28 TV Jingles People Can Still Hum
A good jingle gets into a person’s head and stays there for decades, which is exactly the point. The tunes on this list were built for thirty seconds of television and ended up lasting a lifetime.
They range from a hot dog song written in an evening to a five-note sound logo recognized around the world, and most can be hummed without any help.
The Oscar Mayer Wiener Song
Chicago jingle writer Richard Trentlage heard about an Oscar Mayer contest roughly a day before the deadline in 1962 and wrote his entry in about an hour. He recorded it in his living room with a banjo ukulele and his children singing. Oscar Mayer used it in advertising from 1963 to 2010.
I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke
Creative director Bill Backer jotted down the idea on a napkin in January 1971 while waiting on a flight to London. The resulting Hilltop commercial, shot on a hillside outside Rome, premiered in July 1971 and cost about $250,000. The jingle was recorded by the New Seekers and became a hit record.
Like a Good Neighbor, State Farm Is There
Barry Manilow wrote the melody in 1971 as a young jingle writer and was paid $500 with no residuals. He was given only the slogan to work with. State Farm has kept a nine-note hook from his tune in use for more than five decades.
Stuck on Band-Aid
Manilow wrote this jingle in one pass in 1971, and it earned him a Clio Award in 1976. The tune had to be simple enough to be played on a banjo. It remained the backbone of Band-Aid advertising for decades.
Meow Mix
Tom McFaul of the jingle house Lucas/McFaul composed the song in 1974 for an ad that looped footage of a cat forward and backward to make it look as if the animal were singing. Linda November sang it. The entire song consists of one word, meow.
The Intel Bong
Composer Walter Werzowa created the five-note sound logo in 1994, built from layers of synthesizers, mostly xylophone and marimba sounds. The notes echo the rhythm of the tagline Intel Inside. By some estimates, the sound plays somewhere in the world every five minutes.
Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizz
Alka-Seltzer’s mid-1970s campaign built a jingle around the sound of two tablets dropping into water. Speedy, the puppet mascot, was revived for the spots in 1976. Sammy Davis Jr. recorded two versions of the song in 1978.
Kit Kat’s Break Jingle
The American Kit Kat jingle debuted in 1986, and its creators have called it a throwaway song that happened to stick. Michael Levine, who helped create it, has described it as a quick second option. It has been re-recorded by singers including Shawn Colvin and Carrie Underwood.
Folgers Morning Song
Folgers turned its slogan into a jingle in 1984, and the song has been featured in nearly every commercial for the coffee since. Singers including Richie Havens, Bonnie Tyler, Aretha Franklin, Randy Travis, and Paul Stanley have performed versions. The sing-song tune makes the brand’s promise sound inevitable.
I Don’t Want to Grow Up
The Toys R Us jingle was co-written in the early 1980s by a junior copywriter who later became a crime novelist. The company later sold the rights to the song at auction. Few jingles have been as closely tied to the feeling of childhood.
Mr. Clean
Procter and Gamble introduced Mr. Clean in 1958, and the first commercials ran in August of that year in Pittsburgh on WDTV and KDKA. House Peters Jr. was the first actor to play the muscular, bald character in live-action versions. The jingle made the product sound like a superhero.
Chiquita Banana
The song debuted in 1944 alongside the company’s logo of a banana wearing a fruit-filled hat. It taught Americans how to ripen bananas, which many still considered an exotic fruit. The calypso rhythm made the instructions easy to remember.
The Big Mac Chant
McDonald’s jingle from the mid-1970s taught customers exactly what came on a Big Mac, in a rapid-fire list. The jingle dates to 1975.
Rice-A-Roni
The Rice-A-Roni jingle came out in 1958 and was featured in a 1961 commercial that opened with a scenic view of San Francisco and a trolley car. It introduced America to a convenience food that has been on shelves ever since. The jingle’s slogan, the San Francisco treat, became part of the brand.
The Jolly Green Giant
By 1958 the Green Giant’s jingle had come together, and Leo Burnett’s agency softened the character’s image by making him a jolly figure. Writer Bob Noel gave him a laugh, and singer Len Dresslar provided the deep voice by 1959. The booming laugh became a trademark.
Burger King’s Special Orders
Burger King’s 1974 jingle sold diners on the idea that the chain would customize a burger. It was a full song, not just a slogan. It turned a service promise into a sing-along.
Oscar Mayer Bologna
Oscar Mayer followed its wiener song in 1974 with a jingle that spelled out the word bologna, sung by a child. At the end of a commercial shoot, the director asked if any of the children could sing the jingle straight through, and one did. The spot boosted the young singer’s career.
Klondike Bar
The Klondike Bar jingle was created in 1982 and asks a question about what a person would do to get one. It remains one of the best-known ice cream jingles.
The Tootsie Roll Jingle
A nine-year-old girl named Rebecca recorded the Tootsie Roll jingle in 1976. The recording remains one of the better-known candy jingles.
Join the Pepsi People
Randy Newman wrote the jingle, and Barry Manilow sang on the recording. The tune was part of Pepsi’s push to appeal to a younger generation. It shows how many famous songwriters got their first break in advertising.
N-E-S-T-L-E-S
Ventriloquist Jimmy Nelson’s dummy Danny O’Day sang the brand name letter by letter in Nestlé’s 1950s commercials, and Farfel the puppet dog answered with a single word. The spelling made the name easy to remember. Farfel became one of the era’s best-loved commercial characters.
SpaghettiOs
Campbell introduced SpaghettiOs in 1965, and singer Jimmie Rodgers originally recorded the short jingle that has marketed the pasta product to children ever since. The jingle’s brevity made it easy to sing. It also made it easy to remember.
Be a Pepper
Dr Pepper’s late-1970s campaign, which ran from 1977 to 1982, built a jingle around the idea of being a Pepper. The campaign’s slogan positioned the soda as the most original soft drink ever.
I’m Lovin’ It
McDonald’s campaign began in Munich in 2003 as a German slogan before spreading to more than 100 countries. Justin Timberlake was paid an estimated $6 million to sing the five-note hook in the first U.S. spots. It became the longest-running campaign in the company’s history.
Double Your Pleasure
Wrigley’s Doublemint ads used twins beginning in the 1930s, and in 1959 Jayne and Joan Knoerzer of Hammond, Indiana, became the first Doublemint twins on television. The jingle’s rhyming structure was easy to repeat. Many later pairs of twins carried the campaign forward.
Choo-Choo Charlie
Good & Plenty introduced the animated Choo-Choo Charlie and his jingle in 1950, patterned after a folk song about Casey Jones. Good & Plenty is a black licorice candy with a hard candy shell.
Be Like Mike
In 1991, advertising executive Bernie Pitzel wanted Gatorade’s commercial with Michael Jordan to feel different from his Nike ads. He proposed adapting a song from Disney’s The Jungle Book, but Disney would not allow changes to the lyrics. The Washington Post later ranked the finished commercial the best Jordan ad of all time.
See the USA in Your Chevrolet
Leo Corday and Leon Carr wrote the song for Chevrolet, and Dinah Shore sang it on her television show throughout the 1950s. It became her signature tune. Few jingles have been so closely linked to a single performer.
Why a Tune Outlasts the Product
A jingle that works shortens the path between a name and a feeling. The best ones are brief, repetitive, and easy to sing badly, which is why they spread through playgrounds and kitchens.
Some campaigns lasted decades, like Oscar Mayer’s, which ran from 1963 to 2010. Others, like the Intel bong, shrank to a few notes and kept working. In each case, the sound outlived the ad that introduced it.
More from Go2Tutors!
- The Romanov Crown Jewels and Their Tragic Fate
- 13 Historical Mysteries That Science Still Can’t Solve
- Famous Hoaxes That Fooled the World for Years
- 15 Child Stars with Tragic Adult Lives
- 16 Famous Jewelry Pieces in History
Like Go2Tutors’s content? Follow us on MSN.
