What's in a Name?

The other day in writing about Indiana and its new state law, I mentioned how my grandmother and several other relatives lived in Miller Beach, a sleepy little area just outside Gary on Lake Michigan, with sandy streets as you neared the lake.  As fate would have it, I've been reading an autobiography by Studs Terkel, Touch and Go, and just today there was a passage about his friend, the author Nelson Algren, who Terkel noted had been living with French author and feminist Simone de Beauvoir. and the two moved from Chicago to...Miller Beach!  I had no idea.

Of course, that's not my favorite passage from the book.  That came on page 116, where Terkel writes about his beginnings in radio in 1944.  

"By this time at Meyerhoff [an ad agency in Chicago], I'm working on the Wrigley account, under the wing of I.J. Wagner, the inventor of the singing commercial.  He liked me and suggested I do a sports show, The Atlas Prager Sports Reel.  Atlas Prager was a local beer, out-fit-controlled.  The show was on every night at 6:00.  The announcer would say, 'Atlas Prager got it, Atlas Prager get it!'  Wagner deliberately made it irritating so you'd remember the name."

Then later, he adds, "Evenutally, Wagner said, 'I'm moving to a new agency, Oleon and Bronner, and I want you to come with me.  What would you like to do?"

I mention all this because, as I've mentioned here previously, I.J. Wagner -- "the inventor of the singing commercial" who Studs Terkel always gave credit for starting his career in radio -- was my second cousin (my father's first cousin), who I was named after.  

You'll note that I write as Robert J. Elisberg.  I include the "J." because is't my homage to Iz.  His name was Isadore James Wagner, and I'm Robert James Elisberg.  But it's always wonderful to read when Studs Terkel writes about it.  The two were quite close, and Studs even spoke at Iz's funeral (before I was born).  And as I wrote here, I once had a brief opportunity to talk to Studs and tell him about all this.

By the way, what Studs writes about Iz making some of his ad copy intentionally irritating so that it would be remembered was quite true.  One of the most popular coffees in Chicago years ago was Thomas J. Webb brand, and the radio ad for it had had a very whiny wife calling out to her husband, "Mortimer!!  As long as you're up, get me some Thomas J. Webb Cofffffffeeeeeeee."  Several years ago, I cross pass with a much older TV writer, David P. Lewis, who earlier in his career worked at the same ad agency in Chicago as Iz, though just after I believe, but he knew of him.  He told me the story of how when he started at the agency, being a young know-it-all, he told his new boss how much he hated the Thomas J. Webb ads.  The benevolent bass, rather than ripping him a new butthole and firing him on the spot calming got out the rate book and showed him how the sales of Thomas J. Webb coffee had skyrocketed since the ad campaign began.  David said it was one of the most valuable lessons he ever learned in advertising.

Repetition was very big with Iz, in part for the same reason, so that the consumer wouldn't be able to help but remember the product name.  His most-famous jingle was almost entirely repetition, for Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer.  To the tune of "10 Little Indians," it went --

What'll you have?
Pabst Blue Ribbon.
What'll you have?
Pabst Blue Ribbon.
What'll you have?
Pabst Blue Ribbon.
Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer.

And for a popular candy at the time, Whiz Candy Bar, he not only used repetition but told the listeners what he was doing.  The ad copy went --

"Whiz!  The best candy there is!"
"You can say that again!"
"Okay, I will.  Whiz!  The best candy there is!

I may tell this story again some time.  Part of the reason is that I'm proud of it.  But also...well, repetition, y'know...