Track 7: Elsie, the Borden Cow

This was an audience participation jingle from the Saturday morning Archie Andrews radio show in the ‘40s. The entire audience would go, moo, moo, moo, moo. It was glorious. The Andrew-Sisters-like trio would sing:

Hey, you, can you moo?
Can you moo to a rhythm, too?
We’re gonna sing and swing
a beautiful thing about Elsie, the Borden cow.
Now!
Vocalists: Elsie’s products are the best
Audience: moo, moo, moo, moo!
V:Elsie’s products beat the rest
A:Moo, moo, moo, moo!
V:Elsie’s products are a treat
Elsie’s products can’t be beat
From Broadway out to Market Street
A:Moo, moo, moo, moo!
V:Elsie knows, as everyone should
That if it’s Borden’s
It’s got to be good!

I loved audience-participation jingles. Hell, everybody did. I even got to be in one in 1948. The Queen for a Day radio program came to the Wisconsin State fair. That fair was a big deal because it was the 100th anniversary of Wisconsin’s statehood.

Jack Bailey, the show’s MC, shouted: “When your tablets get down to four…” And we, the clued-in, radio-wise audience, shouted back: “That’s the time to get some more!” “Some more what?,” Jack shouted. “Some more Alka-Seltzer!,” we responded, following up with wild enthusiastic cheering and applause.

Seriously, it was one of the highlights of my childhood. Being in the room where it happened!

Track 8: Goldblatt’s

A Chicago department store, radio, late ‘50s. The bwaa bwaa part was trombones.

Goldblatt’s, bwaa bwaa
That’s where you str…ehhh…tch
Your dollars
Goldblatt’s, bwaa bwaa
Where mom, pop and the family shop

Track 9: Libby’s Canned Food

This is one I never actually heard on radio or TV. I learned it via the folk process. I was in a restaurant in the late ‘60s or early ‘70s, when these three teenage girls spontaneously broke into:

It’s that Libby Libby Libby
On the label label label
Puts the flavor flavor flavor
On the table table table

Good one, I thought. The repeat-brand-name-three-times motif harks back to an earlier jingles era.