours.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: If you ask me O c. D. David Sedaris licks
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: light switches. I think yeah, in his book he did.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that's real. I think it is, though, Um,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: how to get rid of an earworm? There's all kinds
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: of things you can try, like actually hearing the song
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: in full. Um, like, Um, if you can't get call me,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: maybe out of your head, right, just go listen to
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: call me, maybe sometimes singing it yourself all the way through.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: You can do it. You could sing call me, maybe
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: you could vanquish it from your mind. But there's really
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: no sure fire away that those redicible tricks. Yea, I
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: heard someone say something about listening to rush, we'll get
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: rid of it? Is that what it was? Because you
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: just get smart? Right? Um? Who's professor coloris? So he's
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: the one who's basically he's a University of Cincinnati professor.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: He's in the ear warm article, okay, and he has
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: dedicated his career to basically exploring earworms figuring out how
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: to how they work. Um. I think he's made a
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: name for himself in it all. He appears in not one,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: but two how Stuff Works articles? So true, he's arrived.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: So what he's done, Um, through surveys. He said, it's
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: obviously all up to the person. It's very individual as
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: far as what songs get stuck in your head. But
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: he put together through some surveys what he calls the
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Playlist from Hell, and I would have to agree, I'd
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: like to see this updated because it's a little dated,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: a little bit. I mean, I'm sure that one Party
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Rock is gotta be at the time of the list.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: I don't know that one Party Rock is in the
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: house to not I don't know that at all. You're
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: there's it's literally impossible that you have not heard party
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: Is it a song? Yes, I have not heard it.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: I will play it for You'll be like, oh, okay,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: is it like a pop song. Yeah, it's not a commercial.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: It's everything. It's inescapable, it is the alpha, and it's
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: just not possible you haven't heard it, all right, But
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: his playlist from Hell includes uh, the Baby back Ribs,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: Chili's Jingle which we won't even say out loud, the
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Baja Mens who let the Dogs Out. That's a good one.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Queens we will rock you. That's another good one. That's
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: a good one. But I don't I don't know. That
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: doesn't strike me as particularly you're wormy. Um, give me
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: a break. It's a good one. That kit kat bar uh.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: The Mission Impossible theme. I think it's funny that this
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: is on here because I had an experience with that
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: when I lived in New Jersey. It was when I
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: think the first Mission Impossible movie came out in YouTube
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: did the update of the theme. That thing was stuck
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: in my head for like three days. I was walking
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: around just going Donne and coming up on corners really
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: quick and like looking around doing a tuck and roll.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: It was crazy. So it didn't surprise me to see
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: that on here. Y m c A, there's nothing wrong
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: with that. I kind of like this playlist. I wouldn't
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: call it from Hell. I'd call it maybe from hack
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: at Best. Okay, Um, now I do hate um The
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: Lion Sleeps Tonight. I hate that song. I think that's
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: probably on there for the very favorite womb there. It
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: is by Tag Team and It's a Small World. I
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: guess that one because you go to Disney World and
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: you just hear it over and over and over. Um,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: what ride is that? It's a Small World? Is that
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: the name of the ride to Yeah? I think so.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: It's been a while, but yeah, so, um, there's still
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: plenty of jingles out there. I'm trying to think of
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: a of a new jingle. Well, they're they're all over
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: um sports radio. Oh yeah, because I listened to a
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: lot of sports talk and me and my lead guitarist
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Eddie who you know, Eddie Vedder Eddie Cooper. Uh, we
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: have been joking around about doing um, like a medley
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: of of radio jingles. No, yeah, in our set, because
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: if you listen to sports radio, man, it's like the
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: same ones like what well, looky, looky, looky, here comes
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: cookie Cooks, Alarm Force. I haven't heard that one alarm Force. Uh, man,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: I can't think of them, but yeah, I mean there's
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: just like if you listen to any kind of sports radio,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: it's like the same ones. The ad that always sticks
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: out to me when I think of like sports radio
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: talk radio is that one guy who's he's like trying
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: to sell like some sort of um REFI like, he's
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: a refinance guy. He's like, it's the biggest no brainer
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: in the history. Remember that guy. I love that? Or
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: if you've heard and this isn't even a jingle but
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: a full on song, have you heard any of the
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: Blue Belt ice cream commercials. I don't know, it's pretty great. Oh,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: I mean they're all different, but it's all like this
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: guy singing about like, you know, country morning and the
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: sound of birds chirping, and it's like the sound of
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: coming home is what you taste when you eat Blue
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: Belt ice cream, which is a lie. Um. But like
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: you said, they sort of have gone out of fashion
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: a little bit at least from the heyday, even though
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: they're still around. Yeah, they still they are viewed somewhat
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: as hokey. I think if you stop and think about
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: a commercial jingle or the concept of a jingle, it's hokey,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: even though you probably have five hundred of them in
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: your head that you could recall at any moment. Exactly.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: But yes, if you are, say, um, the company responsible
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: for running VW's advertising campaign, you're probably not going to
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: use a commercial jingle. You're trying to go the other route,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: which is too appropriate a pop song. Yeah, and in
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: VWS case, they used Nick Drake, which great one, the
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: song Pink Moon. Yeah, that's how I came to find
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: out who Nick Drake was. That's how a lot of
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: people came to find out and That's what the article
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: points out is a lot of times they can resuscitate careers,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: although his case he passed away, but uh, he definitely
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: like was way more popular after that commercial than he
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: was before. UM Stereo Lab was also VW. Uh who else? Um.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: I don't think they needed any help, but it was
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: like a perfect fit. The Polyphonic Spree. Oh yeah, they
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: had that there. I can't remember the name of the time.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: It was like they're huge hit. Um that was on
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: a VW commercial, Like when VW first came out with
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: the New Beatle. Hey and shout out to a Toby right, yeah,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: Toby he was he's shooting him feature film right now.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah in Louisiana, Like he's shooting it. Yeah. Toby's a
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: friend of Josh and Yumis who was in the Polyphonic Spree.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: He played and now he is a How did he really?
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: I don't think I knew that. Yeah, he was like, uh,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: friends with a couple of them and said, hey, you know,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: I want to be in the band. What do you need?
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: And they're like, how about Theoremin? And back then anyone
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: could be in the Pox Spree and it was huge.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: It was extensive. Um and he went out and bought
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: a theoreman and taught himself how to play it and
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: came back and was like, all I don't want to
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: be and he like went to Japan. Um toured the
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: world with the with the Spree for a while. That's
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: the Spree. Yeah, um, that's awesome. Yeah he's making a
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: movie now. Yeah. Well you know they had that short
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: he produced one starring Bonnie Prince Billy. It was amazing.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: Now they're onto something else. It's like a feature film
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: the same same company. Yeah. Um, anyway, pop songs, getting
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: back to that, Uh they credit the Beatles um seven
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: Nike commercial. I would Nike famously use Revolution. Do you
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: remember that. Yeah, it's kind of starting this whole new
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: wave of let's use like pay a lot of money
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: to use really popular songs because it's not enough anymore.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: You can't say our brand is better than yours. You
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: like you want to identify your brand with a uh
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: the public consciousness and a lifestyle and like um, that
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: Cat Stephen's song Wind of My Soul and like the
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: Timberland ad that's kind of struck where it's like put
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: these shoes on and you will automatically I'm surprised he
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: went for that. I am too. I'd like to look
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: into that. I wonder if he doesn't have the rights.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: It doesn't seem like something he would do. There's no
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: way he doesn't have the rights to the song. But um,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: it is kind of you. You raise a point like
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: it is surprising that he would have gone for that.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: But apparently if you work on artists long enough, or
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: just wait for them to grow old and need money,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: they will eventually cave. Sting he didn't need the money,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: but who Sting? No. I doubt if he did it
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: because he needed the money. I guess that's right. He
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: has a castle. He did it for a reason, though,
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: and it was probably money. Um So in the eighties
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: when Sting was still because you know, the Police started
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: out as a punk band, yeah, um and in the
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: eighties it was post punk, but Sting still thought of
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: himself as a pretty cool dude. And apparently I don't
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: know the company, but they approached Sting and said, hey,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: we want to use don't stand so close to me
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: for our deodoric commercial. It's a terrible idea, and he
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: very wisely said no way. But then Jaguar said, hey,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: you know this terrible Desert Rose thing you have going on,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: we want to use that for our egg campaign And
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Stint said, way right, cheers to that. Uh and that's
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: a big you know, bands get accused of selling out
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: uh less these days, I think because especially smaller bands,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: you just you know, you people think music is free now,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: so they're not making money selling records like they used to.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: They break even on tours, these small bands, so like
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: I've done a one eight. Used to think like I
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: don't sell out, but now I'm like, dude, make whatever
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: money you can while you can. I know, a band
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: of horses one of my favorite and Jerry's favorites. Um,
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: they were kind of taken into the map by some
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: of their fans because they did. They license her movie
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: to Chevy, and the dude, Ben Bridwell came out and
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: it's like, no, you know what, I drive a Chevy.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: It's old and maybe now I can get the A
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: C fixed. You know, he drives an old pickup chucking.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: He's like, what's what's the problem. Like, We're trying to
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: make a little dough here, and it's a product I
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: believe in, you know. Um, they're that part in the
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: movie the doors where like two Morrison's like off on
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: like whatever for a while and comes back and sees
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: that like, um light my fires and Chevy commercially the
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: ray con of singers or something doing it, and he's like,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: let's catch you tune that starts breaking stuff that brings
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: up my My biggest pet peeve today is this new
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: thing and it's not super new because they've been doing it,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: but it's like worse than it's ever been. When they
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: will take a great classic song and bastardize it and
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: have some like lady session singer come in and sing
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: like Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones, but in a different
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: way and talking about being like satisfied with your you know,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: your new car, and it's just it's all over the
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: place now and it's just the worst. Like I would
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: rather hear someone licensed their real song then hear them
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: remake it with some awful session singer and change the
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: words to fit their product, you know what I'm saying.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: But then that corporation would take the Ben Breadwell stands
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: and bread Well Ben Bridwell stance and be like, hey man,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: we gotta make our quarterly earnings. Yeah it's not true.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: I was being totally facetious. That doesn't count. It's not
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: the same thing or the other thing now that um, like,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: the Black Keys are suing Pizza Hut right now because
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: what companies will do. And Tom Waits to sue people
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: a bunch of times, like every other year he sues
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: someone because they'll go in and they'll say, give us something,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Tom waitsy or boy, listened to the gold on the
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: ceiling by the Black Keys, can you do something like that?
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: And these you know dudes that write these songs basically
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: rip them off. And the Black Keys are watching Pizza
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Hut and they're like, wait a minute, that's my song
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: in a different, slightly different way selling pozzones and so
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: we're going to see you and take you to court.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: And that's when they get in court and like compare
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: them side by side, and you know Ray Parker Junior famously, yeah, yeah,
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: I got messed up because he apparently ripped off. I
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: need a new drug. He lose song, that's right, and
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: I never really hurt it. And then finally I it
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: clicked and I was right, oh wow, that is really sticky.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: Settled He lost that he settled or what, But he
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: definitely lost that case. I guess finally we should talk
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: a little bit about product placement because, um, but we
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: had a whole product placement episode. Oh yeah, that's right. Well,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: obviously with TiVo and DVRs now, people are speeding through commercials,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: so you are going to find some product placement in
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: your shows, quite possibly our own even. Yeah, it happens,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: but um, there are better ways than others to do it.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: And if you want a good laugh, go to the
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: YouTube and google soap Opera Cereal and um, just watch
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: It's great. That's all I'm gonna say. I watched that
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: the other day, did you. It's so funny and awful.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: It's just it's colossally bad. Yeah, but it's so bad
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: that like it's earned a place in the pantheon of
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: pop culture now, so it did his job then some Yeah,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: I bet you. There's a lot of hits on that
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: on YouTube. Peoples, Honey, what are you doing? Just having
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: some delicious honey? That cheerios? Boy, these things really packed
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: in fiber and there the thing is like a seven
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: minute long scene. Yeah, it was like they just started
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: talking about cheerios the whole time. Yeah, it's pretty funny. Um,
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: and there was a little product placement right there for
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: your cheerio. So it was all over the place. Bonus. No,
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: I mean just now no, But I'm saying, jeez, all
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: we did was talking about brands stuff we don't cook's.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: Pest controls is a check. Yeah, we're just combined. Get
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: the termites out of my house, be nice. I want
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: to check. Um. Let's see. If you want to learn
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: more about commercial jingles, you can type those words into
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: the search bar at how stuff works dot com. And
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: I said search bar, which means it's time for listener mail.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this you remember you asked for good
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: uh good causes in the white collar crimes. Yeah, this
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: one's from math and Georgia. Hey, so it made the cut.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: I've been there, love the show Eyes And now a
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: segue into a shameless plug right to the point. For
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: a nonprofit in Athens, Georgia. I represent Free I t
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: Athens FREDA. It's an all volunteer um nonprofit and it
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: is a grassroots organization dedicated to reclaiming discarded technology like computers,
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: refurbishing it and distribing it to those in need. That's great,
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: makes perfect sense too. I think, in fact, I have
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: some old stuff I could donate. You know, there's golden there.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: There's like all sorts of rarer and precious metals that
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: like if you in the computer bind them like a
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: bunch of computers, you'd have a little gold nugget. Really yeah,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: well maybe I'll do that instead. We serve mostly low
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: income populations that cannot afford the latest and greatest technology.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: We also aimed to reduced e waste through computer reuse
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: and responsible recycling. We are currently in need of working
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: laptops for a volunteer program. I know a whole room
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: full of them. Seriously, laptops are distributed a volunteers to
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: complete our computer refurbishing program. We're interested in laptop computers
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: that have been made within the last five years with
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: little to no damage. Donating your computer can change someone's life.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: And imagine you can write that stuff off. You know,
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: we really should see what they're going to do with this,
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: see if we can get it a discuss. Uh, donating
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: can change someone's life. I already said that, but it
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: can really change someone's life. Financial donations are also welcome,
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: so you can visit www dot free I t Athens
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: dot org and thank you so much. Guys. That is
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: from Joel Isler in Athens. Thanks Joel, appreciate that it
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: is a very good cause. We'll see if we can
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: help you. If not, we're in addition to hopefully there's
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: a lot of listeners in the Athens in Atlanta area
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: that can help. Agreed. Or maybe people can mail them
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: from all over I'm sure you could. Or just go
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: there and give them a little cash, give them tin bucks.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you can do that too. What was it
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: a free I t Athens dot org. That's right. Nice. Um,
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: if you have a commercial jingle, we want to hear it.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: Send us a link. Sure, some great forgotten commercial jingle,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: we want to hear about it. Um, you're the worst
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: one ever. Yeah, let's just start talking about this. Let's
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: get a conversation going. You can tweet to us at
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: s y s K Podcasts. You can join us on
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know, and you
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: can send us an email. For more on this and
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: thousands of other topics, visit how stuff Works dot com.