One of the most successful and
iconic commercials ever produced is the 1971 Coca-Cola Commercial, “I’d Like to
Teach the World to Sing.” On a hillside in Italy, Coca-Cola’s advertising
company McCann Erickson (now McCann) gathered hundreds of young people from
across the globe in their native dress to sing a song of togetherness and Coke.
Admittedly this was simple grasp for a larger market share of the carbonated
beverage market by what was then and still remains one of the largest
international companies. Nevertheless, there are times when the commercial
airspace can embody the zeitgeist of the era, capture a moment in time, and
elevate the audience spiritually and emotionally. This commercial achieves
that.
The commercial is probably
dismissed by its cynical detractors as treacly tripe, and there is a certain
saccharine sweetness about it. Between the love beads, Nehru jackets, and dashikis,
as well as representatives of each possible race, creed, and color, it looks
like every 60s/early 70’s stereotype exploded on screen. Yet, for those of us
alive today who remember when the commercial first aired, in the midst of an
unpopular war, civil strife, racism, and a president of dubious ethics (sound
familiar?), it uncomplicated a complicated world — at least for 60 seconds.
On Jan. 8, 1971, Bill Backer, the
McCann Erickson’s creative director for the Coca-Cola account, was stuck in an
Irish airport due to a fog delay in London. He was headed there to meet with Billy
Davis, the music director on the account, to discuss a new ad campaign for Coke
which would use music by songwriters Roger Cook and Roger Greenaway and have
the final product recorded by the then-popular group The New Seekers. The problem was that while they had the music,
they didn't yet have the message, but this layover would provide the
inspiration.
While waiting in the airport
café, Backer noticed that his fellow passengers, who at first were angry at the
delay, began to loosen up and chat and laugh while enjoying something to eat
and something to drink — Coke, in fact. According to a Jan. 1, 2012, article on
the Coca-Cola corporate website, Backer later recounted:
In that moment
[I] saw a bottle of Coke in a whole new light . . . [I] began to see a bottle of Coca-Cola as more
than a drink that refreshed a hundred million people a day in almost every
corner of the globe. So [I] began to see the familiar words, 'Let's have a
Coke,' as more than an invitation to pause for refreshment. They were actually
a subtle way of saying, 'Let's keep each other company for a little while.' And
[I] knew they were being said all over the world as [I] sat there in Ireland.
So that was the basic idea: to see Coke not as it was originally designed to be
— a liquid refresher — but as a tiny bit of commonality between all peoples, a
universally liked formula that would help to keep them company for a few
minutes.
There seems to be some confusion
over who came up with the key lyric of buying the world a home. Backer, in a
May 18, 2015, Slate article, noted he dashed down the key phrases, “I’ve got to
teach the world to sing. I’d like to buy the world a home and furnish it with
love.” Davis, however, also lays claim to those particular words. As reported
by Coca-Cola, Davis, while liking Backer's idea of buying the world a Coke, thought the concept could be expanded more and told
him, "Well, if I could do something for everybody in the world, it would
not be to buy them a Coke. . . . I'd buy everyone a home first and share with
them in peace and love." Whatever the origin, the lyrics came together
quickly. Cook and Greenaway partially completed the music in 1970 for another
campaign under the title "Mom, True Love, and Apple Pie." Adapted for Coca-Cola, it
highlights the connection between the product and a sense of nostalgia
embodied in the song's wistful longing for simpler times and "peace and love."
Frickin’ hippies, am I right?
Well, Backer loved the sentiment
and with the creative team they began to write the lyrics and adapt it to Cook’s
and Greenaway’s music. Over the course of the next few days, they finished the
song and not long afterwards the New
Seekers recorded it and it was released on Feb. 12, 1971.
Coke admits that their bottlers
were not particularly excited about the song, which is not surprising because
they were largely stodgy old businessmen, but Davis’ contacts in the radio
industry reported great excitement among their listeners and they suggested
that the jingle be released as a single.
In the meantime, work on the
iconic commercial began. At first, the commercial was to be filmed on a Dover
Cliffside with a few hundred British schoolchildren and 65 “principles” slated
for the lip synching duties. British weather, however, as Backer learned during
his layover in Ireland due to the London fog, proved problematic with several
days of rain. Consequently, the whole production was moved to Italy. Rather
than school children from one country, 500 young people from all over the world
were cast. The rain, however, proved as troublesome in Italy as it did in
England and the delay in shooting caused cost overruns from the $100,000
originally budgeted to $250,000 ($633,508.64 to $1,583,771.60 respectively in
2019 dollars). The commercial was first aired in the United States in July 1971
and the impact was immediate. The commercial and the song captured the spirit
of the times and connected with consumers on an almost spiritual level.
Production on the single was
moving forward, but The New Seekers
were reportedly too busy to record, so McCann Erickson turned it over to a
session group who dubbed themselves The
Hillside Singers to identify more closely with the TV commercial. Once their
version of the song was released, it hit the charts fast. Two weeks later,
Billy Davis persuaded The New Seekers’
to record their version of the song. Billboard
reports The New Seekers version of
the songpeaked at number 7 on the
Billboard Hot 100 on Jan. 15, 1972. The same week, The Hillside Singers’ version hit its highest chart position at
number 13. Coca-Cola, in agreement with the songwriters and publishers, donated
the initial $80,000 in royalties to UNICEF ($506,806.91 in 2019 dollars).
In 2015, the finale of the AMC TV
series Mad Men brought the commercial
back into the public conscious, and deservedly so. Commercials are often
overlooked as the most ephemeral of film media, but as we can see in the 1971 Keep America Beautiful PSA, the 1971 Radio Free Europe PSA, and the 1966 CBS Seasons Greetings: Animation by R.O. Blechman,
all previously reviewed on Aeolus 13 Umbra, they can also raise the format from
a crass attempt for consumer dollars to communicate larger ideas of community
responsibility, democracy, kindness to animals, and, in this case, kindness to
our fellow human beings.
The 1971 Keep America Beautiful public service announcement (PSA), also
known as the “Crying Indian” commercial, had a powerful effect on the American
public, both young and old. First airing on Earth Day
in 1971, the two-time Clio Award-winning campaign created by the Marstellar Inc. ad agency represents a sea change in America on how we
treated the environment. Actor William Conrad’s deep, resonant voice and the sorrowful face of a Native American creates an indelible impression, adding to
the gravitas of the message. Today, we have little appreciation for how dirty
our environment was back in the 1960s. Lax laws and regulations resulted in pollution,
smog, litter, poisoned water sources, toxic waste dumps, the use of PCPs in
neighborhood electrical transformers, and other similar blights on our
environments.
First, it should be acknowledged that the actor portraying the Native American "Crying Indian" in the PSA is, in fact, Iron Eyes Cody,
an Italian American. Born Espera
de Corti, Cody had a long career in Hollywood portraying Native Americans and
so fully absorbed himself in his role that eventually he wore traditional
native garb every day as well as adopting two Native-American children with his wife.
Indeed, Cody denied his Italian heritage later in life. This type of cultural
appropriation is questionable at best, and in Cody’s case perhaps a sign of
senility as he grew older. It also came at a time of an increasing push for Native
Rights as with the American Indian Movement (AIM) founded just a few years
earlier in 1968. I do not doubt that if Cody’s true ethnic heritage was more
widely known at the time AIM would have been less than pleased. From
a modern perspective, I have to admit it makes me feel uncomfortable while at the
same time still being moved by the PSA and Cody’s understated performance.
It is notable, however, as reported by the Internet Movie Database, in 1995 Cody was recognized by
“Hollywood’s Native American Community . . . as a ‘non-Native’ for his
contribution to film.” He was also honored with a star on Hollywood Boulevard
in 1983.
The Keep America
Beautiful organization was comprised not of environmental groups, but
rather of corporations such as the American Can Co., Owens-Illinois Glass Co., Coca-Cola,
and the Dixie Cup Co. Founded in 1953, they espoused a general anti-littering
message. Historian Finis Dunaway, professor of history at Trent University, in
a Nov. 21, 2017, Chicago Tribune
article notes that in the 1970s these companies pushed against proposed “bottle
bills” that required beverage producers to use reusable containers, a more
costly alternative to using non-recyclable materials, which in turn
contributes to the levels of litter shown in the PSA. This would lead to the
members of the Keep America Beautiful advisory board, the National Audubon
Society and the Sierra Club, leaving the group.
Dunaway further compares the “silent” and “powerless” Native American portrayed
by Cody to the more politically active American Indian Movement. The inference here
being that the Native American character in his silence is somehow complicit in
the perpetuating the White narrative that the Native American lacks any real power to
effect change. I have to completely disagree. From a literary perspective, Cody
is more of a silent Greek chorus — wordlessly commenting on the morality of those who
pollute the Earth.
Nevertheless, despite the cynicism of Professor Dunaway, according to the Ad Council the "Crying Indian" campaign led to a nearly 88 percent reduction of litter in 300 communities in 38 states as well as in several nations. This PSA had a powerful effect on American Baby
Boomers and early Gen Xers. After seeing the commercial, I remember
how my friends and I became much more conscious about the effect we, and others, had the
environment. When someone driving down our quiet little residential street threw a big bag of garbage out their car window, my childhood friends and I called the police, who came and took a report. We wrote down the license plate number and gave it to the officer who went and had a "chat" with the offender
— and returned his bag of garbage. Small incidents like these and others in the 1970s, multiplied by the millions, owe their inspiration to this PSA.
The message of the “Crying Indian” PSA also melded with environmental
warnings on other TV shows, such as the 1974 All
in the Family episode "Gloria's Shock" when Mike warns
Gloria of the hole in the ozone caused by chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs),
found in everything from hairspray to deodorant to refrigerators. According to an Apr. 10, 2019, Sierra Club report, this episode so
terrified the public (and a 10-year-old me) that sales of these products dropped almost immediately until CFCs were finally banned in the United States in 1978. Environmental
messages were also embedded into early/mid-70s Saturday morning children’s shows such as Superfriends,Sealab 2020, Ark II, and many more. The
overall effect resulted in a generation of environmental
advocates who grew up to be a persistent thorn in the side of corporations who
sought to maximize their profits at the expense of the land and our future.
As for Dunaway’s assertion that the agenda of the Keep America Beautiful
campaign was really a Trojan Horse effort to forestall bottle bills from being
passed, the plan didn't quite succeed. Because of the “Crying Indian” PSA, and other
similar efforts in popular culture, as noted above, environmental awareness was dramatically raised. While partially successful in limiting the number of
states who passed bottle bills to just eleven, plus one territory (California, Connecticut,
Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Oregon,
Vermont, and Guam), recycling campaigns spread. Today, schools and offices deploy the ubiquitous
blue or green recycling containers and even waste disposal companies provide
their customers with a trash can just for single-stream recycling. So, even in
those states without bottle bills, aluminum, glass, and plastic containers form
a significant part of recyclable materials. Nevertheless, the lack of a nationwide bottle recycling law hampers environmental efforts. While we’ve come far, we still have a long way to go.
The trade publication, Ad Age magazine, named the Keep America Beautiful campaign one of the top one hundred ad campaigns of the twentieth century and it is well-deserved. Nearly fifty years later, the image of the “Crying Indian” has become an
iconic American symbol and a persistent, if sometimes ignored, warning of the
consequences for mistreating Mother Earth. In its positive effects on the
environment, this PSA remains one of the most powerful and successful efforts
of its kind.
The 1971 Radio Free Europe (RFE) Public Service Announcement (PSA), “The IN
Sound from Outside,” features
Peter, a young Hungarian expatriate who fled his native country’s Communist
government following the 1956 Revolution and subsequent Soviet military
occupation. He runs up the steps to his radio studio and, with his coat coolly draped on
his shoulders, introduces The Drifters’ “On Broadway.”
RFE’s mission was to promote democratic values and spread news and music otherwise
suppressed in Warsaw Pact nations. Its sister group, Radio Liberty (RL) focused
just on the Soviet Union. Both were funded by the CIA as a public relations
outreach, however, despite that, RFE was a largely independent group that,
while dedicated to promoting democratic values, was reportedly allowed to
operate with minimal interference from the CIA.
According to the Cold War Radio Museum, 1971 was a pivotal year for the
RFE/RL when Republican U.S. Senator Clifford Case who proposed to kill funding
for the broadcasting groups, so this PSA comes at a time when RFE/RL needed to
raise its profile at home and maintain its funding. Despite the wide airplay of
this particular PSA, CIA funding ceased in 1972 and in 1974 RFE/RL came under
the auspices of the newly created Board for International Broadcasting (BIB),
through which Congress provided funding which then would be distributed to
RFE/RL and other similar such groups. The result probably provided for
tightened control over the organizations.
Producing History
As noted in ciphers released by Radio Free Europe (see below), the filming of the PSA took place in 1968. The café scene, implied to be behind the Iron Curtain, was, for "reasons, including
time and money,” shot in Vienna, Austria. The script called for
finding 15 ex-patriate Hungarian students, between 19 and 24. The shoot itself
took place on Wed., July 17, 1968.
Original RFE ciphers detailing the planning of the filming of the PSA.
A second shoot was scheduled in New York City on Monday, Aug. 5. Sharp-eyed
commentators who speculated that the street scenes took place in New York City are
indeed correct. The RFE ciphers indicate that the building the announcer is
shown entering is 2 Park Avenue, where the RFE studio was located on the 25th
floor. It was there that our earnest young DJ introduced The Drifter’s “On
Broadvey” in his native Hungarian to his audience behind the Iron Curtin. The
narration was recorded Wed., Aug. 14. Journalist Mike Wallace agreed to do the
narration, although it sounds like someone else was tapped for the final
version seen on TV. Although filmed in 1968, and probably aired shortly
thereafter, the above version dates to 1971 as identified by the post office box
number given at the end, 1971, which is how RFE tracked the broadcasts.
The images of a handsome young man and a smoke-filled coffee house has a
certain romance to it and the power of this short film is evident in the number
of Baby Boomers and early Gen Xers who recall the PSA quite fondly. For me
personally, it inspired an early interest in politics and radio.Later in life when I did work in broadcasting,
every time I got behind the mike the fleeting image of this PSA was always in
the back of my mind.
Some may decry the efforts of RFE as just Western propaganda, and admittedly
that is certainly true; however, such claims also ignore the great desire by
those people locked behind the Iron Curtain for self-determination and freedom
from Soviet oppression. As one commenter on the PSA noted, “Radio crossed
borders where people couldn’t” (see comments on the above YouTube video). This
long-suppressed desire exploded following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 when
revolution swept through the Eastern Europe. While Hungary moved from communism
to democracy and capitalism relatively peacefully, if not without economic
problems, in neighboring Romania the changeover was more violent and ended with
the execution of its leader Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife Elena.
Who is That Guy?
Identifying the good-looking young announcer in the PSA was a real
challenge. With a background in corporate intelligence and defense analysis, I like to think I'm pretty good at finding an answer if it is out there; nevertheless, I came up empty-handed when trying to identify who “Peter”
was. His last name, while mentioned at the start of the PSA, is obscured by the
ambient street noise. I reached out to native Hungarian speakers in hope they
could recognize the name, but to no avail. After months of researching, I
finally contacted Radio Free Europe and emailed Martin Zvaners, Deputy
Director, Media and Public Affairs, who informed me that the young man’s name
is Peter Záboji. During the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, Záboji and his
family left Budapest. He later became a freelance producer, serving as the disc
jockey for the “Teenager Party” rock music show on RFE (3-6 p.m. Saturdays and
Sundays) and hosting a one-hour jazz program on Friday afternoons under
the name Erdei Péter. "On Broadway," in fact, was Záboji's theme song
used on his shows, though it's unclear whether it was used for the rock or the
jazz program, or both.
Original RFE ciphers discussing Peter Zaboji’s
selection for the PSA.
This is a real scoop for Aeolus 13 Umbra readers as there is no information
in the open press associating Záboji with this famous PSA and the text in the
scans of the cipher documents are not indexed by search engines. So, this
information was buried quite deep in the Internet. My thanks go out to Martin
Zvaners for taking the time to respond to my inquiry and share with me the
ciphers from The Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives (OSA) at Central European University (CEU).
Zaboji in 2014.
Záboji was highly educated with a B.A. in Physics and Mathematics and a
M.Sc. in Business (Diplom-Kaufmann) from Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich,
where he was attending at the time of the filming. In 1970, he began working
for IBM and later moved on to Siemens in 1973. Following the resumption of democracy in
Hungary in 1990, he went on to make significant contributions to his homeland.
According to Zvaners, Záboji became an angel investor and was influential
in establishing Budapest’s success as a high-tech hub and helping create startups
through his “European Entrepreneurship Foundation.” He later went on to teach
at the Institut Européen d'Administration des Affaires (INSEAD) in France, and St
Ignatius College and CEU Business School in Budapest. In
April 2014, Záboji
was awarded the Knight of Cross by the President of Hungary János Áder, “In
recognition for bringing entrepreneurial spirit and culture to Hungary,” as noted
in Záboji’s LinkedIn profile.
Záboji carried on the very best traditions of the mission of Radio Free
Europe to bring democracy and economic opportunity to Central Europe. Born, according to open sources, December 25, 1943, he was 24 at the time of
the filming of the PSA in 1968, and passed
away July 15, 2015, at the age of 71. A true, if underrated, hero of Western democracy,
Záboji’s contributions made both Hungry and the world a better place to live
in. Sources: Cold War Radio Museum (Dec., 13, 2018), LinkedIn, Martin Zvaners (Deputy Director, Media and Public Affairs, Radio Free Europe), and The Vera and Donald Bliken Open Society Archive (OSA) at Central European University (CEU).
From the Aeolus 13 Umbra YouTube Channel. See
the end of this article for more links.
Playboy After Dark was a syndicated TV series hosted by Hugh Hefner
and which aired from 1969 to 1970 for a total of 52 one-hour episodes over two
seasons. Recorded at CBS Television City in Los Angeles and at KTLA on Sunset
for the second season, it featured some of the most popular artists in TV,
film, music, and even comedy. This was Hefner’s second weekly series. His
earlier effort, Playboy’s Penthouse,
which aired from 1959 to 1960, was produced in Chicago, then the headquarters
of the magazine’s offices, which limited the celebrities available for taping.
The move to LA not only expanded the number and variety of guest stars, but
also took advantage of LA’s prominence as the nexus of the entertainment
industry in America. Following the end of the series, Hefner moved his
base of operations from Chicago to LA in 1971.
As soon as one hears the smooth
jazz opening theme music and sees the flashing lights of the building
located at Sunset and Alta Loma which sported a Playboy Club (though the series itself was filmed at CBS Studies), it’s hard
not to feel a lot cooler and suave than one actually is in real life.
Jerry Lewis (far left), Sammy Davis Jr. (center) and Hugh Hefner (far
right), just another night at the party. Playboy After Dark attracted the era’s top talent — andeven let Jerry Lewis in!
Both the 1959 and 1969 series
centered on the now iconic cocktail party, with well-dressed men and women
schmoozing, drinking, smoking, and flirting with each other while discussing
the latest social and political topics. More notably satirized as a sketch in Laugh-In, the Playboy cocktail party was the fantasy that populated the minds of
many young people of the era as the Holy Grail of single adulthood. Sharp-eyed Laugh-In fans will recognize tall,
lanky, mustachioed African American dancer Bryon Gilliam, a Laugh-In cocktail party dancer and
regular performer who also appears in Playboy
After Dark, providing some continuity between the two programs.
Few people and publications have
so embodied the zeitgeist of its times like Hugh Hefner and Playboy. To be sure, Playboy didn’t invent pornography. In
fact, during its reign as the leading publication of nude female photography,
it was generally regarded as the tamest of such periodicals. Instead, Playboy’s influence is rather as a men’s
lifestyle magazine. Building upon the traditional American rugged
individualist, Hefner and Playboy
promoted a literate, worldly man, informed on contemporary art, fashion, film, literature,
music, politics, sports, and, of course, sex. The old joke about Playboy, “I only read it for the
articles,” has a grain of truth in that the articles actually were worth
reading. As a young teen, I often found myself unaccountably detracted by the
articles, interviews, and jokes — honestly!
As noted in the expansive retro
entertainment website, TV Party, the
set for Playboy After Dark was
constructed at a cost of $35,000 (approximately, $244,278 in 2019) and Hefner
had no problem attracting top stars and models to populate his parties. While
the exposure succeeded in showing Hefner had more to him than just a purveyor
of pornography, the show was still a difficult sell in the more conservative
Midwest and Deep South, where the Playboy
name made widespread national syndication of the series somewhat challenging. In
fact, it was so problematic that at least in one city, Charlotte, NC, the show
was listed under the title “Hugh Hefner.”
The Playboy male ideal
At its height, the Playboy Empire
included not just the magazine, but also books, merchandise, and a nationwide
chain of high-end clubs. The clubs went out of business in 1991, but the brand
was resurrected in 2006 and a handful still exists. In 1986, I almost made my
way into the Buffalo club on a double date, ironically at the insistence of the
girls we were with. While I was wearing a tie, the other guy wasn’t, so we
didn’t get past the lobby. Yes, they had a dress code.
In a way, the magazines, the
clubs, and the shows promoted a common male culture one step forward of the
two-fisted drinkers of their father’s generation. The ideal “Playboy” man would
be able to converse at parties on a wide range of topics, tell jokes, and mix
the latest drinks. Still though, with a few exceptions for the exceptionally
talented female celebrity, women were typically treated as little more than
accessories rather than as equal participants in the sexual revolution. This is
on display in the very first scene of the video above where models Barbi
Benton and Claudia Jennings (1970 Playmate of the Year) are given orders to
cook eggs for guests. It betrays an inherently chauvinist attitude towards
women not far removed from the previous generation.
I am disinclined to attribute the
entirety of responsibility for the sexual revolution of the 1960s solely to Playboy; however, the magazine rode the
forefront of the social movement and was influential in spreading the idea that
sex and the female body was not a dirty secret to be hidden, but rather
celebrated. While Playboy was a
relatively more modest publication than its competitors, the magazine could
still push the limits of what was acceptable in terms of female nudity until
hardcore pornography became more widely distributed. I am reminded of a scene in Billy Hayes’s autobiography
Midnight Express where after escaping
a Turkish prison in 1975, following five years behind bars, he picks up a copy
of Playboy and is immediately shocked
at how much more nudity was displayed compared to 1970.
That Playboy’s Penthouse and Playboy
After Dark both lasted two seasons each is not really indicative of a
failure. The point of both programs was to raise the profile of the publication,
and, to that end, it succeeded. Additionally, both programs capture a moment in
time and Hefner had an instinct for knowing when the moment had passed, and,
like every good host, he knew when the party was over.
In addition to conversations with some of the most popular entertainers and public figures at the time, Playboy After Dark featured some of the most iconic and influential acts in Blues, Pop, and Rock and Roll. Click on the links below for performances from Playboy After Dark available on the Ae13U Blue Planet YouTube channel.