This week we're featuring some of those outstanding jingles that ingrained themselves into our gray matter. You know, the ones that were on worn VHS tapes of holiday specials. The ones that made you crave chips or gum. Those that you loved (or hated) just because of that catchy melody. The ones that showcased the musical alter-egos of young, hip actors. What? Yeah. You'll see. And, oh, you'll remember.
10. Big League Chew:
The over-the-top "BE A MAN, LITTLE JIMMY!" attitude and lyrics are tempered nicely by the "don't shove tabaccy in ya craw, ya hear" novelty product. "You're in the big leagues!"
9. Seagram's Golden Wine Coolers
Yes, that's Bruce Willis -- or possibly his alter-ego, bluesman Bruno -- singing the praises of the stuff that made stuffy high school girls way more eager to getting loaded. "But I don't like the taste of beer" was out the window, and while girls ogled Willis and slurred their way through that little ditty, Bartles & James wept in their porch rockers.
8. Keebler Tato Skins:
We have this one memorized forward and backward (though, in our minds that little girl does not interrupt to talk about barbecue. The original lyrics continue, "you won't believe your eyes!"). And the ad was effective. All elves aside, the simple, happy little song just invites a Tato Skin chomp. They've since been reincarnated as a TGI Friday's product, but there's no killing this elven earworm.
7. Big Red Gum:
You'll think of this little melody later on. Maybe tonight. Maybe tomorrow. But it will happen. that's a promise. And that's what makes it a good jingle...as well as something you can taunt siblings with for hours on end. Not that anyone's ever done that.
6. Bagel Bites:
If you were a kid whose mom bought Bagel Bites you were awesome. This commercial proved it. If your mom didn't buy Bagel Bites, this jingle made you feel like a total asshole.
5. Sugar Free Dr Pepper:
Unfortunately, the awesome person who has a copy of this commercial on something other than a VHS tape (seriously, we've gotta have that transferred STAT) doesn't allow embedding and it's the BEST version of the jingle. So, click here. The best thing about this jingle is the lyrics. So bold, so simple, so lacking in pretext or metaphor. Unprecedented then, unparalleled to this day. "Sugar Free Dr Pepper tastes fattening but it's not." Brilliant.
4. Juicy Fruit:
An amazing, long lasting earworm of jingles. Enjoyed a variety of incarnations featuring all manner of seasonal sports but this one -- oh, this one -- is to be relished. Why? This line: "Take a sniff, pull it out / The taste is gonna move ya when you pop it in your mouth."
3. Budweiser:
Qual-it-y. It opens up and you're thinking, "Hmm, this is sweet." And then it gradually builds into an all-out musical explosion with all participants singing at full-throttle and elements of German beer chorus are thrown together with Herb Alpert and you find your self wanting to shimmy like a go-go dancer. It's a jingle for everyone. You hear us? EVERYONE! WE LOVE AMERICA! AND MUSICAL NUMBERS! Then it ends so demurely.
2. Dr Pepper:
What's up, David Naughton! You're a pepper?! WTF! So are we! Holy shit! Popeye? What a coincidence! Amazing. But seriously. You couldn't go two commercial breaks for about a zillion years without hearing some form of this jingle. It was cute and fun. And then it became loathsome. And then it became peppy and endearing again. Somehow. And cases of Dr Pepper flew out of distributing plants while folks skipped in the streets and hummed and then crashed at about 4 p.m. if they didn't have another Dr Pepper.
1. Coca-Cola:
This is a no-brainer. Almost everyone knows this song and that's including people from other planets. The jingle was so popular it became a hit pop song. How's that for successful. Oh, and it was incredibly expensive to make. But, you know, bringing the world together through song can't be cheap.
Don't think we're stopping here. In the future Days Gone Bite will take breaks from the usual trips down memory lane for other commercial countdowns with different criteria: restaurants using popular music, food commercials with no jingles, ads featuring a certain genre of food. And we're open to suggestions.
