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.
As I slag off Challenge when they do something wrong, it seems only fair to congratulate them when they do something right. With the sad death of Bob Holness yesterday, Challenge made a point of not only updating their EPG, but also recording some new links; genuinely impressive for a channel which doesn’t have live continuity. Take a look below – and make a note of listening to Bob’s intro for the female contestant, where he makes a hilariously inappropriate joke, but gets away with it because he was brilliant:
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:
The Big One (99MB ZIP, password: kenr)
The Big Two (101MB ZIP, password: kenr)
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…
Jingle compilation by Ken R. Deutsch. PAMS material © PAMS Productions, Inc. of Dallas.
The second episode of Red Dwarf X was recorded on 23rd December at Shepperton Studios, with a studio audience. I wrote this about it.
Apologies for the writing being even more sub-standard than usual. Look, it’s Christmas Eve, you’re lucky to be getting it at all. Now piss off.
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:
PAMS Sampler 806 (69MB ZIP, password: kenr)
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:
“What is the point……really?” – david barnes, DwarfCast iTunes review
So, Red Dwarf X is starting the first of six audience recordings this Friday. And I can’t resist plugging the latest DwarfCast from Ganymede & Titan that I’m “proud” to be part of, talking about our hopes and expectations for the new series, alongside a healthy dose of ignorance.
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.”
Some day, I will write a long and tedious article as to why I love jingles so much. Today is not that day. This is the fun stuff.
Ah, nothing I like better than picking tiny holes in articles I otherwise agree with:
Zelda: Skyward Sword – The Great Graphics Debate
“If a piece of art was once brilliant and stirring – if it truly was such – no technical advancement or passing of time can take that from it.”
YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES
“The old, classic, black and white movies (like Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane or Federico Fellini’s 8 1/2) are no less captivating and memorable now that HD cameras are the standard.”
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO