Jingle All the Way

Alan ("The Beard") Kent and Austen Herbert ("Ginger") Johnson sold a singing commercial to Pillsbury Flour Mills Co. Scheduled for a late August debut, it is the latest product of a partnership that has made them kings of jingle. It is scored for 23 brass instruments, a Hammond organ and a male voice. The miniature cantata runs for one minute. Excerpts:

Colonel Wheat, Colonel Corn, Colonel

Rice, Colonel Rye,

Pillsbury's Colonels on flavor parade.

The mixture is swell,

Rings the breakfast bell

Pillsbury's Pancake Serenade.

The idea of the singing commercial is that it will haunt the prospective buyer more than the nonsinging commercial. Kent and Johnson most notably haunted the radio public in the fall of 1939 with a little number which undoubtedly has had something to do with Pepsi-Cola's $14,000,000 increase in gross sales since then.

It began:

Pepsi-Cola hits the spot,

Twelve full ounces, that's a lot. . .

Other Kent and Johnson haunts:

Momma, Momma, Momma, won't you

Larvex me?

Listen to the handy Flit Gun (whistle--

sh-h-h!).

MooOO to YouUUU (Borden's milk).

"Organized Seduction." Alan Kent is a 32-year-old former salesman from Chicago who had moved into radio announcing and comedy when Austen Johnson met him in Manhattan's NBC offices in 1935. Dressy Austen Johnson was born in England in 1909, is vague about what he did between then and the '30s when he began arranging BBC musical programs including one of sweet tunes which he called "Organized Seduction." In 1935 he sailed to the U.S. to do a program for NBC. He was not much impressed with Alan Kent, who had been recommended to him as an announcer, but a later meeting and a drink led to their partnership.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.