“you’re driving down the highway in the dead of night…when up ahead is a terrible sight…so you hit the brakes and they’re not all there…and you miss this one by only a hair…you drive away, but your hands still shake, and you say to yourself…gonna fix them brakes. You drive a little slow and you take a little care…won’t happen again till you get to Great Bear”
This was the one with the bouncing ball! I remember it, too!
or if you lived in the Bay Area instead of Southern California
Pete Ellis Dodge, 1095 West El Camino Real, Sunnyvale!
MORE of an earworm, even thirty odd years later was Cal Worthington (and his dog Spot… )
If you want a car or truck go see Cal
If you want to save a buck go see Cal
If you want your payments low and you want to save some dough GO SEE CAL GO SEE CAL GO SEE CAL!
Great 70s ad in Oz was for Uncle Sam spray-on unisex deodorant. Upbeat jingle to the lyrics (from memory):
You need Uncle Sam, you need Uncle Sam
Let’s get together with the Stars and Stripes can!
The perfect protection for fellas and girls,
And under your arm is the top of the world!
Hammered into my head, of course.
I often think of a 70s-era jingle for another dealer: Dick Irwin, what a great, great guy! Seems it made an impression on this guy, too. Or, he accepted the commission.
1977 Bordens Cheese commercial with a mixed chorus:
Borden, the dairy best – let’s us say “cheese”.
Fresh, tasty, delicious – Borden says “cheese”!
(accompanied by the sound of a camera shutter clicking)
[then an instrumental interlude with the voice over]
Fresh, tasty, delicious – Borden says “cheese”! (three shutter clicks)
The version I remember best aired right after Inauguration Day (1/20/77) and featured a family outside on a hilltop, at a big table sitting down to lunch, and the guy at the head of the table looked suspiciously like newly inaugurated President Jimmy Carter!
Also from the late Seventies was the Kahn’s Bacon jingle. Announcer would say, “And now, the Kahn’s Kids!” and a kiddie chorus would sing:
Oh Kahn’s, oh Kahn’s, oh Kahn’s.
Kahn’s hickory smoked bacon is the bacon that we eat.
And cured for eight weeks(?or something like that) the flavor can’t be beat.
[instrumental interlude with voice over]
Three cheers for Kahn’s…oh, Kahn’s.
About 1973-74 American Motors Corp. had a campaign with a jazzy jingle with mixed chorus:
See…AMC…if you want…economy!
Nothing else can come near.
The first “big small car” is here.
[instrumental interlude for voice over}
So, See, come and see, AMC.
Then in 1984-85 came Sunmaid Fruit’s “Sunmaid, You Made My Day” campaign, with a real bouncy jingle and mixed chorus:
Sunmaid Fruit, so sweet and flavorful
Just right and great that way
Rich, delicious, sweet and flavorful…
“Sunmaid, you made my day!”
Yep, I remember the Pete Ellis Dodge jingle. Another oldie drilled into my head was for Dial Chevrolet, featuring a woman vocalist in a real sing-song cadence (and accompanied by an accordian):
“Dial, Dial, Dial Chevrolet”
“Two blocks off the Santa Ana Freeway”
“11980 East Firestone”
“Dial Chevrolet!”
Sounded like it was originally from the Fifties, but I think they were still using it into the Eighties!
Cal lives around here someplace.
I can still sing those dang jingles–“If your tailpipe is a-draggin and your wife she is a-naggin, go see Cal, go see Cal, go see Cal!”
As a kid I was always a bit confused, since the dog Spot was a cow, or an elephant or something.
Then there was “Carpeteria, Carpeteeeeriaaaa…” the mascot was a sort of carpet genie but I thought he was a giant.
More info on the classic AMC jingle of the early/mid-1970’s. Turns out it was recorded by the Ron Hicklin Singers, and a brief excerpt can be heard on a You Tube video! (“Ron Hicklin Singers Demo – TM Productions – 1974”; it’s at 0:10 time-frame). In fact, the whole video is worth checking out – it’s filled with excerpts from quite a few memorable commercial jingles they did (IHOP, Kawasaki, Datsun,etc).
Turns out the Ron Hicklin Singers have an amazing resume, backing up a large list of recording artists (incl The Monkees, Cher, Paul Revere & the Raiders, etc), and providing the voices of the Partridge Family (except, of course, lead singer David Cassidy). They recorded the version of “Love, American Style” theme song heard from seasons 2 onward (The Cowsills version was used only for season one), and were billed as “The Charles Fox Singers” (Charles Fox did all the music for “Love American Style”). Several members of The Ron Hicklin Singers formed the nucleus of the Sixties flower-power/“feel good” rock group The Love Generation (biggest hit: 1967’s “Groovy Summertime”).
The McDonald’s Big Mac jingle only aired for a year and a half and went off the air in 1976. But I betcha everyone who was around then remembers “two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onion on a sesame bun.”
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Me too re Ipana Toothpaste. Bucky Beaver representing.
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Brylcreem: I remember the line as “The Gals’ll all pursue ya”
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Fill’er up, ding, ding,
fill’er up, ding, ding,
and you’ll save with Douglas Gasoline. -
Give him Doctor Ross Dog Food
and do him a favor.
It’s got more meat and
it’s got more flavor.
It’s got more meat to
make him feel the way he should,
Doctor Ross Dog Food is dog-gone good. Woof!
“Smurf Berry Crunch is fun to eat” (a cereal jingle set to the melody of a piece from the Nutcracker Suite)
Now whenever I hear the melody, the jingle automatically starts playing in my head. 
a little bit of a tangent, but whenever I am in a boardroom with a bunch of people in front of their laptops, I think we should be playing battleship “F7” “You sunk my battleship!”
In a coffee joint. We’re all watching two Yuppie Wannabees with their Hipster Notebook Laptops typing, looking up, saying a few words, back to furious typing, looking up. So of course I said “He hasn’t sunk your battleship yet?”
I recall during the 1970’s the Cormier Chevrolet (I believe it was in Carson, CA) jingle, which was country-music sounding. "If you think you’d like a hand, in buying a Chevy today. Come on down to discount land – Cormier Chevrolet). Does anyone know if Cormier is still around?
Aside from Cal Worthington, some other dealerships I can recall off the top of my head were Ralph Williams Chrysler (w/ Chick Lambert), Bob Spreen Cadillac (“Where the freeways meet in Downey”), Snow Ford, Dial Chevrolet, Walker-Buerge Ford, Claude Short Dodge, Morrie Sage Datsun (in Universal City), Felix Chevrolet (with statues of Felix the Cat around the lot).
I always wanted to do a parody of this for Wotan Cigars, in which a Viking ship rams a peasant’s little fishing boat.
Remember this one?
Tijuana Smalls.
Things that you do, baby.
For you? Maybe.
You know who you are.
It’s a little cigar!
It’s all coming back to me now:
*Thin and mild.
Tobacco that’s aged like wine.
Thin and mild.
And you who you are-are-are-are.
Tijuana Smalls.
Things that you do, baby.
For you? Maybe.
You know who you are.
It’s a little cigar!*
Just remembered this one, ca. 1966, when it was still cool to be patriotic about Vietnam:
The youth of America
Is fighting for you!
Buy Bonds where you bank or where you work,
THEY do!
And follow the Eagle,
The red-white-and-blue Eagle.
Buy a share in Freedom,
US Savings Bonds!
From the same time period:
*They took the blue from the skies
And the pretty girls’ eyes,
And a touch of Old Glory too.
And gave it to the men
Who proudly wear
The US Air Force blue!
The US Air Force blue! *