Pat McMinn: Geddes Dental Renovations advertisement (1949)

 |   |  <1 min read

Pat McMinn: Geddes Dental Renovations advertisement (1949)

It's an odd but understandable thing that advertising jingles can often make as much, if not more, impact on our consciousness than serious music.

The reason is perhaps simple: they are short, catchy and you hear them a lot.

Few if any advertising jingles in New Zealand were heard more than this one by Pat McMinn whose other claim to fame was the song Opo The Crazy Dolphin which was written by jazz pianist Crombie Murdoch in 1956.

But this ad played on radio for as long as I can remember. It was certainly still being played in the Eighties but according to Chris Bourke here, all the pianist Nancie Harrie, male singer Lee Humphries and McMinn got was two guineas apiece (two pounds and two shillings).

The catchy ad lives on -- it nags like a toothache actually -- but Geddes has been long gone.

Last I looked it was a barber shop.

"Need a haircut, need a haircut, woe is me what shall I do . . ." 

For more oddities, one-offs or songs with an interesting backstory check the massive back-catalogue at From the Vaults.

 

.

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   From the Vaults articles index

The Bassline Boys: Warbeat; Germany Calling (1989)

The Bassline Boys: Warbeat; Germany Calling (1989)

Odd what turns up in a record collection left in my care. While moving a few boxes of old vinyl I found a swag of stuff my oldest son had left behind when he lit out for Over Seas. He has... > Read more

Oasis: Cum on Feel the Noize (1996)

Oasis: Cum on Feel the Noize (1996)

In their heyday, Oasis didn't just borrow from the Beatles, a Coke ad ("I'd like to teach the world to sing/buy the world a Coke") and glam but they would cover the Stones' Sympathy for... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

LEE SCRATCH PERRY IN THE 90s: Getting dub'n'reggae through time tuff

LEE SCRATCH PERRY IN THE 90s: Getting dub'n'reggae through time tuff

By the early 90s - a decade on from the death of Bob Marley - the consciousness reggae movement he headed was floundering internationally. In New Zealand, where reggae is one of the bloodlines, it... > Read more

BOB DYLAN; 1990-2006: THE NEVER ENDING NARRATIVE (Chrome Dreams DVD)

BOB DYLAN; 1990-2006: THE NEVER ENDING NARRATIVE (Chrome Dreams DVD)

Although Bob Dylan closed his shapeless and directionless Eighties with the acclaimed Oh Mercy album produced by Daniel Lanois, no one would really have considered him ripe for a career... > Read more