Published on Jan 13, 2000
There are times when I do this job that I absolutely, positively
need a break. Even though I love doing this, there are days when I
don’t think I can muster the energy to listen to one more album in
my still-growing “to be reviewed” stack. Or outside pressures, like
having to run nearly 24 hours’ worth of diagnostics on my machine,
get to me, and I’m ready to scream.
It’s at times like these that I march into the Pierce Memorial
Archives, and dust off an old friend –
Tee Vee Toons: The Commercials. Think of it: over 50 little
“mini-songs” that give me the chance to calm down and get myself
re-focused – and, especially when they’re on the food commercials,
they tend to make me rather hungry. (Damn, a membership at the gym
goes down the toilet.)
First, one minor complaint. Executive producer Steven Gottlieb,
the king of television schmaltz, normally provides detailed liner
notes about each television theme you hear on any of the
Television’s Greatest Hits albums. While the lyrics to the
jingles are provided, there’s no history about the specific
commercials. (Maybe they’re on the CD version; I bought the tape
back when it came out in 1989.) There were some commercials I
wanted more information about – like who is the singing group that
performs the third of the Coca-Cola commercials. (If you know,
please e-mail me and ease my tortured mind.) If there’s ever a
second volume to this set – and I’m honestly surprised that TVT
hasn’t brought one out – I hope they correct this one flaw.
Unless you’ve lived in a cave without television all these
years, it is impossible to listen to
Tee Vee Toons: The Commercials and not find yourself singing
along at some point to a jingle. Spanning four decades’ worth of
ads for various products, there is bound to be something here that
brings back memories for you. For me, that moment came just five
jingles in, when they hit the commercial for Mounds and Almond Joy
candy bars. It’s not that I loved the candy (I hate coconut, so
these were both off my list immediately when I was a kid), but it
was impossible to escape the commercials for these when I’d be
watching Saturday morning cartoons.
Likewise, you get not only the most familiar verse of the ad for
Slinky, but you get the whole song – as well as a reminder that the
company that manufactures (manufactured?) the Slinky used to have
an entire product line, including the now-famous Slinky Dog. (What,
you thought that toy was invented for
Toy Story? My cousin had one when he was a kid back around
1976, and it was adorable.)
Oh, there are sure to be some bad memories stirred up when you
hear some of these ads. If you’ve successfully gotten the song “I’d
Like To Teach The World To Sing” out of your head, it will be back
with a vengeance once you hear it used in the ad for Coca-Cola.
(No, I don’t want your flame mails telling me you can’t get that
damn song out of your head now. If I suffer, you
all
suffer. Hahahahaha!) And while I know the theme from “The
Magnificent Seven” was used to sell Winston cigarettes before ads
for smokes were banned from television, it sounds like this version
was recorded especially for this collection.
Sometimes, it’s interesting to hear the earlier ads (read:
before I was born) for products like Nestle Quik, Rice-A-Roni and
Sara Lee. It’s also a bit weird, but fun, to hear ads I haven’t
heard since I was a young boy for things like Hershey’s and Armour
hot dogs. (Corporate America, forgive me for not showing trademark
signs for all these products.) Finally, what’s especially
interesting is that most of these products featured are still
available at your local food and drug store.
I’ve put
Tee Vee Toons: The Commercials on at parties, and the
evening turned into a nostalgia fest, where we’d talk about old
times for hours. (Its playing usually was preceded by my discovery
that we were fresh out of beer, and my decision that we needed a
distraction.) But this is a fun listen when you want something out
of the ordinary, and is still very enjoyable. I might have bought
this for novelty reasons 11 years ago, but I haven’t regretted it
at all over the years.