Say Cheese

Time for Timer was a PSA, a public service announcement, that put out series of cartoons- shown on Saturday mornings in the 1970’s.  Timer was a cute round yellow meatball looking dude.  He had a few PSA’s out, but the most memorable was: “I Hanker for a hunk of cheese”.  Timer gets shot in the hat and then sings about how “when you’re dancin the hoedown, and yer boots kinda slow down…” you hanker for a hunk of cheese.  Catchy. Repeated weekly and easily memorized.  I was 7.

Fast forward several decades and I still know the jingle. It’s chilling to me, because here was one 58 second ad, and yes, I did request to eat more cheese.  Cute and happy Timer told me to, and to eat cheese on a cracker which emulated a wagon wheel.  How fun! Bring on the cheese.  Again, I was 7 and not pointing fingers, but by 9, I was a chubby kid. Not just from cheese but from other ads enticing kids to consume mass quantities of food. It worked.

History lesson: In 1972 there was a petroleum shortage, AND a dairy shortage.  The US government subsidized dairy, including cheese.  Hence the Saturday morning cartoons.  Get kids to eat cheese!  Milk em.

Then, there was an over surplus of cheese.  Hence the Reagan Government handout cheese in the 1980’s.  

I think of this now because I can see it more clearly in modern ads and psa’s..  I was a kid and I trusted tv and government.  Can you imagine? 

Ads needed to get more and more sophisticated for the tech savvy kid.  Who knows what consequences this will have.  

My example is dated, obviously, but I guarantee you have your own trunk of jingles that you can’t forget.