Another day, another entry in our Ken R jingle sampler series – and this time, we’re back to original PAMS jingles, all recorded between 1960 and 1977:
As usual, this compilation has loads of great stuff – including some nice country jingles which often seem to get looked over when talking about the history of PAMS, and some extremely amusing session excerpts which pile on the nonsense noises with each take. But my favourite of the batch here is simply known as the WTVY (FM) Happy Day Song.
As we return after a Christmas break to our Ken R. jingle sampler series, we have something slightly different than thelastthree. The previous samplers were all material from PAMS; this one takes us on a trip around other jingle production houses – material from Pepper Tanner, Heller, and Sande & Greene to name but three. A shame perhaps that there isn’t more context included, but this is still 55 minutes of awesomeness.
As for my favourites, it isn’t entire tracks this time, but just two jingles I want to single out. Firstly, Wonderful Town, Wonderful People from Richard Ullman and Associates – I thought this was a PAMS jingle for years, and I think it gives PAMS’s My Home Town a run for its money:
From Channel 4 tonight, around 18:45 (via @bohaynowell):
Someone very clever is working in Aldi’s marketing department.
Question: exactly how much will this kind of thing piss off Kellogg’s? Their no doubt relatively expensive slot is completely undermined…
UPDATE (18/01/12): Well done How-Do, for doing what I failed to do and getting proper quotes from McCann (Aldi’s advertising agency), and Kellogg’s. Apparently all a big coincidence. Ah well.
Today I went to the recording for the BRAND NEW series of Pointless. (Despite the fact the last series is still runnning. Don’t fret about it too much.) The last quiz show recording I was at was an episode of Golden Balls back in 2008, so I thought I’d give some similarly unfocussed and misinformed opinions, only even worse because I’m very bloody tired.
Time for the third in our Ken R jingle sampler series; see part one and part two if you don’t know what the bloody hell I’m up to. I’m posting two samplers today – The Big One, and The Big Two, two hours of fantastic 60s and 70s PAMS jingles:
And because it’s Christmas, I’m going to draw your attention to this wonderful six minute compilation of Christmas jingles on The Big Two – including the strangest version of ‘Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer’ you’ll ever hear…
With David Croft’s death earlier this year, there has been much talk of how his shows proved that audience sitcom works best if, y’know, it’s actually about something. (You may have thought that was fairly obvious, but hey, it’s a start.) Indeed, one of my favourite sitcom episodes of all time is It Ain’t Half Hot Mum‘s final episode in 1981, The Last Roll Call, which deals with demobilisation – a weighty topic which people used to trust audience sitcom with at one point.
Welcome to the second of our Ken R jingle sampler series – my mission to get these things listened to by a wider audience. This one is simply called PAMS Sampler 806; the name may be nondescript, but this is one of my favourites:
All the tracks are brilliant, but here are a few of the best. It kicks off with a montage of Series 14-44 – for background, PAMS released numbered demo packages of jingles throughout its life, which stations would listen to and choose which cuts to be resung for their station. This montage is a great trawl through American radio between 1960 and 1973:
We’ve been doing these for over five years now, and they’ve grown from being crap, to not being that crap but still quite crap. Give us a try if you’re at all interested in the upcoming series, though.
“Radio jingles: they’re those short, catchy songs that tell you the name of the station you’re listening to. Listeners often think that the jingles are made right at the station, or by a local band. But broadcast professionals know that creating effective jingles requires the services of a unique kind of production company. Today, artfully crafted pieces of music which sing the praises of a station’s “call letters” are an accepted part of most radio formats. These jingles are heard throughout the world, but there are only a small number of companies responsible for making them. Most of the work is done in Dallas, Texas, where the radio jingle industry began with a company called PAMS.”
