Hard Telling Not Knowing each week tries to answer your burning questions about why things are the way they are in Maine — specifically about Maine culture and history, both long ago and recent, large and small, important and silly. Send your questions to [email protected].
Picture this: It’s 2 a.m. and you’ve just woken from a sound sleep. The only thought that passes through your mind is the following: “If your toilet will not flush, Harley will be there in a rush.”
“990-2200!” you shout, waking up your spouse, who groggily responds “Harley!”
Such is the inescapability of commercial jingles that, despite having not been on the air for decades, are still permanently lodged in your brain. Here are nine commercial jingles that anyone who watched TV or listened to the radio in Maine from the 1980s onward will remember, and almost certainly will never forget.
We wish we could have found the radio jingle for the Grasshopper Shop that aired in the 1990s, but you’ll have to take our word for it that it’s still in our heads, 30 years later. If we missed any, comment below or send an email to [email protected].
Harley Plumbing and Heating
We bet you can remember the phone number for Bangor-based Harley Plumbing and Heating more readily than you can remember the numbers for most of your family members. It helps that they managed to make “990-2200” into a military cadence-style jingle.
Captain Nick’s
Captain Nick’s in Bangor has been closed for nearly a decade. But if you watched TV in the northern half of the state in the ’80s and ’90s, you certainly remember the jaunty little maritime ditty that accompanied a commercial for the seafood restaurant.
Webb’s RV
One of the few local commercials that has truly stood the test of time, Webb’s RV in Hermon still uses this country-fied jingle in its ads. A longtime local rumor has been that Johnny Cash himself actually recorded the vocals, though that’s not actually true, as far as we know.
Marden’s
What’s more memorable — the famous “I should have bought it when I saw it at Marden’s” jingle, or the long-running character of Birdie Googins, the “Marden’s Lady” in the Maine retail chain’s commercials?
Renys
A slightly newer addition to the pantheon of Maine commercial earworms, Renys tagline that it’s “a Maine adventure” is nevertheless something to sing when you hop out of your car to go shopping there.
Funtown Splashtown USA
What got kids more excited for the summer than a peppy jingle in a commercial for Maine’s biggest — and really only — amusement park? Time to start bugging your parents to take you there, kids.
Northern Mattress and Furniture Gallery
Another earworm, this time for furniture and mattresses, and in less than 15 seconds, too.
Midcoast Federal Credit Union
Not so much an earworm as a commercial that, for reasons that will become obvious once you watch it, is hard to forget. How has this kid’s rap career been going, 18 years later?
Town of Millinocket
We hope this 1997 commercial and its accompanying song still inspires folks to consider Millinocket as their home for business.
