Comments on: Mamy Poco Pants!

Mamy Poco Pants!

flapjax at midnite — Sat, 23 May 2009 07:15:23 -0800

Those of you who think doing TV commercial jingle music might not drive you insane... THINK AGAIN!

Several years back, I had a gig doing a TV commercial jingle, here in Japan. The product? Disposable diaper pants! What a shitty gig! Har har har! But seriously... the commercial opened with 3 moms, all busy changing their baby's diapers, and they're saying: "These diapers suck! Wish we had disposable pants-type diapers for our infants!" Then, POW! ZING! The product appears! Mommies and babies are happy and excited! The commercial ends with the product name: "Mamy Poco Pants!" And there's the rub. The client was fine with the music that I came up with, straightaway. But the agony had only begun. The quality and tone and personality of the product-name sound bite, THAT was something they just couldn't make up their minds about. Endless meetings, endless emails... "Make it more exciting! Make it more playful! Make it more Japanese sounding! Make it less Japanese sounding! Try singing it! Make it sound like a crowd! Make it... sigh. It was a very particular kind of hell. That grown men in suits would spend that kind of time and psychic energy on such minutiae, that they could have that hard a time deciding on what these three gaddam words should sound like... it was enough to make you want to just drop music and go into the retread tire business. Or start a campaign of genocide against advertising executives. Anyway, there are 8 versions here, for your listening, um, pleasure. And that ain't all of 'em. There were at least 5 or 6 more, that I haven't included. There's really only so much I could bring myself to subject you good people to. By the way, my wife (the sound bite vocalist on this magnificent gig) still can't even bear to listen to this, lo these many years later. Some things are just too painful to revisit.

By: chococat

chococat — Sat, 23 May 2009 14:15:15 -0800

Wow. I feel your pain, truly.
For a few years I was an assistant editor of TV commercials and it was identical to how you describe it. I would sit for hours with suited Pantene clients showing the "final" cut of the commercial over and over as they fussed and flip-flopped over how the shot of the fucking vitamins penetrating the hair follicle should be 1/10th of a second longer or whatever, change everything around, change it again, and again, only to revert back to my original cut 3 hours later. All while they pigged out on the trays of food that I, being the assistant, had gotten for them. God forbid you had any plans for the evening or weekend; cancelled. I remember having to call friends and cancel on them because I had to stay late to compile reels of "hair acrobatics," going through hours of tape of those slow-motion shots of beautiful, shiny hair falling in different scenarios.
I've said before that working in film and tv killed any desire I had left in me to actually make films, and it's funny that you've posted this because I've recently been thinking of looking into jingle-writing. But now you've frightened me. I'd hate to start hating music, too.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Sat, 23 May 2009 17:20:33 -0800

Yeah, chococat, it really can be a soul-crushing endeavor, doing jingles. I don't recommend it, personally.

If you do luck out and just get something accepted with minimum fuss and revisions, it can be fine. Happened to me once. Here's a completely different scenario from my own experience, a much happier one:

Back in the 90s, in NYC, I knew a couple of guys who had a very successful jingle business going. Had their own stylishly-appointed loft/studio in SoHo, clients up the wazoo, etc. Every now and then they needed to farm out work, they'd get more than they could handle. Once they asked me to do a piece on spec for a Chevy GEO commercial. They said do anything, but it has to have that snippet of the song "Getting To KnowYou" in it, which was the GEO logo at the time. So, I threw something together in one evening, 4 or 5 hours total I spent on it. The client loved it, I made a few thousand bucks straight off, AND, got residuals thereafter, as long as the ad(s) ran. Aside from the initial fee, I got quarterly checks, mostly for several hundred dollars, for two years straight. All for one evening's efforts. Sweet.

Thing is, that's so much the exception to the rule, it's almost like a dream. I still can't believe it happened.

By: snsranch

snsranch — Sat, 23 May 2009 17:56:44 -0800

Thanks for posting this. The commentary from you, flapjax and chococat, is really interesting. I never realized those kinds of jobs could be so tough and rigorous.

If you're sensitive at all about your work, it's hard enough posting stuff here let alone having some suits who couldn't find C on a keyboard trash your work day after day.

As far as these jingles go, if my kids were still poopy, I'd go out and get some Poco Pants right NOW!

I really like hearing variations on a theme/concept/song.

By: danb

danb — Sun, 24 May 2009 07:18:51 -0800

Oh, you poor guys! This is Room 101-level material right here. ;-) Thanks for sharing!

By: nicolin

nicolin — Mon, 25 May 2009 06:49:44 -0800

I think that "mamy poco pants" is going to stand as a deep meaning manifold label in my mental vocabulary. Thanks for sharing this piece of work and craft, and the story as well (sometimes it doesn't feel that bad to play the guitar in a lonely room).

By: micayetoca

micayetoca — Mon, 25 May 2009 07:31:14 -0800

Ages ago I posted a couple of the songs I was asked to do for some TV shows in Venezuela. Though these were not proper advertising jingles (they were intro music for programs on different topics at a state TV channel), the situation was similar:

When they first asked me to do the music they said something like "the music must be in the spirit of Latin American unity that was Simon Bolivar's dream. It must sound like something that is distinctly Latin American, but impossible to figure out from what country exactly". I was, of course, delighted.

I was having a lot of fun using instruments from many parts and trying to come up with ways to combine styles from all around the region, but when I delivered a couple of songs they complained that they sounded "too Cuban, too broadly Latin American and not Venezuelan enough". I thought that was the idea, I said. It was, but not anymore, they said and from there it just got progressively crazier, with way too many people giving to many contradictory opinions. In the end I told them what was going on was completely different to what they said they wanted in the beginning and that I wasn't interested anymore. That magically settled it, they stopped arguing and chose three out of five songs that I gave them. One of the songs was used on a program on land issues programs was an hour long program on land issues and one of the producers told me she had seen some farmers at a rally whistling the tune in the street. Which I'll never know if she only said it to make me feel good or if she actually did see them, but it's a nice memory I keep from the whole thing.

Your jingle here is brilliant, flapjax. What on earth did you do that jiggly sound with?

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Mon, 25 May 2009 07:50:29 -0800

What on earth did you do that jiggly sound with?

You know, mica, I don't remember exactly... it was some kind of sample, I think, but I just can't recall what. Maybe sampled rubber squeezy toys.

By: speicus

speicus — Mon, 25 May 2009 10:21:56 -0800

So, which one did they go with?

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Mon, 25 May 2009 16:14:50 -0800

Haha! I don't know! I mean, they told us, I think, but I don't remember which one...

By: winna

winna — Mon, 25 May 2009 20:54:16 -0800

Maybe it was just reading the story first that did it to me, but as I continued to listen as the music wound on I could hear more impatience and frustration in the voiceover.

'Mamy Poco Pants! godsdammit!'

By: not_on_display

not_on_display — Thu, 28 May 2009 21:57:58 -0800

This thread is awesome... take solace that your misery has caused me so much joy, flapjax. Because I'd actually like to hear the other five or six versions. Each time I hear it, it's like I'm transported inside a super-condensed video game that I don't understand, and each level is slightly different! MAMY POCO PANTS!!!

By: not_on_display

not_on_display — Thu, 28 May 2009 22:06:54 -0800

Oh, and your jingle kicks the ass of the one on their current website. [Warning: looping loud sound -- scroll down for video, in which volume control is embedded]

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Fri, 29 May 2009 05:27:59 -0800

God, I love MetaFilter... here someone goes and links to the current Mamy frikkin' Poco gaddam Pants site! Fantastic!

And you're right, n_o_d, that jingle they've got looping there really bites.

By: MajorDundee

MajorDundee — Fri, 29 May 2009 14:40:27 -0800

:-)) well past mental - quite splendid.

By: MajorDundee

MajorDundee — Fri, 29 May 2009 15:28:08 -0800

Flapjax - you might think this is crazy (of course it is - what else would you expect from The Major), but a combination of your fab vocals with "Too Blue" by Zebra Productions might just produce something really interesting.... Naturally, I'm suggesting this in my fantasy role as the pop svengali behind MiFi Records "The Sound of Middle-Aged Trans-Pacific-Atlantia" - think Daniel Lanois with a Pink Afro wig, a harem of foxy...er..."chicks", and giant spliff, and you're getting somewhere close. On second thoughts - don't go there man...

By: chrismear

chrismear — Fri, 29 May 2009 15:50:19 -0800

New MetaFilter Podcast theme.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Fri, 29 May 2009 16:26:55 -0800

New MetaFilter Podcast theme.

hee hee!

By: goshling

goshling — Sat, 30 May 2009 02:20:59 -0800

oh lordie

By: EmpressCallipygos

EmpressCallipygos — Sun, 31 May 2009 11:58:58 -0800

This is mixing in my brain with the Mr. Sparkle bit from The Simpsons. It's a scary mashup.

By: ageispolis

ageispolis — Sun, 31 May 2009 23:48:54 -0800

This is amazing.

By: RokkitNite

RokkitNite — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:15:47 -0800

I laughed so hard I thought I was having a psychotic episode. MeFi Music needs to do some awesome Elements Of Style breakdown of Mamy Poco Pants. Haunting minor key synth Mamy Poco Pants? Blistering rap battle Mamy Poco Pants? I envision Mamy Poco Pants quietly Agent Smithing its way through all musical output.

Oh dear. I need a lie down.

By: umbú

umbú — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:52:43 -0800

A MPP challenge. Brilliant.

This is hilarious in this context, but terrifying that you and your wife had to go through such an ordeal. I'm sure mixing all of those brought you to the brink.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 18:00:47 -0800

This is hilarious in this context, but terrifying that you and your wife had to go through such an ordeal.

Indeed! It's the classic "we can laugh about it now, but..."