Jingles All The Way: A Library of American Broadcasting Spotlight

From Alka Seltzer’s “Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizz” and Oscar Mayer’s “I Wish I Were an Oscar Mayer Wiener” to soft drink sing-alongs, commercial jingles have a long history on radio and television in the U.S.

Now, the Library of American Broadcasting is paying tribute to decades of commercial prowess with a special virtual exhibit.

Introducing “The Lost Art of Jingle Writing,” an online offering tied to the library’s collection of U.S. radio and television history housed at the University of Maryland-College Park, just outside of Washington, D.C.

The LAB exhibit is culled from a collection of iconic ads archived by the Radio Advertising Bureau.

Advertising jingles are believed to have started in 1926, when a barbershop quartet in Minneapolis was hired to perform a Wheaties breakfast commercial.

It wasn’t until 1939 that a catchy jingle began airing nationwide on a growing number of commercial radio stations that became emblematic of radio’s brand-growth potential through song. A Pepsi Cola ad — “Pepsi Cola Hits the Spot” — made its debut. It was created by the Newell-Emmett advertising agency and composed by Alan Kent and Austin Croom-Johnson. And, it was a hit, remembered across generations.

Included in the LAB/RAB collection are jingles such as the memorable Alka Seltzer spot “Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizz“, Coca-Cola’s “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing,” and Oscar Meyer’s “Oh I Wish I Were An Oscar Mayer Wiener.”

The collection includes jingles crafted from composer giants in the advertising world, including Steve Karmen, Richard Trentlage, Thomas Dawes, Bill Backer and Ellie Greenwich.

Originally housed in the National Association of Broadcasters’ previous Washington, D.C., headquarters in Dupont Circle, the LAB collection moved to its current location in 1994. The Library includes the papers and transcripts of legendary ABC and CBS TV journalist Howard K. Smith, the Arthur Godfrey Collection, digitized tapes of newsmaker interviews from the 1950s and 1960s from Westinghouse Broadcasting (later known as “Group W” before its merger with CBS in 1999), and audio recordings, microphones and memorabilia from KDKA Pittsburgh, the nation’s first commercial broadcast station.

Earlier this year, the Library introduced the exhibit “From Amos ‘N’ Andy to Civil Rights: The Inclusion of Blackness in Commercial Radio Broadcasts.”