Do You Believe in Magic? (and other Great Commercial Jingles)

*Creaky old lady voice*

Back in the olden days before Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube, we kids used to watch this thing called TV. It had thirteen channels full of entertaining TV shows with laugh tracks and catchy theme songs. In between the shows, there were plenty of ads, all with commercial jingles.

What’s a jingle, you ask? Why, a jingle is a clever, catchy little tune. And back when commercials were awesome, jungles did way more than just tell you about a product. They wormed their way inside your brain and played on repeat on your internal cassette player. They wormed their way into your friends’ brains, too. So much so, that at school talent show auditions, at least twenty kids would get onstage and belt out a commercial jingle instead of a radio pop song. Heck, we girls even made up hand-clapping games to Dr. Pepper and Coca Cola commercials out on the playground!

Needed to hire a lawyer? We kids could sing you the jingle containing the telephone number. Not sure what to make for dinner tonight? Hamburger Helper, help your hamburger helper make a great meal! Shopping for a new car? GMC Trucks! It’s not just a truck anymore! 

80s kids were quite possibly the most commercialized generation.

I don’t understand what has happened since then. Nowadays, commercials are super boring. I mean, obviously they’re still there. But my teens and I just passively watch, eyes glazed, waiting for them to end. We couldn’t tell you a single product motto. We can’t recall anything special about any advertisement, except for the cute, dancey Christmas ads and the one with the talking lizard.

Where did the jingles go?

My poor kids. It’s like they’re living in the Mad Max era, and all the water (aka commercial jingles) has dried up. “Please mother,” they cry, wringing their hands together. “Please show us YouTube videos of Ronald McDonald ice skating with kids and singing about believing in magic!” So I do. I even throw in a few Woodsy the Owl ads while I’m at it.

Name that Brand!

Just based on the commercial jingle lyrics, how many brands can you name? (Feel free to sing along)

  1. Double double your refreshment! Double double your enjoy-ment!
  2. Now go tell your Mama what the big boys eat!
  3. Good time! Great taste! That’s why this is our place…
  4. It’s indubitably (indubitably) delicious!
  5. We’re gonna catch some rays! Catch some rays!
  6. Make a ru-un for the border!
  7. Plop plop! Fizz fizz! Oh what a relief it is!
  8. No it’s never, never the same place twice!
  9. They’ve got the best for so much less, you really flip your lid!
  10. The taste is gonna move ya when you pop in in your mou-th!


In case you’re hooked on jingles now, and need a little more flashback, here you go:



4 responses to “Do You Believe in Magic? (and other Great Commercial Jingles)

Leave a Reply


You are commenting using your account. Log Out /  Change )

Google photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Connecting to %s