Terry-Thomas and His Teeth!

Happy Sunday, and for those who celebrated it, I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving on Thursday. I have a bumper crop of four tapes for you today.

We'll start with a truly remarkable reel of tape. This comes from the same batch of "raw tapes" that I bought several years ago, and which I've mined at least a dozen times between this site and the WFMU blog.

What we have here is 22 minute tape featuring a series of attempts to get a commercial JUST right. The produced is a new toothpaste called "Stim-U-Dent" (introduced in 1969, so I'm guessing this is from around that time). The spokesman sounds to me like the late, great British character actor Terry-Thomas. I have no proof that it's him, and I can find no record of this commercial, featuring either Terry-Thomas or anyone else, but I can't imagine anyone sounding quite this much like Terry-Thomas without actually being him. And the fact that it's for toothpaste - given the prominent teeth of the man in question - just makes me hope it's true that much more.

There seem to be a number of decent takes here, and yet they keep trying and trying again. Other takes break down when nothing seems to have gone wrong. The actor becomes quite irritated and frustrated at a few points, but mostly in the most British of ways - but not always.

I only heard this for the first time last week, and couldn't wait to share it here - it immediately became one of my favorite things I've heard all year.

Download: Terry Thomas (?) - Stim-U-Dent Commercial (raw takes)
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I was trying to think of something else extra special to pass along, in Thanks for all of you who read and listen, and I don't know if this qualifies or not, but I've been shy about including excerpts from my own family's many, many tapes, and I thought I'd offer up a few moments from my own life.

On one of our tapes, there is a lengthy section where my brother Bill ("Billy", then), age 10, is home sick from school, very bored, and recording whatever he can think of. He tries to get the cat to make noise, tries to get the microphone to pick up the sump pump going on, and plays a few of his favorite children's records. Then I arrive home from somewhere (I'm four years old, here), and he engages me in the conversation you're about to hear, focused mostly on long words, most prominently the big one which had just been introduced, earlier that year, in the film "Mary Poppins".

Download: Billy and Bobby - Long Words
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Next up, some warnings to keep in mind when having outdoor winter fun. As I sit here, a few miles northwest of O'Hare airport, we are experiencing what is forecast to be the first major snowstorm of the year. And so, for your edification and enjoyment, I have the pride of Ishpeming, Michigan, in the Upper Peninsula, those wacky folks from the humorous music group "Da Yoopers" with some snowmobiling safety messages:

Download: Da Yoopers - Snowmobile Safety PSAs
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And now, since it's officially the Christmas shopping season, and since I have so many Christmas oriented tapes to share, I thought I'd start with those now. On one tape I listened to, a man sent a lot of Christmas music to a friend, sort of an audio letter, except that there was virtually no talking, just introducing of tracks. That was true, at least until the tape was almost over, when the man recording the tape offered up some Christmas memories. This is a very sweet tape, and I wish this man had chosen to speak more, on the tape to his friend.

Download: Unknown - A Few Christmas Memories
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