Can't tell you who was behind that Simpson's spot you love so much, but the "Sooner or later you'll own Generals," was one of hundreds of jingles written by the great Steve Karmen. He's hardly a household name but I'm willing to bet almost everyone here has heard at least some of his work. Among his classic ditties:

-At Beneficial, you're good for more (doot doot),
-When you say Budweiser, you've said it all,
-Aren't you glad you use Dial
and perhaps most famously:
-I Love New York

A colleague of mine went to his Manhattan studio a few years ago to interview him and his stories, and the audio that went along with them, could fill a book. In fact, you can find a list of his output here, and I guarantee you'll know a lot of them.

It was a long time ago, but my friend was a woman and you can hear on the tape she brought back that Karmen was hitting on her unashamedly through most of the interview. In fact, after they were done, he tried to invite her out to dinner. She was on deadline, newly married at the time, and had to decline.

Last edited by aflem (July 15, 2015 10:23 AM)

Hi Mike,
  I have a small clip of your favorite "Simpsons Jingle" and tried to post it here but being a newbie on this board I have to post twice before I can link to it...

Okay so I've posted twice now... http://www.markelliot.com/Toronto_Commercial_Collage.mp3
"

• At least 300 seconds have to pass between posts. Please wait a little while and try posting again.
• Have I ever spoken about "frustration"?"

Last edited by Mark Elliot (September 24, 2015 2:34 PM)

Thanks Mike!
Writing the stories about my career is making me relive a lot of insane situations like Quebec.  FYI for those who haven't seen the story: http://gta.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?id=345
It's neat because it's audio, video, text, photos, and newspaper articles galore.
Even one that dates back to training a Radio Waterloo at the University of Waterloo.
My old PD Dave Gillick came up with a photo shoot from 1970 that has me hamming it up as a 16 year old.
http://issuu.com/uw_imprint/docs/1970-71_v11-n30_chevron/6
Even I have trouble understanding how it all happened.
Like I've said: The wrong boy in the right place at the right time.

"Try Ted Davy!" OMG. It was near where I lived as a kid. "Ramble off to Rumble"  I was thinking about that jingle just this week. Actually I was thinking about the word "ramble" and the jingle came to mind.

Thanks for the montage Mark.



.

p.s. I've sent the Quebec story to a friend in Hollywood to consider for a movie.

If you read my stuff on medium.com the stories are going up there as fast as I can write them.