Here are radio commercials from my collection of reel-to-reel tapes and records.
Selecto Franks - 1971
For my first entry into the Commercials section of my site, I chose the complete reel of 3 commercials for Selecto Franks. These consist of funny "interviews" of famous figures in history: Beethoven, Napoleon, and Thomas Edison. I don't know who the guys who did these commercials are, but I hope and trust they went on to bigger & better things. They sure deserved it. Click on the reel box to hear the commercials.
Here is the sheet of paper that came with the reel in the box. Click on it to get a larger image.
Consumer
Information on Health Spas with Heather Thomas
("... and boy did I ask questions
questions questions.")
This reel is of a series of PSA's featuring Heather Thomas for the Association of Physical Fitness Centers and an info booklet they were distributing, "Joining a Health Club". Apparently this flew in through the breeze of the aerobic movement in the early-mid 80's. There are about 3 messages repeated in some of the 9 tracks, with different music backgrounds that were supposed to fit in different formats: "MOR", "country", and for gosh sake, "news". The music fit the messages, not to mention the aerobics movement, like star-shaped pieces in round holes. Click on the reel box to hear the commercials, and click on this link for a larger image of the box, with a better look at the content list.
Resolve stop-smoking kit - NBC commercial feed, 1992 I recorded this in the production room of then-country station WUSJ in Elizabethton, Tenn. while my brother DJ'ed there in 1992 (What has happened to that station before-and-since is another story entirely, but I'll spare you). About one-and-a-half minutes before the NBC Radio Network's hourly newscast, they put the first one-minute commercial block of the newscast on a separate feed. This was so stations not carrying the newscast on the network could record the commercials and run them on the local station. This is also a piece of history because it shows how, and what kinds of, stop-smoking products were advertised before the nicotine patches and gums went on the market. When NBC didn't have anything on, it had continuous beeps every second. This clip begins 5 seconds before the signals preceding the commercial feed, and continues to the beginning of the NBC newscast.
Quaker Rice Cakes - ABC commercial feed, Jan. 23, 1995 From 1993-2000, I had a big-dish satellite system, and there was a great period of time during 1995 when you could hear the Arkansas Radio Network on one of the audio subcarriers of the Shepherd's Chapel station. When ARN didn't have Arkansas programming - which was most of the time - they carried the ABC Radio Network. Here is an ad for Quaker Rice Cakes. Unlike NBC, ABC didn't put these commercials on before every newscast, but as their own separate feed at 12 minutes after the hour.
Putt-Putt, 1971 I dubbed this one from a 33RPM record in that WUSJ production room.
