K Is For Klondike Bar, Kinda Clever

/ Ally Bean

Screen Shot 2016-03-21 at 10.54.11 AM“What would you do for a Klondike bar?”

These lyrics are from a TV commercial jingle that is embedded in my brain.  Permanently.

Yours, too?

In fact, when I started musing on the letter “K” for this challenge, the first thing that came to my mind was Klondike Bar, which got me thinking about how I know many TV commercial jingles from memory.

You, too?

It’s annoying, yet hilarious, to realize that instead of keeping track of important adult stuff, my old brain chooses to retain a weird assortment of lyrics and tunes, learned in my childhood while watching the idiot box [aka the TV].

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• I’m sure this realization would upset me more, if I wasn’t so darned happy when singing the Oscar Mayer Bologna Song.

“My bologna has a first name, it’s O-S-C-A-R…”

• OR awkwardly singing and dancing along to the Dr. Pepper commercial.

“Us peppers are an interesting breed, an original taste is what we need… Be a Pepper…”

• OR belting out a soulful rendition of the Enjoli perfume commercial.

“I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never let you forget that you’re a man… ‘Cause I’m a woman…”

• • •

All of which brings me to this very important question:

How many TV commercial jingles do you, my gentle readers, remember by heart?  You may confess in the comments below.

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• • •

49 thoughts on “K Is For Klondike Bar, Kinda Clever”

    • joey, I think commercials were better back then. More clever + direct, less stupidly vulgar + vague. Today, sometimes, I have no idea what the commercial is trying to sell me. 😦

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  2. Mmm Klondike Bars. I had one of those last night… the new Cookie Dough Swirl flavor. Have you had it yet? A-mazing.

    I remember a lot of jingles. They have a fond place in my memory. My favorite one is “We are Flintstones Kids. Ten million strong… and growing!”

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    • Blair, I haven’t tried the new Klondike Bars yet, but they all sound delicious. Now that you mention it, I remember that Flintstone Kids commercial, too. Never really liked Flintstones vitamins, they tasted bitter to me…

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  3. Kit Kat bar? Ahh yes, one of many stuck in my head for eons it seems. I also have the quirky talent of memorizing every song I hear after the second listen, sometimes third. It’s a blessing/curse. That Britney Spears radio phase? It was hell.

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  4. Haha! Even before going very far into your post my first remembered jingle was also Oscar Mayer related, not bologna, but the Oscar Mayer wiener song with pictures of the Wienermobile dancing in my head… “Oh I’d love to be an Oscar Mayer wiener, that is what I’d truly like to be – e – e. Cause if I was an Oscar Mayer wiener, everyone would be in love with me!”

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    • Deb, now that you mention it, I remember that one, too! I think the bologna one made more of an impression because I was close to the age of the little boy in the commercial. He was a star to me!

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    • Kate, I remember that annoying old lady yelling that phrase. Everyone said it for a while there. I agree about the commercials. I’m baffled by what they’re trying to sell me: a product? a service? a lifestyle? Who knows!

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    • Sarah, okay! Now that you share the words, I do remember the Kit Kat Bar commercial. [Will have to go back and tell an earlier commenter that I’ve got it now.] I’ve got some really annoying local commercials in my repertoire, too. But they make no sense to anyone who didn’t life around where I did. *sigh*

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  7. I don’t think I’ve ever had a Klondike Bar … nor do I remember the commercials. Maybe we didn’t have them.

    I hated commercials as a kid, I still hate them now … please don’t ask me to drag up memories of ones that have been indelibly seared into my head. It’s bad enough that “sometimes I feel like a nut, sometimes I don’t” came unbidden to mind.

    To make matters worse, I don’t even like those chocolate bars.

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  8. Klondike Bars are such a shadow of their former selves now. They used to be really thick and substantial. Now…I won’t even buy them; they are thin and sad.

    I still remember the Frito Bandito commercial and accompanying song, which now smacks more than a little bit of racial stereotyping and insensitivity by today’s enlightened standards.

    Like an above commenter, many modern commercials confuse me. I have no idea what the point is, and I am hard-pressed to figure out what the product being sold is. One that really befuddles me is some guy who becomes every single person in the commercial, male and female, from a woman having tea to a man standing on the back of a charging bull, and all of it is being watched on screens…? No idea what that’s all about. None. I guess I’m nowhere near their Target Demographic.

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    • nance, I agree about the decline of the Klondike Bar. Those of us who grew up with the original ones can see a difference, but to people who have only discovered them in the last decade or so, they’re great.

      I remember that Frito commercial as being annoying. And now that you mention it, it was racist.

      I know what you mean about not knowing what the heck a commercial is trying to sell me. Advertising only works if it tells you CLEARLY about a product, but so many of today’s TV commercials are only trying to be clever, and in that process they obfuscate. I sense that many people in many target demographics would say the same thing. Sadly.

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  10. If I’m going to have an ice cream like that I think I’d prefer a Dove bar. Seems to me it has thicker chocolate coating. You are bringing back lots of memories with these little jingles! Thanks

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    • Janet, I like Dove Bars better, too. They seem more decadent to me than a Klondike Bar. But if all I had available was a Klondike Bar, I sure wouldn’t turn it down although I’m not quite sure what I’d do for it. 😉

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  11. I am stuck on bandaid brand ’cause bandaid’s stuck on me! Pepsi-cola hits the spot, 8 full ounces that’s a lot! I’d like to buy the world a coke and keep it company. And like a good neighbor… The best part of waking up… O’Cedar makes your life easier! Jingles are meant to stick in your brain. I think I could complete almost any jingle you started, from the 60s and 70s at least. That’s probably not a good thing. Today’s commercials mostly seem to use popular music instead of jingles. Though there are a few that get stuck in my head now and then. Like Call 1-800-STEEMER!

    Fun topic!

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    • Margaret, I understand. A few of these jingles are prominently installed in my brain, but like you, lots of them are there, available with a bit of coaxing.

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  16. You know how much I love and appreciate our retro TV commercials. One that is perpetually stuck in my head is Rice-A-Roni… to the point where almost every time I end what I’m saying with a four-syllable word or phrase, my brain will immediately follow it up with “The San Francisco treat!”

    I had no idea the “What would you do for a Klondike Bar” ad campaign went back that far either… but that’s the same concept I remember from later in the 80’s. Also, this familiar jingle was riffed on by (cough, hack, ahem) legendary musician Kanye West in one of his more popular hits, but with this being a family friendly blog, I’ll just leave it at that…

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    • evilsquirrel13, I’d forgotten about Rice-A-Roni! That’s a wonderful example of a TV jingle with staying power. I can sing that one immediately.

      The Klondike Bar jingle has been around forever. I liked it, of course, because I got to pretend to be a monkey. Didn’t know about, nor care about, Kanye. I trust he did no harm to the classic jingle with his “rendition.”

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  17. Oh, geez, don’t get me started. Mary says it amazes her that she can remember the lyrics to songs from fifty years ago, but can’t remember why she walked into a room or whether or not she unplugged the coffee pot. My head is just crammed full of TV themes, commercials, and old songs, and you could probably wake me in the middle of the night and I could recite the entire script for an Emergency Broadcast System test, but constantly forget to plug in my phone to be charged. The older you get, the more crap gets stored up there, and the more things pop up when you’re trying to think of things that are actually relevant to the here and now.

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    • John, it’s odd to realize how much useless information is stored away inside our brains. Like you said, I can forget what I’m doing in the moment, but can sing ancient TV jingles without a second thought. Kind of fun, in its own way.

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  19. Far, FAR too many! is the answer. And also ad taglines. “Where’s the beef.” “Time to make the donuts.” “How many licks does it take to get to the center…”

    Gah! Gotta stop now or my brain will be running on this track all night!!

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