Snap, crackle, pop? Callow youths who hear that riff might mistake it for the opening of a new rap song, but anyone old enough to have endured the 1950s and ’60s knows the refrain as the opening of a TV-commercial jingle for Rice Krispies cereal. Now the old standby is getting play once again as part of a popular new record called Tee Vee Toons: The Commercials. The album features such Madison Avenue jingles as Brylcreem’s A Little Dab’ll Do Ya, Alka- Seltzer’s Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizz and Noxzema’s The Stripper (Take It All Off). Since its release last month, the album of musical doggerel has sold more than 100,000 copies. The Commercials even appears on Billboard’s chart of the 200 top-selling record albums (currently No. 186).
The record’s producer is Steven Gottlieb, 32, a Harvard Law School graduate and erstwhile corporate lawyer who four years ago produced two albums of TV- show theme songs titled Television’s Greatest Hits. Total sales: more than 1 million. Gottlieb does not take his records completely seriously, however. Says he: “It’s like musical candy.” And the sales are pretty sweet.
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