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ROLL ON, BIG O!

Not much to write about t'day but that's not gonna stop me from postin'...anyway, here's a li'l gem I discovered while digging through youtube lookin' for old BEETLE BAILEY cartoons, and considering this artyfact's importance in the annals of CLEVELAND UNDERGROUND ROCK 'N ROLL I thought I'd share it with you thus garnering even more rockism brownie points (heaven knows I need 'em!). Yes, it's none other than the great Lawson's "Roll On, Big O" orange juice commercial that was pretty much part and parcel to local tee-vee programming ever since I can remember! Up until the early seventies (maybe even later but I doubt it) "Roll On Big O" could be heard oozing from tee-vee sets across the tri-county area and at least for me it was one of those things that, like BARNEY BEAN, HONEYMOONERS reruns and Gordon Ward ads, was part of the local television scene until it suddenly disappeared for seemingly all time and I sure felt like a jerk for taking such things for granted. But now thanks to the miracle of internet the Big O lives on, and maybe for once some of you people outside of the Youngstown television market can appreciate the sorta cheap gulcheral experience that molded me into the complete and adequate human being that I am today!

Of course you all know this song from the Electric Eels' boss cover version recorded live at the Viking Saloon January '75, but where else are you going to see the original version filmed in full-bloomin' color (a rarity for an early-sixties commercial...perhaps this was a re-do?)! Sticklers please take note: not only did Dave E omit the tough guy folkie Oscar Brand-ish spoken intro (which dates this ad from at least '62 when the folk boom was just beginnin' to bust wide open) but he left out the verse about the oranges ripening in the Florida sun as well! (By the way, considering how the Eels predated the whole new wave late-fifties/early-mid-sixties nostalgia swipe by a good four years with such things as "Big O" and the theme from THE PATTY DUKE SHOW don't you think they should be awarded at least a li'l rockism no prize award, especially since these guys were doing that whole baby boomer trip a lot earlier and better than all of those B-52s clones put together?) But all jokin' aside, enjoy this in the sanctity of your own bowel-gas laden bedroom as I am, and while I'm at it, do you Youngstown-area tee-vee kiddies happen to remember this 'un being aired either during or directly after SUPERCAR on Saturday nights??? For some reason the two are inseparable to me.