Recalling the Schaefer Jingle in the Age of Gambling Ads
Commercials that anchor our times.
Jingles are cultural anchors. Listen to a classic jingle from the three-network era, and depending on your age, you’ll be longing for your hula-hoops or your click-clacks.
Schaefer’s “one beer to have when you’re having more than one” jingle* targeted the working man, the one who didn’t care about drinking responsibly when he was thirsty. “In this man’s world,” his wife was ready with a cold brew the moment he got home from work. Notable members of the Schaefer Circle — another marketing ploy — included the venerable royalty of jazz, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, and Lena Horne, who all gave the song a try in different Schaefer spots. A Spanish version played on WXTV-41—desde Pa-tehr-sohn, New Jersey. It was one of my party tricks, to sing the jingle in Spanish: “Schaefer — es la — mejor cuando se toma más de una. Vaso tras vaso…” When I used my gravelly voice, I gave Louis a run for his money. At least I thought so.
My favorite Schaefer spot featured the rookie truck driver who is coerced to “get up on the barrel and sing” the Schaefer jingle. His half-hearted attempt brings on more razzing, and an unequivocal command from one of the veterans, “Sing!” He goes on to belt out a heartfelt rendition of the jingle, disarming the locker-room hazing, and melting the veteran truckers, a kind of bully payback that most grammar-school kids like me understood.
The “up on the barrel” spot came on frequently between innings of the Yankee games on WPIX-11 in the early 70s, stamping my memory alongside recollections of the announcers from that era, Phil “Holy Cow” Rizzuto, Frank Messer, and later, Bill White. There’s Roy White holding his bat low, an unorthodox batting stance I tried to emulate, and Horace Clark, the leadoff man with dorky glasses and batting helmet he wore even on the field, where he was efficient if not smooth. Number 6 and number 20 were my favorite players on terrible Yankee teams. The pathos of that Schaefer locker room scene helped soften the youthful despair of those dispiriting seasons.
Most baseball fans, including me, had no clue the rookie trucker was played by Larry Kert, an actor who could really sing. He was Tony, singing “Maria,” in the original Broadway production of West Side Story. At the end of the commercial, he nervously wrings his cap just the way Maria would have wanted to wring Chino’s neck.
Nostalgia about the Schaefer commercial led me to wonder what will be memorable to an eleven-year-old watching a sporting event today? Of course, the great games and brilliant plays. But during a break in the action, a young sports fan sees mostly ads for gambling sites and betting apps — sometimes even during the action.
Ads for gambling sites have squeezed out many others. Even beer commercials are rare. There’s a peculiar distortion of what is important during a sporting event, given the repetitive shilling about spreads and odds by actors, former players, and even the announcers. It’s disappointing when another recently retired hero faces the camera enticing bettors with “risk-free bets.”
College sports, primarily football, are not immune either. Now you can place bets on your dorm mates. You can almost feel the tentacles reaching for the wallets of the most vulnerable through the screen: “try parlay bets for more than one way to lose.” The weak attempts at public service announcements at the end of the spots, “got a problem?” in small type, seem, well, weak.
Fortunately, players caught betting on games have been few, and those caught have been well-publicized and ostracized. Less obvious are the effects on regular joes, and on society, as the number of bettors with a problem grows. Few of these ads come close to being memorable, and none feature anything close to jingle we’ll remember fifty years from now. That’s probably a silver lining.
Knocking gambling ads with a paean to a beer commercial might seem misguided. Of course, neither is suitable for a minor, but the beer commercial is selling a feeling and brand loyalty. No kid my age felt compelled to go out and buy a beer instead of watching the next inning. On the other hand, the ads for bettors sell a fantasy — easy living is just a parlay bet away — with claims to offer unlimited returns once you join their club, a pitch that is shamelessly fraudulent.
* Robert E. Swanson wrote the Schaefer jingle. He was known as the King of the Jingles. (He’s someone in need of a Wikipedia page.)
