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Help with commercial in Atlantic County-- vampire and nerd

R

radiofansj

Some years ago, there was a famous radio campaign for, I think, a furniture store that's now closed. Rosemarie's, I think, but I could be wrong.

The two voices were a vampire and a nerd, usually parodying some 50's song to plug the store. Does anyone remember this campaign and anything about it? TIA!
 
I wouldn't call it "famous" but you are probably thinking of Crazy Ned's Furniture on the Black Horse Pike in Pleasantville (Egg Harbor Township) They were voiced by Joel Gibbs, clever but not much talent, everything sounded the same. They always mentioned "accessories by Rosemarie" or something similar.

http://www.voicechoice.com/
 
My old morning show partner Frank Gerace and I always used to parody Joel's spots behind the scenes when they played.

("Jewish" male voice): "ESTHER! DON'T COME IN IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE NAKED!"
("Jewish" female voice): "I've seen you naked and it's not such a big thing."
(Frank, mimicking male voice): "Always with the jokes you silly bitch."

Joel also got into trouble for using a number of pop songs without approval. I remember once when we got a call at WOND to pull his spots for Delilah Outlet Market because they used the Tom Jones song "Delilah," and Tom Jones heard the spot on one of our sister stations while he was coming into town for a concert!

Joel is probably best known the "Samurai" voice he did for years for Shore Toyota, then (for some unknown reason, Grand Auto Mall).
 
I used to work at WOND. Good times.

So the vampire may have been a stereotypical "Jewish" voice? What the heck was the whiny guy meant to be?

Shame Joel didn't get a BMI/ASCAP license.
 
According to a 2002 article I dig up from the "Press of Atlantic City" article (I was bored), the voices are Crazy Ned (the "nerd"), and Uncle Ed (the "vampire"). I still say they sound like a vampire and a nerd, but apparently they're supposed to be Jewish. The more I think I know, the less I find I do.

And apparently the voiceover guy's wife did the voice of "Rosemarie," Crazy Ned's wife.

Yes, I'm bored.
 
"Getting" a music publishing house licences does nOT mean you can use a hit record song for commercial purposes. Ya think the composer and artist would let "Gentlemem's Club" use it for free because the production house had a license? The staions thaat aired it had licences, didn't they?

You need to negotiate rights t use copyrighted materials like hit songs, heck, even background mussic in spots. That's why stations BUY production libraries, so they OWN the rights to the music in the spots without hassle. It is illegal to lift bridges, loop middle 8 bars, intros and such from recorded artist's LP's and hits without the rights. If you get caught, which is easy today because everyone streams and the songs are picked up, the 1st offense is 4x damages, subsequennt damages can be 10x damages or the profits made from the use of the song. That means station logs & contracts get subpoened, legal bills through the roof. Read your ASCAP BMI guidelines and warnings that are given to stations to be haanded to Production Directors and Salespersons. They usually get ignored and stuffed in a box. The ONLY time a hit record can be used is under a LIVE read. I don't know why. I guess because it's not being re-recorded.

If you don't think they'll go after you, remember, they sued and WON chasing high school kids with 30 songs on their computers...$1000 per song. Ruling upheld.

If a client asks, decline, just tell then you can't do it. It's illegal, UNLESS you buy or lease the rights. HH Gregg with "Help!"? Yes, re-recorded, and leased from Northern Music for 1 year, renewable. Also Used by Ocean City Home Bank several years ago.

And the campaign had NOTHING to do with Vampires, Jewishness or anything like that...where are you heads at? WTF? The whole campaign was modeled after The Might Carson Art Players from The Tonight Show: Tea Time Movie where Carol Wayne would walk on. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXuEZRds818
 
...and of course, in a commercial for their own appearances/concerts.
 
amfmsw said:
"Getting" a music publishing house licences does nOT mean you can use a hit record song for commercial purposes. Ya think the composer and artist would let "Gentlemem's Club" use it for free because the production house had a license? The staions thaat aired it had licences, didn't they?

You need to negotiate rights t use copyrighted materials like hit songs, heck, even background mussic in spots.
Click to expand...

...but the little stations down the shore used to do it ALL THE TIME. I think WCMC was the worst offender. The probably figured they could get away with it through sheer obscurity, and I guess it worked for a while. (Anybody remember the Mickey Mouse Tavern on the Black Horse Pike in Folsom? Same principle. They were around for years before Disney found out about them. Their sign even had Mickey hoisting a mug of beer!)
 
Quite comfortably on the sunny side of 60, thank you. But that was still on the TV at the time.

And I think the bar referred to is Mickey & Minnie's Inn in Cologne on the White Horse Pike...still in business. They're almost as old as Disney! (1938)
 
My father was the Gm / salesperson for Crazy Neds for a few years... He said people loved the commercials and would often start conversations about the commercials before they even wanted to look at furniture... I did an internship at Boss 97 and also loved the commercials years before my father worked there....
 
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