The Definitive 1000

We are going to be counting down the Definitive 1000 things. Why are they Definitive? Because The Friendly Friends have deemed them as such.

#972 - The Ideal Jingle




Any child of the 70's and early 80's who got his or her cartoons from Channels 17, 29 and or 48 knows what I'm talking about. The little ditty that goes something like this:

If you've got a passion for fashion
If you've got a craving for saving
Then take the wheel of your automobile
And swing on down to IDEAL!

For those of you unfamiliar with this tune or for those of you just missing it, do yourself a favor and check out Tom McNally's Website to listen and reminisce.

The people behind Ideal were advertising geniuses. They bought up all the ad time that the local stations couldn't get rid of with the idea that this commercial would run in all of those time slots. And I'm talking ALL of those time spots. I swear there where times when that commercial played 6 or 7 times during a 30 minute cartoon.

But the real reason I dug this from the deep, dark recesses of my brain and dusted this little gem off is the sad news that after 70 years, Ideal is closing its doors.

Now, I've never actually been to Ideal, and until tonight I hadn't heard that jingle in at least 20 years. But there's something weird to the thought that it will no longer exist.

UPDATE: According to the Sunday Inquirer on July 13th IDEAL has been saved! It has been bought and will continue to operate as it has for 70 years. Also, the new owners bought the rights to jingle so maybe we'll be hearing it again!