*(“Kindertotenlieder” is a work by Gustav Mahler. It is also the title of a grim little 1977 short story by Jonathan Fast, which involves advertising aimed at children. The story can be downloaded at https://1lib.us/s/kindertotenlieder. You will need an unzipping program that can handle .rar files, but several of those are available as open-source freeware. I use 7-zip and nothing bad has happened to my computer.)
"You're right....with Eversharp!"
It’s somewhat disconcerting how many bits of advertising are still burrowing around in my brain…. I find the more recent ones less memorable, but all old people say things like that. As a kid, a lot of my family’s standard jokes and phrases came from TV shows and commercials. Sometimes it seemed that we could only communicate by quoting either ads we watched or lines (“Would you believe…?”) from TV shows. Obviously we spent a lot of time in front of The Box!
Here are some of the more frequently quoted ad lines, and when we used them:
“Always after me Lucky Charms!” (Used when someone wanted something from us.)
“Does she…or doesn’t she?”(Standard joke when we had a question about another person.)
“A bowl a day keeps the bullies away!” (An early intro to false advertising!)
“You’re right….with Eversharp!” (My father used to say that a lot.)
“There’s no excuse for B.O.” (How Mom told us it was bath time.)
“Manly, yes, but I like it too!” (Whenever we or someone else praised something.)
“Greasy kid stuff” (What we called anything our parents groomed our hair with.)
“Man from Glad! Man from Glad! Husband trapped in kitchen!” (Storing or retrieving leftovers.)
“Atsa some-a spicy meat-a-ball-a!” (Said during any spaghetti dinner.)
“Nobody can eat just one!” (Pronounced while eating any sort of snack.)
“Schaefer, is the, one beer to have, when you’re having more than one.” (I still hear this in my head regularly, because the buttons you push to cross busy intersections around here actually beep the first two notes… “Schae-fer”… “Schae-fer”)
“Show us your Lark!” (Making fun of Mom’s chain smoking.)
“Palisades amusement park, swings all day and after dark” (Wanted to go a lot, but only went once.)
“Cleans like a white tornado” (Whenever we cleaned something.)
“Ring around the collar! Ring around the collar!” (What we felt compelled to tell each other to check for whenever we dressed for church or any place else requiring a button-down shirt.)
“Brylcreem, a little dab’ll do ya!” (See “greasy kid stuff.”)
“Marlboro Country” (Mom’s description of any place I went camping or hiking.)
Dave VentreA hyper-annuated wannabee scientist with a lovely wife and a mountain biking problem.
I love how your family made these silly jingles part of your everyday life. Great inside jokes.
Brought back lots of long-buried memories with this one, Dave. A particular favorite was the “Manly, yes, but I like it too” for Irish Spring soap (I can hear the background music even now and see the brawny man in his knit sweater and Irish lassie waiting on the side of the ship).
As a Jersey girl, I can still sing that Palisades Amusement Park jingle (“Ride the coaster, get cool/In the waves of the pool”), although I’m not sure if I ever actually went there or not. I also remember all the other lines you quote – it’s great how your family incorporated them into everyday conversation.
Thanks for sharing these family advert-slogans.
We had expressions too but they didn’t come from ads. “She just went by in a rowboat” was my dad’s standard answer to “where’s mom?” “My dear Reebah–you out!” was something he would say out of the blue.
How fun, Dave. My mother always used to say “Right with Eversharp.” And the spicy meatball ad was one of my favorites. Thanks for bringing all this back.
Sweet memories of family bonds Dave!
I don’t remember any family jingle singalongs when I was a kid, but my husband and son still recite a line from an ad for the Happy Viking furniture store and laugh hysterically. The line is said first in Norwegian and then in English and translates as “At these prices., I’ll take two!”
Wow, that’s quite a few, Dave! The only one I remember using is “Manly, yes, but I like it, too…” but I can’t imagine why I’d say it (with a terrible Irish brogue, yet), and then there was “Try It You’ll Like It.” Looks like both of those aired in the early 70s, well after I’d left home. And then of course there was humming the opening theme music from Twilight Zone whenever something weird happened: Du du du du, du du du du.
Great ad lines! Some I remembered; others I didn’t. But, like others who have commented on your story, I like how you and your family brought these into your daily life. I’m sure that’s what the ad guys wanted –as long as you also bought their damn products, of course.
I am unsure what it says about us (or about the place of TV in our lives) that we were so quick to absorb and use tag lines from ads and shows. It was sort of a verbal shorthand. We all did it, but especially my Mom and me.
Advertising’s impact on us all is disconcerting. And you one-liners remind me of just how deep those ads burrowed into our communications vocabulary. Television ads of the kind you list have sunk into memory. I don’t use them as communication tools any longer, but the ambient white noise of the push to make us buy things we don’t want or need remains active and healthy.
I traveled to Cuba in 1993 with a show that we performed at a theater festival in Santiago de Cuba, the second large city, after Havana. This was before the flood gates had been open and I experienced a peaceful silence that I could not identify until I returned to the states. There was no advertising in Cuba, at least in the less international city of Santiago. It created a deep inner piece that was palatable. When I returned to Cuba, to Havana this time (2000), I couldn’t find the same deep-running peace I had experienced in Santiago seven years earlier.