To write a successful jingle, you need to write something catchy, something simple, something contagious鈥攁n earworm. So no wonder some of the best-known ad jingles were written by the same people who wrote Broadway鈥檚 great showtunes. These four composers have us clamoring for the 鈥渜uilted quicker picker upper鈥� and asking 鈥淲hat would you do (ooh-ooh) for a Klondike bar?鈥�
1. Lynn Ahrens
Best known now for such musicals as Anastasia, Once On This Island, Ragtime, and the upcoming Marie鈥攁ll written with long-time writing partner Stephen Flaherty鈥攍yricist and book writer Lynn Ahrens got her start writing both music and lyrics for TV projects. Most famously, Ahrens worked on the Schoolhouse Rock cartoon series, writing and often performing such songs as 鈥淚nterplanet Janet,鈥� 鈥淣o More Kings,鈥� 鈥淭he Preamble,鈥� 鈥淭he Great American Melting Pot,鈥� and 鈥淎 Noun is a Person, Place or Thing.鈥�
Ahren鈥檚 TV work also encompassed commercials, writing such jingles as 鈥淲hat Would You Do for a Klondike Bar鈥� and 鈥淏ounty: The Quicker Picker Upper.鈥�
Listen to Ahrens' work in this 1986 Klondike Bar commercial:
2. Richard Adler
This composer, lyricist, writer, and producer began his career as part of a successful writing partnership with composer and lyricist Jerry Ross. The pair wrote a pop song, 鈥淩ags to Riches,鈥� that was recorded by Tony Bennett and hit number one on the pop charts in 1953. The following year, Adler and Ross premiered The Pajama Game on Broadway and won a 1955 Tony Award for Best Musical. Just one year after that, they followed up Pajama Game with Damn Yankees, winning Best Musical at the 1956 Tony Awards. Their meteoric rise was cut short when Ross died tragically at age 29, within months of Damn Yankee鈥檚 Broadway premiere. Adler never truly found another writing partner, and, though he wrote three more Broadway musicals, none of them even approached the level of success he enjoyed with Pajama Game and Damn Yankees.
Adler began writing jingles after Ross died. He would come to be known as 鈥淜ing of the Jingles,鈥� writing for numerous ad campaigns. His best remembered jingles today include 鈥淟et Hertz Put You in the Driver鈥檚 Seat鈥� and 鈥淣ewport Filter Cigarettes.鈥�
Listen to Adler's Hertz jingle in this 1964 commercial:
3. Barry Manilow
This recording and concert star has never truly been in or written a play or musical on Broadway, but he has played three Broadway concert engagements (in 1976, 1989, and 2013) and contributed songs to Bette Midler鈥檚 1975 Clams on the Half Shell Revue and Phyllis Newman鈥檚 1979 solo show The Madwoman of Central Park West.
Manilow began writing ad jingles early in his career, before he was famous, and has continued to do so ever since. Most memorable from the long list of Manilow鈥檚 jingles are melodies to 鈥淟ike a Good Neighbor, State Farm is There鈥� and 鈥淚 Am Stuck On Band-Aid Brand 鈥楥ause Band-Aid鈥檚 Stuck On Me,鈥� but Manilow also penned campaigns for such companies as Stridex, KFC, Dr. Pepper, and McDonald鈥檚.
Listen to Manilow's Band-Aid jingle in this commercial from the 1970s:
4. Jake Holmes
Like Manilow, Jake Holmes has not necessarily lived a life in the theatre, but he does boast a Broadway credit for incidental music written for the short-lived Alan Ayckbourn play A Small Family Business.
He spent the bulk of his career recording his own albums, such as The Above Ground Sound of Jake Holmes and So Close, So Very Far to Go and writing advertisement jingles. His best known campaigns were for Dr. Pepper (鈥淏e a Pepper鈥�) and the U.S. Army (鈥淏e All That You Can Be鈥�), both of which were used extensively throughout the 1980s. He also wrote 鈥淎ren鈥檛 You Hungry for Burger King Now?鈥� and 鈥淐ome See the Softer Side of Sears.鈥�
Listen to Holmes' "Be a Pepper" in this Dr. Pepper commercial from 1979:
