I'd like to know the story behind that commercial. Were they trying to do for beer what "I'd like to teach the world to sing" did for cola?
Why did I dig up that old Bud commercial? I was reading last night's "café" comments out loud when I came to some ravings about me, including "When you say Althouse, you've said it all free speech-wise."
Meade mused: "What is that commercial?"
I said: "When you say... you've said it all... When you say... Schlitz???"
Meade seemed to think I'd nailed it, but Google says, no, it's Bud.
It's such an absurd concept: "When you say Bud, you've said a lot of things nobody else can say. When you say Bud, you've gone as far as you can go to get to the very best. When you say Bud, you've said the word that means you like to do it all."
From a 2016 NPR interview with the artist behind "When You Say Bud," Steve Karmen:
KARMEN: I wrote the entire lyric. I did the orchestration. I'm, you know, a composer. I do my own productions, my own orchestrations. And that went on the air. And it ran for eight years with that lyric. (Singing) When you say Budweiser, you've said it all. And then the agency rewrote the lyric. (Singing) For all you do, this Bud's for you. And that has been on the air, basically, ever since in various different forms.Karmen lets us know that the lead singer in the Bud commercial is Valerie Simpson — Valerie Simpson of Ashford & Simpson: "Valerie wrote 'Ain't No Mountain High Enough,' 'Let's Go Get Stoned,' 'Solid As A Rock.' I mean, Valerie is a most prolific songwriter. But this was - you know, this is how she made a living before she did that."
SIEGEL: How do you feel about that? I mean, this is your creation. This is your song. It's also a beer commercial. Do you feel as protective of it as if it were an aria in an opera that you did?
KARMEN: I do. I do. You know, the difference between a symphony and a jingle is symphony writers use more paper.... It's just as hard to write a jingle.
Ah, let's remember "Solid":
I love the 80s styles in that — mullets and all. By the way, "Is the mullet coming back...?..."
BONUS: When you care enough to give your very best...
Karmen sued (and won).
Posts
109 comments:
When you say Althouse, you've said it all free speech-wise, except for hot buttons.
Who remembers:
Here comes the King
Here comes that big number one
Now that we know that Althouse and Meade read our comments aloud for comic effect, writing zingers is going to have to be a priority. Also, more careful punctuation!
It reminds of Cardinal broadcasts with the great Jack Buck.
I'd rather listen to either of those commercials than that song (Solid).
Many, many years ago, I referred to Miller as the King of Beers. Took a lot of abuse for that.
"Here comes the King."
Also by Steve Karmen.
The beer commercial that has always stuck with me is the Schaefer ad where the beer truck drivers are hazing the rookie and they make him stand on a keg and sing the Schaefer jingle and he has a beautiful voice, sings it beautifully, and they all end up wiping tears.
I just heard a Miller Highlight ad on a 60s Jean Shepherd show. "hit the button"
Followed a NYT ad for C. L. Sulzberger's opinion column. "[His prose] sounds like the ruins of Pompeii."
Valerie Simpson! Now’s there’s a talent. Solid. As a rock. That’s what our love is. That’s what we’ve got.
From Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_Comes_the_King:
"Another Budweiser jingle, "When You Say Budweiser, You've Said It All," also with music and lyrics by Steve Karmen, was published a year earlier in 1970, and part of its lyric inspired "Here Comes the King." The underlying instrumental is imitative of a stereotypical German band. Its style resembles the famous Coca-Cola jingle "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" in that it begins with a lone voice, joined by another singer, and eventually a choral group... Many of the lines are punctuated at the end by a double drumbeat.
The award-winning anthem was a hit from the moment it first aired. Sonny & Cher recorded a song titled, "When You Say Love", written by two country songwriters using the tune of this jingle, and in 1972, it reached number 32 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and number 2 on the Easy Listening chart. (Karmen successfully sued the songwriters for copyright infringement.)... "Here Comes the King" can be heard at the end of the seventh inning during all St. Louis Cardinals home games and at different times during the game (mainly when the team is in a rally). During the period when Anheuser-Busch owned the Cardinals, it was played instead of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during the seventh-inning stretch. It is also played at St. Louis Blues home games.... Georgia Tech bands play "When You Say Bud" regularly at GT sporting and alumni events. The band first played the song in 1970 as a tribute to then-head coach Bud Carson, and the tradition has remained strong. "Bud" is played between the 3rd and 4th quarters at football games, during the second half of Tech basketball games, as well as during volleyball matches, and as part of the 7th inning stretch in baseball games. The University of Wisconsin–Madison's band also plays the song at sporting events, changing the last line to "When you say WIS-CON-SIN, you've said it all!" The song has been known to sway the upper deck of Camp Randall Stadium because fans dance the polka when the song is played...."
Oh, yes, I've heard "When You Said Bud" a thousand times over the years — recent years — because I've been living within earshot of the UW Marching Band practice field for 3 decades. Still, I didn't get the beer brand right. Little did I realize the band wasn't playing for the beer but for Wisconsin.
When you say budtender, you probably moved to Colorado.
Shaefer is the one beer to have when you're going more than one,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nrRlXlbWCU
But, consider the experience of Jerry Lee Lewis -
What Made Milwaukee Famous
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfilJ4hNZYI
Had to make a new tag for
He explained his name in a comment written in a café last October, which Meade — who loves to play the Grateful Dead satellite radio channel in the car — remembered:
------------------------------------
Guildofcannonballs said...
--Their wall are built of cannonballs, their motto is "don't tread on me".--
I thought I heard (and considering all the live versions was I not wrong in this single instance, although I concede perhaps never to be repeated?) 'There was a Guildofcannonballs, their motto is "don't tread on me."'
Anyway it's just great American music by a great American band rightfully admired world-wide. I won't declaim the artists meant a pro-life message however all pro-lifers of sound mind ought see it that way, temporally at least.
"Well the first days are the hardest days, don't you worry any more,
Cause when life looks like easy street, there is danger at your door.
Think this through with me, let me know your mind,
Wo, oh, what I want to know, is are you kind?
It's a buck dancer's choice my friend; better take my advice.
You know all the rules by now and the fire from the ice.
Will you come with me? won't you come with me?
Wo, oh, what I want to know, will you come with me?
Goddamn, well I declare, have you seen the like?
Their wall are built of cannonballs, their motto is "don't tread on me".
Come hear uncle John's band playing to the tide,
Come with me, or go alone, he's come to take his children home.
It's the same story the crow told me; it's the only one he knows.
Like the morning sun you come and like the wind you go.
Ain't no time to hate, barely time to wait,
Wo, oh, what I want to know, where does the time go?
I live in a silver mine and I call it beggar's tomb;
I got me a violin and I beg you call the tune,
Anybody's choice, I can hear your voice.
Wo, oh, what I want to know, how does the song go?
Come hear uncle John's band by the riverside,
Got some things to talk about, here beside the rising tide.
Come hear uncle John's band playing to the tide,
Come on along, or go alone, he's come to take his children home.
Wo, oh, what I want to know, how does the song go."
Songwriters: Jerome J. Garcia / Robert C. Hunter
What a great video! I’d never seen that.
The fact that they were married made the song that much sexier and hotter. Chemistry.
Thanks, Ann. You’re the best blogger in the Universe.
Then they replaced all of this with those stupid frogs.
It was the time when brands started focusing on lifetime value, and all the advertising began targeting nine year-olds.
Thanks, Ann. You’re the best blogger in the Universe.
Juni9$?7:62 puts out a damn nice blog in the Trigodahl quadrant.
But Ann’s certainly got the solar system locked down.
gspencer said...Schaefer is the one beer to have when you're [having] more than one,
That always struck me as an odd tag line: Schaefer—when you don’t care what it tastes like, you just want to get drunk.
Wow. Do those old ads bring back some pleasant recollections.
And isn’t that odd?
Commercials as lavishly produced as the shows they interrupted.
And more memorable, too.
Ha. It always struck me as a little ironic that we adapted that song to "When you say Wiiiiiiisconsin. . . you've said it all" when it was the jingle for the hated rival of all Wisconsin beer.
Funnest song to play at basketball games.
"Lived within earshot"
Now I'm going to have to look up where the term earshot came from.
tim maguire,
Before going public, Shaefer was owned by Nick the Bartender, "Hey look, mister, we serve hard drinks in here for men who want to get drunk fast and we don't need any characters around to give the joint atmosphere"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q46sCU3xph8
I have some interest in whether advertising actually works, i.e. increases sales for a product. Coke kept losing market share during the years when everyone could sing their commercials.
There was a great piece about beer commercials. At one time Schlitz was #1 in the U.S. They actually experimented with ex football players as spokespeople. The big burly guys would scowl into the camera and say "Drink Schlitz." The joke got to be: "Drink Schlitz or I'll kill you." Schlitz suffered a tremendous loss in market share, and never recovered. During roughly the same time, Miller Lite became #1, shortly after only pathetic ninnies would buy anything called Lite (or de-caff). The football players would argue: Tastes great! Less filling! No jingle that I can recall. It seems to have worked.
This also made me think of this: Hey Bud, let's party.
• Sean Penn with a sense of humor: THAT is how long ago that movie was;
• considered rather progressive in its treatment of the female characters at time, it is jarring now to hear the use of the word 'fag' in the clip: that was a well-used part of teenage-boy vernacular in the day;
• Spicoli wore a 'Colt .45 malt liquor' shirt in the film: on Google there are multiple opportunities to buy that clothing item (vintage, now);
• and - of course - Phoebe Cates. Her nude scene was as essential to the plot as the one in "The Crying Game", but probably less troubling to most teenage boys conducting wrist exercises.
I am Laslo.
"Now I'm going to have to look up where the term earshot came from."
Thanks for the prompt. I looked it up. "Shot" means "a division of land." OED. Hence: bowshot and gunshot... it's just the division of land that can be covered by whatever is before "-shot."
"Earshot" seems odd if you think mostly of "gunshot," because the bullet is *shot* from the gun and then covers a particular distance whereas the ear is the receiver of the sound that has originated at the distance.
Anyway, earshot goes back to the 17th century:
1607 F. Beaumont Woman Hater i. iii. sig. B4v Harke you sir, there may perhaps be some within eare-shot.
1681 Dryden Spanish Fryar ii. 25 Gomez, stand you at distance,—farther yet,—stand out of ear-shot—I have somewhat to say to your Wife in private.
I guess Dryden needed to talk to Morticia.
One thing I love about that video is that a crew of diverse New Yorkers just show up and start singing. Classic!
"I have somewhat to say" -- I love that. Somewhat.
It would be funny if all he had to say to Gomez's wife was "Bud."
Rosebud.
"Schaefer" beer cans used to have the slogan "Your Invitation to Quality", which always struck my ear odd.
Like someone's giving out invitations to a party that's happening at someone else's house, maybe.
I am Laslo.
Now do Bagshot.
This is Bud
The failure of Schiltz is a classic business case. It was 1 or 2 but the managers changed the way it tasted. New brewing process was much quicker but the beer was horrible. Schlitz gave us the shits in college.
"division of land" is the 25th meaning the OED lists for "shot." The oldest quote is 15th century:
1478 W. Worcester Itineraries 134 Englysh Stonys et le rok vocat. Trogy anglice le Shotes.
A likely story!
Later:
1523 J. Fitzherbert Bk. Surueyeng xxii. f. 40v This medowe lyeth in dyuers shotes of length, somtyme in two shotes of length, somtyme in one, & somtyme in thre.
1743 Sel. Trans. Soc. Improvers Knowl. Agric. Scotl. 32 The Infield is divided into three Shots or Parts, much about eighteen Acres in all.
The infield? They were inventing baseball.
1821 Scott, "Pirate" III. iii. 52 He claps down an inclosure in the middle of my bit shot of corn.
The "enclosure" movement?
Have you ever read any of Sir Walter Scott? "The Pirate" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pirate_(novel)): "The arrival of the shipwrecked captain, Cleveland, spoils young Mordaunt's relationship with the Troil girls, and soon a bitter rivalry grows between the two men. Minna falls in love with Cleveland, not knowing his true profession. Brenda however is in love with Mordaunt. The pirates capture the Troils, but after an encounter with the frigate HMS Halcyon, they are freed. Brenda and Mordaunt are reunited, and Minna and Clement parted."
As I fact check lots of things, I google "you've said it all" and came to the Wisconsin reference Anthony mentioned above.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7WmjdwK5y0
googled
Listed first!
I was just kidding about Bagshot, but wow! I used to do work at a company that was on a Bagshot Road in a city west of London. I always figured that Tolkien lived around there.
Lloyd W. Robertson,
Actually, Schlitz changed the recipe for their beer (cheaper?) in response to market research indicating that their customers wouldn't notice. They were wrong. Down went the brand. Down so far in fact that Schlitz was bought by Strohs if I remember correctly.
“Count your Blessings” another great song by Val and Nick.
Nick died of throat cancer. Val never remarried.
The "Cleveland" in Scott's "Pirate" was not the Cleaveland after whom the city Cleveland was named. Scott's Cleveland was based on a real pirate named John Gow. Cleveland the city was named after Moses Cleaveland:
"Cleaveland was known as a very energetic person with high ability. In 1788, he was a member of the Connecticut convention that ratified the United States Constitution. He was elected to the Connecticut General Assembly several times and in 1796 was commissioned brigadier general of militia. He was a shareholder in the Connecticut Land Company, which had purchased for $1,200,000 from the state government of Connecticut the land in northeastern Ohio reserved to Connecticut by Congress, known at its first settlement as New Connecticut, and in later times as the Western Reserve. Cleaveland was approached by the directors of the company in May 1796 and asked to lead the survey of the tract and the location of purchases.... At Buffalo, a delegation of Mohawk and Seneca Indians opposed their entrance into the Western Reserve, claiming it as their territory, but waived their rights on the receipt of goods valued at $1,200. The expedition then coasted along the shore of Lake Erie, and landed, on July 4, 1796, at the mouth of Conneaut Creek, which they named Port Independence. Nearby Indians were upset at the encroachment on their land, but were appeased with gifts of beads and whiskey, and allowed the surveys to proceed.. General Cleaveland, with a surveying party, coasted along the shore and on July 22, 1796, landed at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River. He ascended the bank, and, beholding a beautiful plain covered with a luxuriant forest-growth, divined that the spot where he stood, with the river on the west and Lake Erie on the north, was a favorable site for a city He accordingly had it surveyed into town lots, and the employees named the place Cleaveland, in honor of their chief. There were but four settlers the first year, and, on account of the insalubrity of the locality, the growth was at first slow, reaching 150 inhabitants only in 1820. Moses Cleaveland went home to Connecticut after the 1796 expedition and never returned to Ohio... The place called "Cleaveland" eventually became known as "Cleveland". One explanation as to why the spelling changed is that, in 1830, when the first newspaper, the Cleveland Advertiser, was established, the editor discovered that the head-line was too long for the form, and accordingly left out the letter "a" in the first syllable of "Cleaveland", which spelling was at once adopted by the public. An alternative explanation is that Cleaveland's surveying party misspelled the name of the future town on their original map."
I'm from Milwaukee and I oughta know.
Harry Dean Stanton plays the character Bud inRepo Man, the movie famous for:
"6. ONE OF THE FILM’S MOST ICONIC ELEMENTS WAS THE RESULT OF AN ACCIDENT.
When the filmmakers began making Repo Man, they went looking for corporate sponsors to help keep the production viable. Nobody bit, except for the grocery store chain Ralphs and the Car-Freshner Corporation (the company that makes those little scented Christmas trees that hang from rear-view mirrors). The Car-Freshner people donated a bunch of unscented novelty trees, but Ralphs came through with a film-defining contribution: generic products passed their sell-by date with labels like “FOOD” and “BEER.” They were “essentially a fallback position for us,” according to producer Jonathan Wacks. But they became a vital part of the film’s condemnation of consumerism."
The can in action.
I am Laslo.
One nation united with well-dressed, attractive black and white people, all of whom are happy, singing a generic-pop anthem.
Clearly a post-Vietnam 'healing' vibe from about 1977.
Budweiser fell out of the top three beer brands in 2018 and lost the top spot in 2001, according to USA Today. Its market share in the 1970s must have been enormous. Goodbye, three TV networks and goodbye Bud.
Ann, thanks for this post. I have often wondered why GA Tech plays this song -- it seemed odd and kind of lame. The relation to Coach Bud Carlson finally clears that up. Now makes perfect sense.
Many years ago I learned that Sunday morning with Althouse is much more satisfying than Sunday morning with the newspaper!
Today is a perfect example.
And for another fun fact from the internets-
Case Western Reserve University (1967–present)
In 1967, Case Institute of Technology, a school known for its strong engineering and science, and Western Reserve University, a school known for its strong professional programs and liberal arts, came together to form Case Western Reserve University.
All I can say is - Cleveland Rocks!
Wait, that phrase has already been taken.
Hamms.
I would love to hear Val Simpson on the state of modern popular music today; especially rap.
When I heard “Real Love” I was immediately in love with that sound.
I guess that “Bagshot Lane” was the way to a shot of land that had been in the Baggins family for generations. Or that is what Tolkien was trying to convey.
He feels pride for his commercialist propaganda??
When you say "Bud," what you are really saying is, "What a crappy, TLS beer."
When you say Bud, you say the name of a Czech beer that Adolphus Busch coopted from a Czech brewery named Budweiser Bürgerbräu in České Budějovice, Czech Republic, that started exporting to the US under the brand name Budweiser in 1875. That brewery had been brewing Budweiser since 1802, except without the rice (RICE!) that Anheuser-Busch adds to the current version of their swill. Sometime after Busch discovered the Czech beer in the late 19th Century and named is own brew by the same name, Busch sued the Czech brewery and eventually forced a name change to Budweiser Budvar if it was sold in Busch served markets, and the law suits between them and Anheuser-Busch have continued for over a hundred years. So, when you say Bud, you say the name of a Czech pale lager that is brewed in České Budějovice according to the Bavarian Reinheitsgebot beer purity law from 1516, drawing artesian water from wells beneath it and brewed with Moravian barley and Saaz hops, known as a noble hop variety, from the Žatec region. And, THAT is saying it all.
Strohs is another of those successful companies that was catastrophically mismanaged into the ground.
You Honestly didn't KNOW that it was BUD? and you (both!?) thought it was Schlitz??
Okay, either the Two of you smoked WAY TOO MUCH weed (bud) in the '70's
Or, Not Nearly enough; i'm not sure whcih
So, JW, do you know if you can get the original and authentic old-world Bud anywhere here in the U.S.?
Funny sentences from one of those sites which swipe and reword news stories:
"A lady died in Demise Valley Nationwide Park this week as temperatures soared to almost 120 levels.
The intense warmth is predicted to proceed by way of this weekend, with highs forecast at 120 levels for as we speak and 122 for Sunday."
+
Intense warmth in Demise Valley at 120 levels!
The real article.
Old Style was another that crashed and burned.
I remember Stroh’s “bombers.” Half quart cans. Drank a lot of them in my youth. On the job, often it was my boss who would go next door to get them. The seventies were a different time.
I once spent a week in a brewery belonging to a large national brand.
They bottled over 70 brands of beer including their own. Also including a brand that I always thought was imported from Germany.
They brewed 6 different recipes. All pilsner style beers, for example, came from the same vat regardless of brand, regardless of price point. The only difference between supermarket and premium artisan versions was the bottle and the label.
John Henry
Isn't 120 normal for death valley?
Isn't that why they call it DEATH Valley?
John Henry
Mark said...So, JW, do you know if you can get the original and authentic old-world Bud anywhere here in the U.S.?
Yes -- it's called Budvar. They are prevented from marketing it the US as Budweiser. Likewise, AB cannot market Budweiser under that name in Europe -- so they call it "Bud."
But as we deplorable sophisticates know, "When you say rosebud you've said it all."
Anyone want to hazard a guess as to which romantic city Chanel #5 perfume is made in?
The label prominently displays the word "Paris"
John Henry
The Coke commercial ends with an inset photograph of a bottle of Coke. My guess is that after the ad agency gave Coca Cola a preview of that brilliant commercial, somebody at Coke said, “That’s all very nice, but should we show a bottle of Coke?” Imagine Don Draper having to tolerate a troglodyte client sullying his creative genius.
Blogger Wilbur said...
Who remembers:
Here comes the King
Here comes that big number one
Budweiser beer the king is second to none!
Blogger Tank said...
Many, many years ago, I referred to Miller as the King of Beers. Took a lot of abuse for that.
Miller is the champagne of beers!
On one of my many trips to Ireland, the big craze in the pubs in the west counties was Budweiser and country-western music. Everyone everywhere in Donegal, Mayo, Clare, etc. was drinking Bud and singing and dancing to CW. Irish singers were singing country-western songs in what they thought were rural American accents and drinking Bud out of cans.
I was somewhat relieved to return to Chicago and hang out pubs where I could drink pints of Guinness in a glass, sing rebel songs, and talk to people with unintelligible accents.
Miller Highlife
The Champagne of bottled beer
Sparkling - flavorful - distinctive!
A great jingle.
I'm shocked at how much of the lyrics I still remember. But the whole point of a jingle is to be a mindworm.
Replace the colorful, carbon-based bags of mostly water with green, carbon-based bags of mostly water. Bud. Weiser. Ribbit!
Having grown up in the NYC area, I have fond memories of Bob and Ray doing commercials for Piels Beer, or the yearly Miss Rheingold contest.
"Miller is the champagne of beers!”
Champagne of bottled beers.
Mark asked; "So, JW, do you know if you can get the original and authentic old-world Bud anywhere here in the U.S.?"
It's sold as Budvar or Czechvar in the US. You can find it in beer specialty shops in every state.
or the yearly Miss Rheingold contest.
They revived that campaign a while ago. Some chick from Brooklyn. That was one dirty bitch.
Blogger Roughcoat said...
Irish singers were singing country-western songs in what they thought were rural American accents and drinking Bud out of cans.
One of my favorite Country & Western singers is Beccy Cole. She is from the deep south.
Well, the deep south of Australia, anyway. I think you would have to go to New Zealand to get any more southern than that.
John Henry
We drank beers that couldn't afford advertising-- Wiedemann's in particular, also good for washing socks. Coors, of all things, was sneaked in untaxed from Colorado . . . now there are dozens of microbreweries here and I hardly ever drink. ($1.00 would buy a quart of beer and a pack of smokes at the Food Giant in 1972.)
Narr
Not a Deadhead
tcrosse said...Having grown up in the NYC area, I have fond memories of Bob and Ray doing commercials for Piels Beer, or the yearly Miss Rheingold contest.
Having grown up in the Madison area, I have fond memories of Stan Bran pivoting from talking about hunting and fishing on "Outdoors Calling" to do commercial breaks for Huber beer made in Monroe, WI. I think that brewery now makes Spotted Cow.
Blogger CWJ said...
Lloyd W. Robertson,
Actually, Schlitz changed the recipe for their beer (cheaper?) in response to market research indicating that their customers wouldn't notice. They were wrong. Down went the brand. Down so far in fact that Schlitz was bought by Strohs if I remember correctly.
The whole sad Schlitz Affair. One batch of beer they sent out had the little silicate/protein flakes in the bottom of the cans and bottles. That really sunk 'em.
Pabst bought hundreds of labels and has lately been bringing them back in selected areas, usually with one of the old classic recipes. I think there are a few bars in WI that have the old Schlitz on tap. Old Style can be found as well, which I found surprisingly tasty.
Maureen Ogle wrote a very readable book on the American beer industry.
"Get-Get-Gettelman Beer"
Inga should remember that one.
I can recall the drive from Madison to Milwaukee in the early 1960's. The I-90 corridor was flanked by breweries on both sides and I always asked what that smell was as we drove through. "Hops" was the answer. Laverne and Shirley were surely lurking there somewhere.
A German friend once told me that "No German would name his beer Schlitz." The word is slang for "pussy" in German and is cognate with our word "slit."
Mark said...Old Style was another that crashed and burned.
Old Style was a G. Heilemann Brewing Co. brand made in "God's Country" -- aka La Crosse, WI. They used a carbonation process called Kräusening. I'm surprised that it hasn't been revived. Not sure who owns the mark nowadays. We called "Old Style" "Dog Style" in high school. Michelob was our beer of choice. I suffered many a "Michelob-otomies."
Hudepohl. Beautiful.
Anyone drink Falls City? It was a super cheap beer brewed in Louisville. I liked its distinctive aftertaste.
Wilbur drinks about 4-6 beers a year now. Alcohol doesn't much agree with me, and hasn't for about 10-15 years.
“Blogger Unknown said...
One nation united with well-dressed, attractive black and white people, all of whom are happy, singing a generic-pop anthem.”
That’s what struck me. Despite a cast of dozens, not an overweight, sloppily dressed schlub in the lot. Middle-class culture, and self-respect as a value, was on the verge of dying at this time. I know it’s a freakin’ beer commercial but it looks like a vision of a better world, bell bottoms notwithstanding.
How about Utica Club. I used to love the talking beer stein ads as a kid. Marketing to children! String ‘em up!
Old Style was THE Chicago beer for a long while. I mean, it was very hip -- served on tap in Wrigleyville, e.g. We'd smuggle cases of Old Style to Colorado and, for the return trip, smuggle cases of Coors to Chicago. One year my roommate made c. 100k on the Coors-to-Chicago trade. He sold cases of it to bar owners, who then sold it under the table to their in-the-know patrons. I'm thinking of writing a novel about it.
In the late 60s when the Cubs were going strong (only to crash), Cub manager Leo Durocher did TV commercials for Schlitz. He'd be sitting around with a group of guys drinking Schlitz from long-neck bottles and telling stories about his MLB playing days. Upon completing his tale he'd look around at the guys, smiling, and exclaim: "Hey, fellas, how 'bout another Schlitz?!"
That became a catchphrase for us young and boisterous guys, riding around in a car on a Satruday night, drinking Schlitz or Old Style.
I tried to find it online, but couldn't- the most memorable Budweiser commercial for me is the one with the Clydesdales pulling the wagon through the heavy falling snow. It ran in the late 70s. I could find several of these horse commercials, but not the one I remember the most vividly. I usually saw during football games.
I'm from Milwaukee and I ought to know:
It's draft brewed Blatz beer, wherever you go.
Smoother and fresher, less filling that's clear,
Blatz is Milwaukee's finest beer!
-- Sung at top of our lungs, by a group of guys riding around in a car in Chicago on a Saturday night, when the commercial was played on the radio
Wilbur: "Anyone drink Falls City? It was a super cheap beer brewed in Louisville."
I did when I was in school there. I had a frat brother whose father worked for Oertel's there, and when the brewery closed in 1966 or 67 (I think) the frat house was able to swap empty kegs for full ones of Oertel's 92 - the brewery just needed to turn in empty kegs to prove they poured it down the drain, but we weren't going to let that happen. (Mitch McConnell was one of my frat brothers, but I think he graduated before that.)
Old Style is still alive and well in Chicago (and never left AFAIK). Haven’t had one of those in many years, I should try it again.
That was pretty much THE Chicago beer in the 70s for us high schoolers.
Just now bought a six of Czechvar. In the fridge chilling. (Not going to drink it English-style.)
I'll try it probably tomorrow. The chocolate milkshake I just had has got me a bit full.
I'm shocked at how much of the lyrics I still remember.
I found myself singing the Julie London Marlboro jingle where she is in the back of a limousine and when Marlboro was a "woman's" cigarette. (from memory. I'll test myself later):
"Why don't you settle back, and have a full flavored smoke?
Settle back, with a...Marlboro.
Make yourself comfortable whenever you smoke
Have a Marlboro...cigarette"
Of course they hit the big time when they went with cowboys and the theme from The Magnificent Seven.
@chickelit. When we drank Mold Style back in the teens (ours) someone at some point was sure to yell, "I've been Krausened!" and, depending upon the severity of the Krausening, perhaps fall to the floor and twitch a little. We were, by our own reckoning at least, wits if not scholars.
In the old days in Madison there was a beer joint called the Kollege Klub, or KK, right between the library and the book store, before they expanded the former and moved the latter. The KK served nothing but Old Style. It was a dump but very popular.
Hamms! Heilemanns! Nobody has mentioned Jax, which passed for beer in Louisiana back in the day.
This is like a stroll down bad-memory lane.
Narr
Blatz. Rolling Rock. PBR.
If those foreigners who bought AB had a brain in their collective heads, they'd re-do that commercial, update it somewhat and have Valerie Simpson reprise her role.
My hippie church turned the lyrics into, “”When you say Lord Jesus .... you’ve said it all.” The rest of the lyrics followed the Bud lines but appropriated then to Jesus, the King of kings. When we sang it in meetings it got rather loud and boisterous.
Good times.
Just dug the words out to our appropriated version of this jingle back in the 70’s.
When you say “Lord!”
You say a lot of things nobody else can say;
When you say “Lord!”
You say you care enough to only want
the King of Kings!
For there is nothing more;
There’s only something less!
Jesus is all in all; He is the very best.
When you say, “Lord Jesus!”
You’ve said it all.
Still the greatest (and coolest) Budweiser commercial of all time-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU6xhLNfnQ4
RIP, Leon Redbone...
Go for the gusto schlitz - "Treasure Hunt is a great commercial" Too bad it was lousy beer. It reminds me of Miller and Rainier Beer. Seems the badder the Beer - the better the commercials.
Love how "Teach the world to sing, is all blondes, then a couple random black people, then the occasional Indian Hindu and right at the end...an Asian.
When I think back my stay in your wonderful state during the late '70S and the '80s - Camp Randall 's old second deck got kind of scary when the Badger band played an instrumental with a most appropriate eight word verse at the end
More commonly known as "Bud", this is the newest addition to the musical traditions of Wisconsin. The song was first performed for university functions by the Varsity Band during the hockey season of 1972, but it was at the NCAA Championship in 1973 that the tune received its first great popular acceptance as it was played by the Band in the Boston Garden, in hotel lobbies, and in the streets of historic Boston. From that time on the song has become a phenomenon at all athletic contests ... at alumni events ... and even at commencement exercises. (And although it causes the upper deck to "sway," it is bound to keep echoing in Camp Randall with great regularity.) Why has it caught on so universally throughout the state? No one can answer except to suggest, "When You Say WIS-CON-SIN, You've Said It All!"
On an episode of the Simpsons it was revealed the secret recipe for Duff beer was "Schlitz plus water"
“Seems the badder the Beer - the better the commercials.”
For badder or worse, the two are married.
Additional fun facts:
In the 60s, Chicago Cubs games were sponsored by Hamm’s beer. Their jingle was set to an Indian Tom-Tom sort of tune.
From the land of sky blue wa-aters. (Echo) Wa-aters.
From the land of pines and lofty balsams.
Comes the beer refreshing.
Hamm’s the beer refreshing.
Ha-a-a-ams.
In one of Leo Durocher’s beer commercials he recalled an argument with umpire Beans Reardon. The story ended with Leo saying, “Not today, Beansie.” This became a popular catch phrase, and I still say it.
Wisconsin Budweiser Commercial
That was pretty much THE Chicago beer in the 70s for us high schoolers.
Old Style was the first beer i'd ever had (Hoffman Estates, Ill: June, 1978)
Old Style was the first beer i'd ever vomited (Hoffman Estates, Ill: June, 1978)
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