Star Ads

you already? All right, my name is Bob Purse. I live in Arcton Heights, Illinois, and I have been a serious collector of all manner of recorded sounds since my early twenties. Let's let's I've estimated that I probably have had close to ten thousand recordings, albums, real, real tapes, videos, anything else that's something might have been recorded on. Though I never asked him whether or not he'd like to be,

Bob is kind of the godfather of this podcast. Our pilot begins with a tape he found, and we focused on parts of his collection in our episodes Reputation, The Tallest Rock, Oh See Black, and the Musical Memories of Camp Navn. Something about hearing stuff from an era that I didn't live through for whatever reason that that just fascinates me. My family was one of the first to obtain a real to real machine when they were pretty

much only used in studios. So when I was a little kid, we had recordings of my family from before I was born. Obviously, that's what everybody has now and has had for years and years, But in nineteen sixty four, when I was four, I guarantee you nobody I knew had recordings of their older siblings or their parents from before they were born. So I was fascinated by it.

As my mother used to say, her main concern about me was how to get me to stop playing with the tape recorder, And there are endless recordings of me on whatever available space. There was What I think of? What did I think of? By the time I was a teenager, fourteen or fifteen, we had upwards of a hundred and thirty hundred forty tapes recorded by our family. Some of them are our family, a lot of them off the air. My mom was a professional singer, so

some of them were of her performances. I decided that we needed to have these in some sort of order, which entailed me listening to every moment of every one of those tapes and writing down exactly what was on them, where it was on them, and then making a separate listing of where anything that could possibly be considered important or the people would want to hear again, and turning

that into a catalog. I want to say I did that from the summer seventy four, probably to the end of the summer seventy I'm sixty one now, so it was a while ago. At some point my uncle Stu, who was my mom's brother, heard about what I had done and said he had a much smaller box of tapes, and would I do the same thing with his tapes? And I said, yeah, I didn't really have any sort

of emotional connection to what was on his tapes. And if you think about yourself at age sixteen, that's when your world is expanding, and there was a lot more going on in my life at sixteen than there had been at fourteen. I don't think I ever really started his project, but four the tapes in the box sort of intrigued me, and they were labeled star Ads by Hums one, two, three, and six. The first three were nothing but examples of commercials produced by this company. Volume

one was clearly their big shot. You know, these are the ads we've done for either national businesses or which came out really, really well and and portray what we can do. The second volume seemed to be either regional ads or in some cases I'm guessing what were demos that perhaps were never produced as full commercials. They have sort of an unfinished quality to them in a couple

of cases. But there were several ads for local newspapers, particularly the Detroit News, then a whole bunch of commercials for the phone company, and then at the end six fabulous ads for a company called Puritan Meets Real. Three definitely sounded like locally produced ads for local businesses, and had a whole series of radio station jingles done for both Canadian and American stations. See I had a bunch of partials for Simpson Sears, which is the version of

Spears that they add in Canada. And then fourth one which was labeled six, but I always called it Tape four. I only had four tapes. Was a presentation by the head of the company. This is Bruce Davis, president of Star Ads, explaining the business. In the past thirteen years, we have produced over twenty three hundred commercial majority in the national and regional category that the salesman there had hundreds of samples of ads that he could play for

the prospective client. Should this presentation prove of interest, please ask our representative for more samples of our work. He is knowledgeable and has over two hundred examples with him talking about how the business worked, what would happen if you hired them, etcetera, etcetera. For each of these commercials, we did the composition, scoring, and production, and with the exception of one or two who we did the lyrics

as well. My uncle Stu worked for Star Ads. He would have been the I with the tape recorder and the tapes who walked into somebody's office and said, here's what my company can do. How long he worked for them, I don't know. He um had several jobs and sales during the years I was growing up, so I can't give you an exact date for them. I think the date on the speech one is seventy, which would mean

that anything on the realists from then or earlier. I've always figured those ads probably are from about the mid sixties to nineteen seventy. Let me say something completely graceless. The Star ads are weird. Some of the production is really great, and the ad copy tends to be awful clever. They certainly give a fascinating window into an esoteric time and place. It's hard to put your finger on just what it is, but there's something a bit off kilter

about all of them. There was something different about these commercials, even from the humorous and musically appealing ones that were around at that time. They tried things that I've never heard from other ad companies. There's just a freewheeling, loose field to these commercials, almost as if some of the people that were writing the copy were like, well, let's

just try this. And the other thing that makes the star Ads particularly alluring is that, aside from hints given on the four tapes, we really don't know anything about them. I have done searches for products from star Ads, but the phrase star ads in terms of the recording medium

has literally never come up. There's a guy that sings and talks on a certain high percentage of the commercials that I've called the voice of Star Ads, like I have no idea who he was or is, and I'm not the only one who's tried to figure it out. I can't say that I've spent a whole lot of time on it because I wouldn't really know where to start. Maybe somebody hearing this will know we're going to listen

to some stars after the break. I was thinking instead of me just picking a bunch of tracks this time, and we could just go back and forth and play like star ed Roulette a little bit. Is there a star Eds song that you would like to hear right now? Yeah? Puritan doubled him? Whose versions? Then we'll talk about we can we can we can talk about my version? Do you know what to pack four Tomorrows lunch to satisfy that hungry bunch. Puritan has an idea for you. Were

sure the family will like it too. Take a can of Puritan deviled ham and add salary chopped up fine, four hard boiled eggs, and some mayonnaise, and for taste a dash of wine. Now mix salt together, add pepper and salt, and a pinch of cay in is great, and pack an extra sandwich. We know they'll say it's the best they ever ate. That's the guy I've called the voice of star Ads. He does sing to some of them. He sung at the beginning of that one,

but mostly he just talks over music. There's a guitar solo in the middle, which is where whoever is playing the commercially supposed to keep the voice over for the specials and current meats in the local supermarket this week. And then you got that lovely jingle at the end with the happy turkey women made for you. It did a bunch of spots for purits and meats. Right, They're

all set up more or less the same way. There's a couple of different templates, but they all end with the same jingle, and some of them have organ behind them. That one had a guitar, there's one with a harmonica.

I'm gonna play your version of the Let's just say Yeah in nine nineties six or six ninety seven when I was I've recorded my own music since I was sixteen, and in n or ninety seven, when I was making what I considered to be my fourth sort of collection of humorous music, I decided to record a version of that commercial because I loved it so much. Do you know what to backboard tomorrow? Lunch? To satisfy that bunch

utan has an idea for you? Where sure the family will lock it to take a can of Puritan deviled ham and add celery chopped up five four hard boiled eggs, and some mayonnaise and tasted dash of wine. That makes all together at pepper and salt and a twitch of cayenne. It's great. Back an extracise, which we know those days. It's the best thing ever. I was low fi in

those days. I was using a basic four track reel to real machine, not a studio one by the time, that just plays stereotapes and a sound on sound if you bounce things back and forth. So the cloney is not great. But this is all me except for the line. They're delicious too. I had my five year old daughter provide that particular line. Time made you for me. When I'm starting the background vocals, there is that you too, the whole, Yeah, the whole. All three of those are

sped up. I was recording with the pitch control pulled out so that I would sound higher. So you're up again. No I picked that? Oh no, I see, I see, I picked your version. Um, forget what you have. I have like sixties things. Let's do the Big Boy in got you Meet you at the Big Boy at eight am for the best hotcakes in town or the precious eggs in that coffee that's great. Let French host Golden Brown. Meet you at the Big Boy at twelve pm along

with the rest of the punch. Or a crisp green salad and a Big Boy burgergir or Slim Jim sandwich for bunch. Meet Chat at the Big Boy at six pm four and honest the goodness neal chicken or ham or shrimp or beet or pies with homemade taste of feel. Meet yet at the Big Boy after talk to that late that you can't beat. Meet Jet the Big Boy and meet Jet the Big boyle favorite place to eat, Meat Jet the Big Boy, and a time for that

good food you can't beat. Meet Jet the Big Boy and meet jat the Big boil favorite place to eat. Meet at the Big Boy and meet Chat the Big while favorite place to eat. I'll tell you what, man, that really swings. That band is really swinging on that. That's from the first real the one where they really kind of demonstrate their big accounts, and that probably their most saleable work. And that's that's a solid commercial. You

could tune that in. I would think on a certain station at least and think you were hearing a record that they were playing rather than a commercial. What's odd about that is that there's this other commercial from the third reel called Hamburger House. Besides the amount of money that would into it, it's the same at the Hamburger House for the best hotcakes in town, all the finest eggs, and the coffee that's great in the toast so goody brown meat at noon at the Hamburger House along with

the rest of them. I can't imagine that, having done a national ad for Big Boy, that they then turned around for the Hamburger House wherever that was. But the other option is just as obnoxious, which would be that they wrote a commercial for the Hamburger House and then turned around and rewrote it for Big Boy when they got a Big Boy at Hamburger House. The Hamburger Houses

our favorite place to eat. It's hot, and I can't imagine a salesman playing both of them potential customer because of what it indicates about what they were willing to do at the Hamburger House. Where that good Bojivan meet to there, soon meet to there. Now our favorite place to eat, the Hamburger House. Any old town aren't favorite place to eat, Yes, son, I think my preference also goes to the ones that are maybe like the catchy is the one that sound like almost proper pop songs

until you like digging at the lyrics. So I'm gonna I'll play you this one. Rewar across the continent wherever black gold is found, to hear the rhythm of the oil raps pumping up foil from the ground, through desert plains and over mountains, piped in an endless line, are going to make from all left fruit to chroleum speed

Play seventy nine. When it gets to the great refiner, read, there's the big job yet to do to strip banteets and cook and squeeze and alclated two same fraction e plimer rise and tracting solar replines take from all that rich pachroleum feet Place seventy nine. S feet place made the big change and the benefits yours and mine, So why don't you make the big change to speed Play

seventy nine. There's a big change in all of those stations under the frightful sign sillar up, pillar up, where the miners gas get speet Play seventy nine, Super regular Steed play seventy nine. This one, I think, and a lot of them do. This one does a really good job showing how um professional and trained their songwriters were. Yeah, somebody had to sit down with the engineers at the oil company, now not the executives, but the engineers, and say,

tell me about how gasoline is made. We're gonna put it in a song. It's almost like a TV theme song, like Gillian's Island or something. They're laying it out for you so you understand when you get to the gas station exactly what you're putting into your car. I would offer that it's more like Beverly Hill Bill is sure. Sure. But also just in the song crap, it's got such a build right, Like it's got two key changes in it.

It's got the percussion ads a layer like every verse, the vocals um comeing just with like who's the person that turned the os and they turn like call and response or there or there or the turning to chorus. No, their their production values were incredible given what they did for a lot of companies where they didn't have the

need for the production value. Clearly that they sometimes charge people plenty of money for good production because a lot of their regional and local ads some of them sound like three or four people in a room, and they don't do badly with that. But it's just a completely it's you wouldn't believe that some of them come from the same company. You're turning roulette, Bob, which what you want to hear next? Well, let's take a walk. Okay, let's take a walk through the yellow Pages. See what

you have in store. Let's browse around through the nicest places and never leave your own front door. Check every page. It's a real adventure. Find what you're looking for. Let's take a walk through the yellow Pages. Let's take a walk once more. You find rosters, coasters, pop up coasters, king size beds and old proposers, doctors, lawyers when they need them, keats and what you feed them, vender's, vendor's money, lenders,

quickly pairs, unt defenders, and baby things highlands. Find what you're looking for just breading cards and okay, that commercial is certifiably insane. It's creative and clever as hell, But it's who changes tempos in the middle of a commercial? And then who has two sets of people singing two different things for the last third of their commercials. And

they're saying such interesting things too, and she's singing over them. Roasters, coasters, pop up toasters, king sized beds and old four posters, doctors, lawyers when you need them, parakeets and what you feed them. That one is wholly unique. I think, I'm not sure I've ever heard anything remotely like that on the radio.

In terms of ad funding, exactly the same. There's another Yellow Page's add that sounds exactly the same as the Kmart to me, I'll give you a splash of the elevators that I'll play you Kmart home Gersburgers, paints and plastics are bills forward your home, gymnastics, come drops, goldfish, pranks, engages to find them all in the Yellow Pages, Yellow Pages, theemow yellow Pages miss them. And that's this bones what they do alphabetically, it's there for you. This is Kmart.

They got fined with beerware, pots and paints. They got Johnson's waxon universal fans, they got DV sets by our Cia, They got all the best friends made today, stopped and shop that game, got the best in pain friends. They guarantee that quality stop the price, Well, yes it is similar music. The Yellow Pages add they sound like zombies ship start fits not saying it in the balls park as broods and foodles. And again the lyrics are fantastic, just all sorts of creative but nobody sounds like they

have any interests. It sounds like they all have a dost appointment to get to the kmart. And those guy sound engaged to me, like they're excited to be there and that you should want to go there, and then the chorus. I don't think there's any comparison. Of course, the Keymard is indelible. Stop that shop that came charge it there. That's very nice. That, by the way, is the only commercial on the tape that I actively could say I remember hearing this back in the old days

on the radio. I think the fact that they did. But you know, some of these brands and Kymard, it's just about his you know, naturally recognized that at least at a period of time, just about as big a brand as you can get. I mean, like that shows just like how how big a client they were getting as an advertising company. Yeah, they had a few, and Big Boy would be another one. I don't have the impression that this was a huge outfit, you know, a huge publishing house of any sort, and most of their

stuff is regional or local. But they attracted with god knows how much money a couple of really big stars of a previous day. Let let's hear the ptato chip. But the chips I don't lie to you getting them day and like they said, it's by your after five birds the dinner grade for brunch and instant bed will lunch. Dast chips just made too much sire alone and great and didn't side fat chip made with tender love and care. That's quality there. Trying or try it done. Either way,

it's bag to funnel the chip sat down. There's only one I said before Detroit was as far west as they went. This is for our potato chip company that was regional in Fort Wayne. This is Frankie Lane, who was huge in the very end of the forties and throughout the early to mid fifties. He was probably ten or fifteen years past his prime at this point, but still that's a pretty big name to attract for a commercial that's gonna run in part of one stage. I

just gonna try it, Toney. Either way, it's back to funnel, the chip sat down. There's only one. Five birds debato chips. If anybody listening has ever seen the clip of Johnny Carson with the lady that kept potato chips and would grab ones that look like famous people are looked like items, she worked at the Cipherg's potato chip factory. I have a lot of apples and pears and pumpkins, potato chips, potato chips. I particularly like an instant vegetable for lunch. Yeah,

Ronald Reagan would approve. I'll give you another food one here. This one I found particularly uh weird. Pixels Burgers, Tucky Burgers, god best burger. Let me say first off that as a musician and as a music lover, I am forever in love with people singing sixth chords. You bring me somebody singing six chords, and I'll marry you. So that one's right up my alley. You've got all those tight harmonies, You've got all those those neat little six and seventh

chords in there. To Kentucky. Kentucky switched to Kentucky around nineteen sixty nine. Apparently, Kentucky Fried Chicken tried to spin off into the beef market. It's kind of funny that they're advertising hamburgers there, because apparently Kentucky Beef was much more about roast beef sandwiches and trying to compete with Arby's. I think it's weird, number one, that they tried to move on from what they were successful with and tried something as niche as as Arby's to to compete with.

And I'm doubly weird that if they started advertising it, they made it all about hamburgers, which apparently was not their main product, and the whole thing seems to have died a very rapid depth. Anyway, I had never heard of Kentucky Beef. No, I'll do the other celebrity one, which is Text Williams. He had had a number one hit in the late fourties with Smoke that Cigarette, which is off the Truck's Great record st. Peter at the Golden Gate that you hates to make him wait, but

you just gotta have another cigarette. His voice had deep, and considerably since that was already deep by the time he made that record, but on his later records it's it's extremely deep. He's the right voice for the tone of this commercial. Does your car sound like an Ovi seventeen. Are you losing power and waste and gasoline? Does your car sound like it's shot because the muzzler's gone to pot. We'll just bring it down to the day the smugglers shop.

I don't know how you can get more local. Baby David's Muffler was a global chain, but I don't think that was a big chain across the whole card. You're like Big Boy, and yet here's somebody spending a ton of money on a celebrity and a big band. You get your muffler in a wink follow a lot less than you think, So come on down to the day Muffler. Pretty much the same band as I'm Big Boy, I suppose, don't you think. Yeah they're swinging, man, the way they

make those horns squeal, I mean they're all good. I'm not all good. No, no, no no. Did I send you that other Hamburger House one with a weird jazz backing, Yeah? You earth go for it to live good? Thanks, come to something special burn. The harmonies on the phrase hamburger house are frightening. If a band hit those in the midst of going from one thing to another during some sort of bebop tun that'll be fine. That's not what

they're doing. Something special Burger. If you turn this on and I don't think you think it was a hit record. I don't think you think it was a commercial. I think you wonder what the hell was going on any kind of me consentation of me to something special Burger House and Burger Burger Burger. I also don't think that the pitch is so strong and that one like like flavor comes alive, things come alive. I don't think I don't think that that's the right pitch for a restaurant

at all. I'll give you a weird one here this please for Speedways guided tour please. Now they're crude oil comes and clopping up through this and not not amizer and round she goes and over and up and comes out here like a guys. And then she's fibulized and these copper pipes and electro bobulated. Then she sits so hip footballized and astro Did you know that's the hardest part.

I love that it's so weird. What would you think coming across that in nineteen sixty seven or sixty eight, probably think it was some goofball DJ with a special feature or something. I mean, I was eight and sixty eight and I remember distinctly my brother listening to Top forty radio and all the goofy things that DJs did and that would have fit right in, but not as a commercial. I mean, it's funny, it's a really really funny commercial, but it's not the right length. I think

it's about forty seconds long. They must have been voiceover but for or aption or something, because it's really unclear that I've just heard a commercial and I don't know what the product is. I'm sure they say speedway guided to her right at the top, but this is so much weird stuff and you have no idea by the end of it. At least I don't like what I just heard. After the break, more star ads, including maybe the weirdest, each of our least favorites and what seems

to be their proudest achievement. Um, all right, Kmart, we did Big Boy, we did Save Words. We did in Davis clover Land Dairy, which is probably my least favorite. Okay, we don't have to use that, no, I mean, we could play it if you have something interesting to say. I wouldn't I don't know that I don't know that I do. It's just I'll play It's just a splash of it land whom meals where the prize cow slowly brows and the clover Since for what it's worth, this

song has been stuck in my head ever since. Burns and milk, sing of French cream, sing of country eggs, and but as smooth as so everything comes so far fresh from the dairy with cows to you. If you don't own account, call north nine to to to to sing a song off clover Land and I will sing it to everyone. Sings of the farm fresh things that come from clover Land to you. I will say where the prize cows slowly browsed is one of the greatest

lines in history. Do you everything about cows browsing? And also I I also like if you don't want a cow, that's a good line, don't all North nine to to to man talk is probably my least favorite out of them, being Oh man, mantalk is great. I'm playing mantalk right now. Ok Man talk. They make the cause that get the wheels to move so forcefully. The telephone the most important cogging in the stream. When work is done. They plan the fishing for vacation days, and then they talk about

the giant ones that got away. They plan a lot day, do a lot. The phone is what they use for man talk, man talking. The phone is what they need for business calls of urgency, and what a friend the telephone is at veges. It's like it was there a need to to like masculize the telephone. I think you could listen to that commercial and actually not be sure what it was advertising. I also think that sounds like a really pretentious set piece from a really bad Broadway musical.

There's also a kid Talk one if you want to hear it, kid Talk Wow. Oh, I definitely want to want to run two phones, that ring is one. And I want to mention I've had people say that I'm overblowing this, but again, these commercials were probably made in the mid to late sixties. One of the best hits of that entire era, in my opinion, is King of

the Road by Roger Miller. Traders spot see Rooms split fifty cents to my year's song two Phones, that ring is one, lift the opening melody in chords from the King of the Road. Two Poes, That ring is one, make bar easier living. And when you gather up boat, that's all the road that really is stop boat giving except jim phone, safe time and steps. So don't wait to have it done. Busy households, maasy need to phones that ring as one. I think that's I think it's

really catchy. I think that it's got a nice little swinging be to it. But it seems like the feel of it is definitely to be Stone from Roger Miller record, and the first six or eight notes of the melody as well extend jim phone, safe time and steps. Don't wait to have it done. I don't think you get away with that today. Two phones that ring is one, make poor easier living. And when you gather up pope, that's all there roll that really it is not booking.

Let's do fun full originals, questions on the crazy side, made to autograph, goofy, cookie colorful. Each one is worth the laugh. There's the soccer to me friends who kill me, friends who send me too, and one for friends of fracture me that could be you or you. Fund full of reginals. Fun Full of originals want to play me to cutter within the stuff playmate line, we have a

bearer called Raisin Barnaby, who really flipped your mind. There's a monkey much and Monty, Roguish Rodney Roding, dig Fat Punge and Penelope the super groovy big fun Full of Originals. Fun Full Originals original heroic. Herby is a pin cow. He's a hippoll kind of guy. Daffy daff means a donkey, cuppy Titus. He's not shy and he's furies kind of foxy. Joined the income and be cool. Get your friends to

autograph from when you grooping there at school. Keep all the cut of characters and charming chums around my quiver and quincy quarterback or homesick homer Hound. Here's the Leopard, lopan Lonnie chorus Koy because she's a coyle. Harmonious Harvey he's a hippie, lovable lords Jeess, a dog put cowardy culvert in your cave Man events is actually man. He's high. So we have twenty one Matt character. Is he just

something kind of guy? Now you've met the members of our fun Field family tree that your very favorite playmates. Enjoying the family Originals fun Full Originals Originals. I want to know how many times he had to do that, and how much they had to stitch together, because that's a bravado performance. I hear one cross fade. There could be more, but I hear one where he actually overlaps himself. That one is so so sixties psychedelias. I would love

to see the products. Whatever the fund full originals were, it certainly lost to time. I think I've looked that up without any sort of success. Either it was something very local or something that simply didn't take off. Let's do the new tiger in town. All right, there's a new tiger in town. There's a new tiger in town. It's the big new Marcus fifty. It's got the tiger's power and the tiger's drive. Again, there's probably a national contract for mercury beneath that coats so keen and sleek.

The sin was was rippled like a lightning, streaking glides island as a cat, and it gets where you're going and nothing flattened. With a really interesting arrangement. It's a savage beauty with a brand new name. At hers politely if you like a tame, but give it the gas and watch chip pounds. There's steely muscle in every ounce. That a whole lot of commercials I've ever heard that sounds remotely like that. That's the big numeric as fifty

with the motor that feels like it's alive. The dealer's got one caged for you, and you can be a tiger tamer to come in and ride the tiger. There's a new tiger in town. Get the car with the tiger's power and drive. Get the big numeric as fifty five. Okay, people size ads, right, that's the one I was thinking. News classified ads are people's size ads, and people reach people with people's size ads. It's people mostly who read the news, so people's size ads are what people choose

to use. I'm Mrs Green got a new sewing machine. I'd sell my old one gladly. I'm Mrs Brown. I live across town and I need that machine quite badly. Now how do they get together? These two each has what the other could use. Well, this people's size problem is easily solved with un classified ad in the news. Say I've got to finish my barbecue. Can I find some secondhand break with just one of those little old

people size ads? You bet you can, and it's quick and that's just why so many people use those people size ads in the news. To place people size ads, the number to know is wood word three seventy wood word three seventy five. Oh to place people size ads. That number to know let me hear. If you got it ready, goold word three. There's a bunch of commercials for the Detroit News with various aspects of their salesforce. I think there's at least three people's size ad ads

on the tape. The first thing I remember thinking is, well, the sound quality has really gone down. It doesn't stay like that, but that the sound quality on that is not something that I would use to try to sell somebody on my ability because it's tinny and it just doesn't sound very well produced. But there's still a lot of creativity in there. I love the guy with the rhyme right in the middle of his spiel by some secondhand brick you bet you can, and it's quick. I like, um,

it's mostly people who read the news. Let's do customer relations. I handle customer relations for our color telephones, and I do my very best to see there's one in every home. I must admit I stumbled on a problem rather quaint. When a man came in the other day and this was his complaint. I like your color telephones. I was happy when I found them, and so I ordered seven, and I built my home around them. There's a blue one in the kitchen. In the bedroom, there's a pink

a quiet beiges in the study. That's where I like to think. I've got a red one in the playroom. It brings the room alive. In the living room it's yellow, the accounts for five. The bathroom phone is ivory. And there's a green one in the hall. So I've got seven color telephones and I dearly love them all. So I said, got it, what's your problem? Sounds like everything's all right. Well, the people that I talked to only speak in black and white. If your friends are colorful,

match them with a color telephone. I was talking before about one of the commercials being a really bad, pretentious set piece in the Broadway show that's like a pattern song that that's like the high point of Act two and some Broadway show. The whole story. I built my holl around them. That's just funny on his face, And he bought seven phones before he had a house and built a house so that you could have seven rooms phones. What a concept. Their approach seems to be wacky. Yeah,

that's a good word. Yeah. Like it seems to me that it kind of reflects on the company or at least the marketing people at these brands to to choose this. You know, like these are people that were like willing to kind of do something a little experimental to go along with the customer relationship. We should do save steps because that's kind of a partner one to what I think.

They're kind of similar. Hey, here we go. We were sitting in the office one blustery day discussing the means and the proper way to tell everyone what we know is true, what that extra phone in your home can do. Then Joni spoke up, she's our office miss with some words of wisdom, and they went like this, it takes steps to get to that telephone line, and going to and from takes a lot of time. So calling our efficiency expert Dave to see what steps and extra phone

can say. He took the size of an average home and the distancing feet from the telephone. The average step is two feet or more, and he multiplied by a family of four to that he had a ten calls a day multiplied by seven, got a week that way times fifty two, and he had a year. Drew a line of the map there to hear with this trusty divider. He marked off the line was a clocked off portion of the waste of time. Add the extra phone? Did id bye do? And here pubs the answer all done

for you. All the step that you say this way would reach to China in a year and a day, unless you have a house with the second floor in which gage you have to do it all once more. See we approved it from the evidence and extra phone makes a lot of sins. Thank you, Dave, Hey, where are you going down the hole? The order one of my own? It would it act like that be for

the telephone company. Yeah, let's trying to sell people on the on the need and the desire and the benefit of getting a second phone in your house, going back to a time when a lot of people only had one phone. You're selling bill telephone that's gotta be their biggest client. Then you're probably right. And yet the telephone commercials on these tapes are noticeably lower expense than some of the other ones that had a bass player at pianist and a drummer, right, and maybe three vocalists. The

phone ones are not big productions at all. You want to do the octopus one, Sure, here we go. An octopus down in the Chesapeake found the case of beer and he said, I guess the peak wouldn't hurt. So he took just the peak and it was full the National Beer. So every bottle was identical. There he sits with one in every tentacle. That poor squit such a mixed up kit. But the point is very clear. It's as simple as this. When you've got a thirsty it's

National Beer, National Beer. You like to taste of National Beer. I love those tightly harmonized suits in the middle. That's kind of gorgeous. And again there's a ton of money spent on that commercial. There's a lot of people on that recording. National Beer. Bob was around, it is still around. It's known as Natty Ball in the Baltimore area, rude on the shores of the Chesapeake Bear. What's the instrument

that leads it off? What instrument is that? I think that's a also known as a contra bassoon, an octave lower than a bassoon. We should get to the Bastion beer recipe at all right, I'll play the original first. Now I've got a pleasant living recipe here. That's a wonderful dish with national beer. We call it Heavenly Devil clam and we know you're gonna love it. Yes, ma'am, you're ready. Now top a pint of clams that are

tender and sweet. I have a cup of shrimp. I half a cup of crab meat at Worcestershire and tabasco too, and on the side, make a little rue. Did he say, rude? Well, what do you do? Flower water? That's all you do. If that's the rude, that's the rude. Will hoop do you do? Now? Eat the meat and at the rude, stir till it's stick, and you're nearly through. Put it in clamshells with cracker crumbs, baked three and she comes with the chesapeake. Now that's there. That's the thing of beauty.

The first tape, you know you're you're gonna try to sell somebody, and you're gonna put your best foot forward. Right. The first tape opens with a version of the old song The Halls of Ivy, and then a fifty and second version of the National Beer jingle which we heard at the end of that commercial, and then it goes straight into that ad with the notation that the National Beer jingle was used in somewhere like three D commercials.

So National Bohemian Beer out of Baltimore was apparently their biggest client, and they knew that they had something good because that's the first full sixty second commercial they put on the tape. And there we have the voices star ads again telling us how to cook an entire meal in about thirty five seconds, complete with a little Joe

in the middle, which they got wrong. This is a National here commercial that they think is that maybe the best thing they've ever done, because it's the first thing on the tape and they tell you that you make rue by mixing flour and water, which is how you make paste. I had the opportunity to upgrade my ability to record, first by visiting my brother who had a home recording studio, and then later on getting my own equipment.

When I was at his place actually for his wedding in the spring of two thousand, I brought that commercial along with with the intention of trying to make a note for a note copy of it with good equipment. My daughters were with us, and they were eight and six. I spent a couple of days before and then I did the vocals on the day before the wedding and had about half a dozen people come and enjoin me

to sing the chorus. That was the start of a project that took me nineteen years to make, nineteen songs that I released, and that this was the first thing I recorded. Now I've got a pleasant living list. That's one her for beshol Basha beer. We call it Heavenly Deviled clam and we know you're gonna love it. Yes, ma'am, you're ready now, chop a pint of clams that are tender and sweet. I have a cup of shrimp. I have a cup of crap Worcestershire and tabasco too. And

on the side of little rude, did you s? Yeah? What do you do? Mixed flower? And but that's all you do, that's all you do, And that's a rude Yeah, that's a who well, whooped you do? Now beat the meeting at the room, struitily thinking put it in clamshells with cracker crowns, a fake nationally say. I should have mentioned beforehand my younger daughter or had not quite developed the ability to say are yet, which I think makes

it cuter. I also fixed the recipe that it's flour and butter that makes a row in that flower in water. I think that you really, you really were successfully conjured the voice of star ads, and that in that particular performance, I think you told me that it lines up like second for second with the original Yeah, beat for beat. I remember listening to it very carefully along with my brother and trying to figure out whether there was an extra clarinet tone in there playing a sixth note. So

I'm gonna press you on this one. I mean, what, what, what what compelled you to remake like, uh, beat for beat cover of this of this old ad um. I don't I don't know, I I don't know. I guess I just wanted to see if I could do it and see see what it would see what it was something like, I don't know. I don't understand the way

my mind works. I should win out that that almost everything else on that nineteen songs in nineteen years, they're almost all originals, but there's a handful of covers or what you might call remix in the midst of that, all right, I'm gonna roll. This is the last one. Let me let me speak about this a little bit so that the Northwest Horritories of Canada, I'm assuming their tourism department wanted an advertising. Here's a consultation demo that

was submitted to one of our clients. This is the actual demo the client the Northwest Territories the hundred years Sententennial. On tape six, which is the fourth of the four that I have, the head of the company does his feel, and near the end of it, if I remember correctly, he talks about the process of making a commercial from beginning to end. Our procedure is as follows. For a nominal consultation fee, we create to produce and deliver to you a demo containing at least three spots, done with

varying approaches based on our research. These are recorded on tape or disk, whichever you prefer, and done with sufficient vocal and instrumental substance to enable you to demonstrate to your client the inherent potential of the material. He indicates which one they chose, and then includes the final add which is like a whopping two and a half minutes long it's a pop song, and that's how we'll go

out here. More audio treasures from Bob Purse on his blog inches per Second that's inches dash per dash second dot blog spot dot com, and find his twenty nineteen album a few more plans at Bob Purse dot bancamp dot com links to all these are other episodes featuring Bob and more on our website Ephemeral dot Show. And now from Starts International. This is the Northwest Territories. Well, there's a land, a lovely land stretching Barbara's eye can see, and late at night, when the wind is right, I

can hear it speak to me. Northwest where is quiet now, where the north wind blows, it covers the earth, where the winter snows. There's a highway of ice where the river flows in. The silence speaks to me. The lonesome sounds of the north West do not all ago? When the earth was green, there was that everywhere, and the carabou grazed on the tundrad grass and the bars, the light in the skies of the sun night with one of gosmos, wondrous and love, the so size of the

lad arby. But now it's cold and flying south for while geese feel the sky, and late that night, when the wind is right, you can hear the mournful crime God, when this white land turns to green again the sun was shine on other men. The haunting sounds gonna last till then hear the sounds of the land for me, the sounds I love as they speak to me. Last God West, that where they're still singing, that refrain. It

makes you want to go there, doesn't it. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thank you so much for listening.