134: Monkey Business On a Sunny Afternoon

134. "Tarzan Boy" by Baltimora {#13; 10/85} [iTunes? Yes] {YouTube: Tarzan Boy.}

Baltimora is not from Baltimore. Baltimora is actually from Italy, and their frontman is an Irishman named Jimmy McShane. Pretty interesting, no?

And yet for all that intrigue, that has to be one of the most boring videos I've ever seen. I had never seen the video before, and it is leaving me a little perplexed. It's not often that a video will make me like a song less, but that's what this one did. The song is fun. The guy looks interesting. But.....bleh.

Now, to change the subject, I'd like to talk about songs in advertisements. I like songs in advertisements. There are a large number of songs that I was first introduced to because they were in commercials. Often, it's new music, like when Vertigo by U2 was being used for iPod commercials a few years back.

But, sometimes it's older music that I just wasn't familiar with. That was the case with John Lennon's Instant Karma. I first heard it in a Nike commercial 20+ years after the song originally came out, and I thought, "Dang, that's a great song!"

And, of course, sometimes they take a song that I'm very familiar with and use if for a commercial. That's where Tarzan Boy comes in. Because of the imagery of the commercial it was used in, pretty much every time I hear this song I picture a bottle of Listerine swinging through the jungle.

Come to find out that the people at Pixar are the ones responsible for my swinging mouthwash memories. (Here's a link to the commercial: Tarzan Boy Listerine.)

I'm not sure if having the images from this commercial come to mind when I hear this song is a good thing or not. But, there is one instance of use of a classic song in a commercial that still haunts me to this day. Several years ago Dominoes ran some ads to promote their new buffalo wings using We Will Rock You by Queen. Every once in a while, in the deep dark recesses of my brain, when I hear the song I still think: "We will, we will rock you, buffalo wings." (I really hope the guys from Queen put the money they made from selling out to Dominoes to good use.)

COMING UP NEXT: Charley T. Wilbury, Jr.!