“Every 19 minutes … the place goes crazy.”
Northfield Park began using that advertising slogan in 1985 and Shaker Heights composer Jim Brickman turned it into a catchy jingle that ruled the airwaves for a couple of decades in Northeast Ohio.
Now here’s the inside story.
After we highlighted the jingle in a recent article about memorable songs from local companies, we heard from retired advertising man Jeffrey Russell, who lives in Durham, North Carolina.
He’s the one who came up with the phrase.
As a freelance writer, he worked on the Northfield Park marketing campaign with Alan Glazen Advertising of Cleveland. One evening, he and Glazen joined track executives in the clubhouse dining room overlooking the races.
“It was my first time ever watching harness racing,” Russell recalled. “As we sat around the table talking about their goals and objectives, the noise level grew from general restaurant level to a surprisingly loud shouting and screaming. It was, of course, the race being run and the diners cheering on the horses they had bet on.
“The first time this happened, I was caught kind of off-guard. The second time was less surprising, but still a bit disconcerting. By the sixth race of the evening, I had figured out the trend, timed it, and mentally developed the slogan. I pitched it a few days later to Alan, and we then presented it to the Northfield Park team. They loved it.”
Here’s something few people know. When Russell timed the public outbursts, they consistently occurred every 22 minutes.
“That’s what we presented to the client: ‘Every 22 minutes the place goes crazy,’ ” he recalled. “We talked about it and decided it would sound better if we could get it under 20 minutes. They called in their chief operations guy and asked if he could start each race 19 minutes after the conclusion of the previous race. He said he could do it, and a slogan was born.”
They produced a few commercials before creating a jingle. Glazen brought in Brickman — a future Grammy nominee and platinum-selling artist — to do the music, and the rest is history.
Russell said the Northfield Park experience is his favorite example of “why freelance writers deserve royalties.”
“I’m not sure how much Jim made over the 20 years the thing ran,” he noted. “I made about $250, one-time project billing.”
There is one side benefit, though.
A few years ago, another ad agency brought Russell in to work with the Ohio Horsemen’s Harness Association.
“When I was introduced in our first meeting as the guy who created ‘Every 19 minutes,’ I was treated like a god,” he said. “So at least there’s that as a reward.”
Your ‘Buzzin’ Cousin’
“This is for the really old folks,” wrote Akron resident Marjorie Forsch, who will turn 97 in August. “I remember the theme song for Jack Clifton’s DJ program on WADC.”
Clifton, whose real name was Louis K. Salsburg, began working at WAKR in 1947 before moving to WADC two years later. His afternoon program, “Buzzin’ Cousin,” featured “bright chatter and peppy records.”
In 1952, Clifton became program manager at WCUE and took over the 7-9 a.m. morning show, which he named “The Sunshine Club.”
Sadly, the popular disc jockey died in 1956 at age 29 after battling cancer.
Forsch can still sing Clifton’s jingle 70 years later:
“Here’s your Buzzin’ Cousin
“Saying ‘hi’ to you.
“With records by the dozen
“Some old, some new.”
Start your engines
Although she hasn’t heard it in decades, Beacon Journal reader Pennie Fordham remembers the commercial.
“It’s not exactly a jingle, but a slogan, a chant, or something,” she wrote. “It has a cadence. The pitch rises and falls. It speeds up and slows down. The volume … well, the volume stays pretty steady at just below a shout.
“SUNday! FUNday! At beautiful Thompson DRAG Race-way. Drag racing capital of MID America!!”
As Fordham put it: “Still living rent free in my head.”
Thompson Drag Raceway opened in 1960 in Geauga County nearly 50 miles east of Cleveland. In 2021, it became Kuhnle Motorsports Park.
We wonder if that announcer is the same guy who used to promise: “Sunday! Sunday! Sunday! We’re going to turn the Richfield Coliseum into a muuuud pit!”
The chill factor
Manchester High School alum Mary Jones Jacobs, who now lives in Texas, said Lawson’s “Big O” jingle is “still firmly ensconced in my brain, all these years later.”
“Another that I still remember is the tune of the radio ad tagline for ‘Sol Bergman Jewelers, Fourth and Prospect downtown,’ ” she wrote.
“And while it’s just a ‘sounder,’ not a jingle, very cold weather always brings this distinctive Sohio ad sound effect to mind, along with the slogan, ‘You go or Sohio pays the tow.’ ”
Oooh. Good one! On frosty winter mornings, that electronic echo effect was especially chilling.
A triple whammy
“333.” “333.” “333.”
MacIntire Chevrolet operated from 1969 to 2002 at 333 E. Market St. in Akron. The dealership’s radio commercials always emphasized the three-digit number.
“333.” “333.” “333.”
“After all this time, I still remember the address,” Cathie Bachtel wrote. “Effective advertising!”
“333.” “333.” “333.”
“MacIntire Chevrolet, 333 E. Market St.,” Steve Styer recalled. “I never forgot their address.”
“333.” “333.” “333.”
‘See the USA …’
If you were alive in the 1970s, there’s a good chance that Charlie Miller kissed you.
The Willoughby Hills auto dealer flooded the Cleveland television market with commercials for more than a decade before selling his $20 million business in 1980.
At the end of each TV ad, the bald, bespectacled salesman blew a kiss to the camera.
Do you remember the catchphrase that preceded that big smacker? We’ll let Beacon Journal readers Lora Staats, Ed Arida, Paul Galley, Mike Vayda and Sam Galioto say it in unison:
“See the USA in a C. Miller Chevrolet!”
They sure don’t make ads like that anymore.
Mark J. Price can be reached at mprice@thebeaconjournal.com
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: The untold story of that 1980s jingle you know | Local history
Reporting by Mark J. Price, Akron Beacon Journal / Akron Beacon Journal
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By Mark J. Price, Akron Beacon Journal | USA TODAY Network
