# TV record offers you can't forget (even if you try) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 18, 2008, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-record-offers-you-cant-forget-even-if-you-try/473252 "2008-11-18T05:12:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2008, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-record-offers-you-cant-forget-even-if-you-try/473252/41 "2008-11-18T20:27:09Z")
\ “Now you can buy…every record ever recorded! Every record that was ever made!! Records beginning with the letter “C”; records by women; records by every artist you ever knew, alive or dead! We drive a truck to your house - and deliver EVERY RECORD EVER RECORDED…Lithuanian language records…_every record ever recorded!_. Act now…and get a free ice crusher!!” \ ---
**Author:** ![xizor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xizor/32/102_2.png) [@xizor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xizor)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2008, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-record-offers-you-cant-forget-even-if-you-try/473252/42 "2008-11-18T20:29:39Z")
All I remember is this exchange (I think it was for Motown songs): “Turn that music down!” “But Dad, its Smokey!!!” Also I have a vague recollection of “Chill to the Chant” when the Gregorian Monk chanting fad passed through. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2008, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-record-offers-you-cant-forget-even-if-you-try/473252/43 "2008-11-18T20:59:29Z")
> [@Icerigger](#): > > Remember the one featuring classical music. It was done like masterpiece theater with an older gentlemen saying “A Stranger in Paradise” was based on the Polovetsian Dance #3 by Borodin. It was also available on not 8 Track Tapes but 8 Track Tape, Cartridges, now that’s high class music. Judas, yes! “So much of today’s popular music was actually written by the great masters!” That commercial was always on during _Shock Theater_, channel 18, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2008, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-record-offers-you-cant-forget-even-if-you-try/473252/44 "2008-11-18T21:23:21Z")
In the late 70s, some mail-order record club had an ad campaign featuring “your secret number.” The mail-order form had this line of eight bubbles, and if you filled in the bubbles with the eight-digit code on your order form, you could get an extra Lp FREE OF CHARGE!! The TV ads always had a bunch of talking heads scribbling the row of eight bubble somewhere and saying “My number? Shhhh! It’s a secret!” Then there was ‘the All-Time Greatest Recordings of Jim Nabors.’ Ehhh…the less said about that, the better. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2008, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-record-offers-you-cant-forget-even-if-you-try/473252/45 "2008-11-18T21:27:47Z")
> [@The New and Improved Superman](#): > > Then there was ‘the All-Time Greatest Recordings of Jim Nabors.’ Ehhh…the less said about that, the better. “It’s good to touch the green, green grass of home…” Sorry…somewhere in my head where useful information should be stored, I have about every one of these commercials from 1975-1988 stuffed. And the names just release the snippets of the songs… ---
**Author:** ![Duke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Duke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2008, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-record-offers-you-cant-forget-even-if-you-try/473252/46 "2008-11-18T21:28:32Z")
“Hey, mind if I borrow your Hey Soul Classics?” “Noooooo, my brother. You’ve got to get your OWN!” I believe the end of that commercial actually appeared in the movie _Jackie Brown_. The compilation gets a pass for having the Delfonics’ “Didn’t I Blow Your Mind (This Time)”, which also appeared in _Jackie Brown_. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2008, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-record-offers-you-cant-forget-even-if-you-try/473252/47 "2008-11-18T21:29:30Z")
One that sticks in my mind for more than a decade, due to a funny coincidental juxtaposition: Ad for a collection of Christian music, available only through the TV offer, yadda yadda… The phone number…1-800- **666** -Whatever the rest was. After about 2 weeks, the same ad was running with a different phone number. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2008, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-record-offers-you-cant-forget-even-if-you-try/473252/48 "2008-11-18T21:39:27Z")
I remember the entire audience in _Mars Attacks_ howling at the revelation that Slim Whitman is lethal. I can only attribute it to the afternoon commercials in the collective memory. Surprisingly though I read that Whitman sold MILLIONS of albums through those commercials. ---
**Author:** ![Hazle\_Weatherfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Hazle\_Weatherfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hazle_Weatherfield)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2008, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-record-offers-you-cant-forget-even-if-you-try/473252/49 "2008-11-18T21:49:24Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > Yeah. He’s the one who looked like John Waters dressed up as Tom Mix. That’s the most hiliarious thing I’ve read in a long time! ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2008, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-record-offers-you-cant-forget-even-if-you-try/473252/50 "2008-11-18T21:50:19Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > \ “Now you can buy…every record ever recorded! Every record that was ever made!! Records beginning with the letter “C”; > records by women; records by every artist you ever knew, alive or dead! We drive a truck to your house - and deliver EVERY RECORD EVER RECORDED…Lithuanian language records…_every record ever recorded!_. Act now…and get a free ice crusher!!” \ “Wouldn’t you like to raise the level of your home? Bring the family closer together around the Hi-Fi? Listening to such immoral classics as Bidet’s The Fountain? Or the Duke’s Duet from Il Schizophreno?” “Titles like ‘In A Persian Melon’, ‘My Spanish Suitcase’, ‘The Happy Plunderer’, ‘Waltz For Three People’, and, ‘The Hawaiian Hallucination Song’. A cultural landslide to fill your home entertainment center!” – from “40 Unclaimed Melodies”, album offered by Don G. O’Vanni, via the Firesign Theater. Actually, for gag commercials, it’s hard to top [Yablo, Master of the Ocarina](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLlAYWDRW5U), a phony album from a Sprite commercial. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2008, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-record-offers-you-cant-forget-even-if-you-try/473252/51 "2008-11-18T21:56:49Z")
> [@Hazle\_Weatherfield](#): > > That’s the most hiliarious thing I’ve read in a long time! [It’s true!](http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/B000069JAV.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2008, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-record-offers-you-cant-forget-even-if-you-try/473252/52 "2008-11-18T22:36:25Z")
> [@pepperlandgirl](#): > > Also the guy from Styx sells 70s rock (though not Soft Rock!). I have to admit, I love these commercials. HORRORS! Please tell me it’s Dennis De Young and not Tommy Shaw. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2008, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-record-offers-you-cant-forget-even-if-you-try/473252/53 "2008-11-18T23:03:06Z")
I remember Richard Carpenter shilling for a **Carpenters** collection after Karen’s death, which featured old clips of her interspersed with more recent clips of the maestro by himself. Creepy. Which the\*\* Young Fresh Fellows\*\* noted in their song _Hank, Karen and Elvis_: _She starved herself to death With no brother to stop her But he helps remember her now In a Special TV Offer…_ ---
**Author:** ![Pashnish\_Ewing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8797f3/32.png) [@Pashnish\_Ewing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pashnish_Ewing)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2008, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-record-offers-you-cant-forget-even-if-you-try/473252/54 "2008-11-18T23:38:06Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > There was also a novelty hit collection- Monster Mash and One Eyed One Horned Flying Purple People Eater and other such songs- that used to play each afternoon. Those songs (or the excerpts) seared into the brain. _Hello Mudda, Hello Fadda…It was an itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka dot bikini…Oh yes they call him The Streak (wheeeeeeeeeeee)…Silver Bells hangin’ on a string, she told me it was my ding-a-ling-a-ling._ > [@cochrane](#): > > HORRORS! Please tell me it’s Dennis De Young and not Tommy Shaw. I think it’s actually the REO Speedwagon guy that **pepperlandgirl** is thinking of (of course, there could be two). I can’t remember which collection this song is from, but it is burned in my memory - _Daddy sang bass Mama sang tenor Me’n my little brother we joined right in there!_ ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-record-offers-you-cant-forget-even-if-you-try/473252/55 "2008-11-19T00:00:17Z")
> [@Hypno-Toad](#): > > I remember Donna Fargo singing 4 seconds of “Funny Face” along with other ladies of country music. Oh God…that’s the one I came in to mention. I must’ve seen that commercial once/week for 2 years in the 1970s. I never listen to C/W music, but I can hear a snippet of “I’m the Happiest Girl in the Whole U.S.A.” – which immediately segues into “Funny Face”. The two will forever be paired in some non-erase portion of my brain. ---
**Author:** ![want2know](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/50afbb/32.png) [@want2know](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/want2know)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-record-offers-you-cant-forget-even-if-you-try/473252/56 "2008-11-19T00:42:06Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Judas, yes! “So much of today’s popular music was actually written by the great masters!” That commercial was always on during _Shock Theater_, channel 18, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Anyone remember the name of the pitchman? Andre Baruch (pronounced “Ba-roosh”)! ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-record-offers-you-cant-forget-even-if-you-try/473252/57 "2008-11-19T01:55:57Z")
For some reason, I remember that a particular state wasn’t allowed to participate in many of these “special offers”, and the announcer saying in a sing-song voice, “Sorry, Tennessee!” ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-record-offers-you-cant-forget-even-if-you-try/473252/58 "2008-11-19T15:04:44Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > Oh God…that’s the one I came in to mention. I must’ve seen that commercial once/week for 2 years in the 1970s. I never listen to C/W music, but I can hear a snippet of “I’m the Happiest Girl in the Whole U.S.A.” – which immediately segues into “Funny Face”. The two will forever be paired in some non-erase portion of my brain. Every school day breakfast for me was spent listening to that very music because my parents just had to have WMZQ playing in the kitchen. During the 70’s and 80’s, no less. ---
**Author:** ![Buford\_was\_no\_angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Buford\_was\_no\_angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buford_was_no_angel)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-record-offers-you-cant-forget-even-if-you-try/473252/59 "2008-11-19T17:20:04Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > Okay, I only saw this once, and nobody will ever believe me about it. I actually own the CD, but I bought it in a store and therefore did not get the bumper sticker. > > This is the gist, although I don’t remember the exact phrasing. Trust me, I’m not exaggerating. > > "Are you lonely? Do you wish people would hang out with you? We have the answer… > > MONSTER BOOTY!" > > It included such great booty hits as “Doin’ The Butt”, “Daisy Dukes”, “I Like to Move It”, “Tic Tac Toe” (my favorite), and “I Like Big Butts”. AND, if you ordered it from the commercial, you got a bumper sticker that said, “I Brake for Monster Booty”. > > Don’t act like you wouldn’t put that on your car. > > I own the CD. I need to figure out where I lost it, because I have to admit I love it. I know exactly what CD you’re talking about, and in fact I came in here to mention it. If I remember correctly, a couple other songs on it were “Shake What Yo Mama Gave Ya” and “Too Much Booty”. I submit that this was perhaps the greatest single compilation of the booty genre. ---
**Author:** ![Pashnish\_Ewing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8797f3/32.png) [@Pashnish\_Ewing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pashnish_Ewing)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-record-offers-you-cant-forget-even-if-you-try/473252/60 "2008-11-19T17:23:00Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > For some reason, I remember that a particular state wasn’t allowed to participate in many of these “special offers”, and the announcer saying in a sing-song voice, > > “Sorry, Tennessee!” I think that was for some investment/savings plan - the full quote is “Available in 49 states - Sorry Tennessee!” This ad ran at the same time with the same frequency as a lot of these music ads, so it fits in pretty well here. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-record-offers-you-cant-forget-even-if-you-try/473252.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-record-offers-you-cant-forget-even-if-you-try/473252.md?page=4)