A Dare to Anyone Who Reads This

[figmo]

I cannot find video anywhere on the Internet of the old Geritol "My wife, I think I'll keep her" commercial from the 1970s. I've found a few other retro Geritol commercials, but not the one I'm seeking.

On a mailing list I'm on, someone brought up this commercial, and a substantial chunk of the list had no idea what the rest of us were referring to.

If someone can point me at it, please do!

Comments

[wcg.livejournal.com]

The only commercial with that theme I'd ever seen was a Rice-A-Roni commercial. However, the internet is my friend, and I was able to find a snippet of the Geritol version here. (Requires Real Player to view.) Can't locate the full commercial.

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

Speaking of rice-a-roni, you reminded me that as a kid I always made up anti-commercials in my head to sing to myself when they ran the real one, to counteract the brainwashing effects. One of them went something like:

Rot-a-roni
The San Francisco trash
Rot-a-roni
It tastes like dog food hash
It's made of cats and rats and bees
One sniff of it will make you sneeze
etc.

The jingle for Polaroid Swinger was much funnier, but nobody remembers the original now.

I learned later, from a Michael Cooney LP, that kids all over the world do this. One I heard on that record went "Hold the pickle hold the lettuce, special orders don't upset us, all we ask is that you let us throw it away."

[wcg.livejournal.com]

The jingle for Polaroid Swinger was much funnier, but nobody remembers the original now.

Oh, I don't know... Do you mean this one?

Meet the Swinger
Polaroid Swinger
Meet the Swinger
Polaroid Swinger

It's more than a camera
It's almost alive!
It's only nineteen dollars
And ninety-five

Swing it up
It says Yes!
Take the shot
Count it down
Rip it off!

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

The way I sang it, as a child, was:

Eat the stinker
Hemorrhoid shrinker
Eat the stinker
Hemorrhoid shrinker

It looks like a camera,
But eats you alive
It's not worth 19 pennies
It's not worth 5

Pick it up
It's a mess
It shoots you
In the head
And you're dead

[wcg.livejournal.com]

That's a good parody. I used to parody the hell out of that jingle too, but I don't think I ever had one quite so inspired.

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'd love to be an oscar meyer wiener
That is what I'd truly like to be
Cause if I were an oscar meyer wiener
There'd be lots of chicken heads in me

There were so many.
My favorite, which practically no one will appreciate, was a short-lived regional Safeway jingle - does anyone remember the Safeway Fried Chicken Rag, or am I the only one?

The commercial I liked was a late 60s commercial for Freakies cereal, also a ragtime ditty. "We are the Freakies, We are the Freakies, we live in our Freakies tree. We never miss a meal, 'cause we love our ce-re-eel."

Now that was perfection, but apparently it didn't sell much cereal.

[robin-june.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm glad I'm not an Oscar Meyer weiner,
That is what I never want to be,
'Cuz if I were and Oscar Meyer weiner,
There would soon be nothing left ... of... me...

(The missing second verse. I didn't write it, I just haven't found yet those other people who remember it, too.)

In my high school honors French class, we had monthly written and oral presentations, and I remember my classmate Debbie B. translating the bologna jingle into French. She sat crosslegged on the teacher's desk with boy's cap and fishing line while singing,
"Ma mortadella a un premièr nôm, c'est 'Oh,' 'Ess,' 'Çay,' 'Ah,' 'Air',
"Ma mortadella a un deuxième nôm, c'est 'Em,' 'Ah,' 'Ee-grèc,' 'Ehw,' 'Air,' ". . .

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

Have you seen the 2 books of nursery rhymes by Ormonde de Kay?

[figmo.livejournal.com]

I threw my French teacher in HS for a loop when I did a bit where I used the phrase "Le crise du coeur de psoriasis!"

[figmo.livejournal.com]

When I was in a college choral group, four of us went into a Burger King after one of our gigs, still in concert dress, around 5pm. We proceeded, in SATB, to sing four-part versions of three different Burger King jingle parodies.

The manager was in stitches. "I've been here since 7:30 this morning!"