The Metro: A jingle jaunt down memory lane
John Filbrandt December 19, 2024Jon Moshier, host of WDET’s “Modern Music,” joined Ohad Wilner of Yessian Creative to reflect on the art of TV and radio jingles.

Screenshot of a classic Tootsie Roll commercial, "How Many Licks."
Commercial jingles stick with you. Composing one of these short tunes may be more of a thing of the past in today’s advertising world, but they continue to strike a chord in our memories. Thursday on The Metro, we dove in deep to learn more about how this distinct art form has evolved over time.
Jon Moshier, host of WDET’s “Modern Music” and executive music producer for Doner Advertising, joined the conversation to reflect on the art of the jingle.
Moshier says a favorite ad from his childhood is Tootsie Pop’s “How many licks?” He remembers part of the campaign including a contest where you could receive a certificate for guessing the correct number of licks, which his brother received.
“And now I work for the ad agency that created that campaign,” Moshier said.
Doner has also worked with brands like Chrysler, Tylenol and The UPS Store, to name a few.
Popular songs are now the standard for advertisements, Moshier said. There are now less jingle writers and more people working to license music for commercials.
Yet musician-made jingles remain some of the most indelible form of commercial, and the Dittrich Furs jingle crafted by Dan Yessian is a prime example. Yessian is an award winning composer and the founder of Yessian Creative, a music and production company that serves the advertising industry.
“I was summoned by Hale Dittrich the owner of Dittrich — I should say the late Hale Dittrich — to come in and produce a jingle for Dittrich Furs,” Yessian said. “And his comment was, ‘Whatever you do, make sure people hear our name over and over again.’”
Ohad Wilner has been working with Yessian Creative as a composer and audio engineer for 12 years. He said he learned so much from Yessian’s jingle archive and working alongside him. He remembers Ford’s jingle from when he first moved to Michigan.
“I moved to Michigan in the late ’90s, and ‘think Ford first’ was one of those that you heard all the time, everywhere, all the channels, all the radio stations,” Wilner said. “And my dad worked for Ford at the time, so it was kind of a little fun thing.”
In 1969, Sesame Street harnessed the addictive qualities of commercial jingles and television production to educate kids. Kathryn Ostrofsky is a historian at the University of Richmond who is currently writing a book about the show’s impact on American culture.
“The research department of the Children’s Television Workshop, now Sesame Workshop that produces Sesame Street, they would come up with what are the lessons that need to be taught,” Ostrofsky said. “And then they would just hand it over to the production and production crew, professional songwriters, people who had worked in advertising before, people who had worked in popular music before. They already had these skills from those professional experiences, so they knew what to do.”
We also asked our listeners:
“Is there a jingle you can’t get out of your head? Do you even like catchy jingles to begin with?”
Gordon in South Africa said: “In the ’70s, there was a furniture company in Detroit called Joshua Doore furniture. And Joshua Doore had one franchisee, and that was in South Africa. It stopped existing in Michigan, but the jingle continued on, and it’s still used to this day.”
Use the media player above to hear the full conversation starting at the 53:00 mark.
More headlines from The Metro on Dec. 19, 2024:
- People have been outlining problems in our health care system ever since the CEO of UnitedHealthcare was murdered point blank at gunpoint. WDET’s Sam Corey spoke to Wayne County Executive Warren Evans about how they’re helping people tackle medical debt.
- The Motown Museum is celebrating the 60th anniversary of their most iconic tune this Saturday. “My Girl” by the Temptations was released on Dec. 21, 1964 and became an international hit for the band. WDET’s Ryan Patrick Hooper spoke with Motown Museum Development Director Paul Barker about “My Girl’s” legacy and how they’re celebrating.
- Dr. Teena Chopra, a professor of medicine and interim chair of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Wayne State University, also joined the show to discuss the rise in infectious diseases in Michigan and what families should know about the vaccines that prevent those diseases.
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Author
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Jack Filbrandt is an assistant producer on WDET's daily news, arts and culture program, The Metro. He grew up on Lake Michigan and has called Detroit home for seven years. He's also a Detroit Documenter, covering local government meetings in the city. He previously worked for Wayne State's student newspaper, The South End, and The Battering Ram.