WANTED: Ideas For Unhistorical Episodes
copywriter, is facing a crisis. He has all but exhausted his inspiration for the series of Gwen and George announcements, which. precede Aunt Jennie’s Real Life Stories (‘Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays at 10.0 a.m. from all ZB stations) and if he doesn’t have a flood of bright ideas in the near future, he intends going to the public for them. The Gwen and George commercials illustrate the growing demand for novelty and originality in commercial announcements. It is not sufficient, the (; EORGE BOYLE, CBS chief
CBS has decided, to precede and _ conclude a programme with a bald announcement regarding the merits of the product sponsored. The average listener has become accustomed, perhaps everr a little dulled, to orthodox radio advertising. If the message is not made novel and interesting, it is likely to be lost. "Unreal life stories’ is now what the Gwen and George commercials may be called. They are in the form of dialogues, with appropriate music and an occasional "effect," between such characters as Mr. and Mrs. Confucius, Salome and King (Herod, Mr. and Mrs. ‘Bill Sikes, Romeo and Juliet, Dave and Mabel, Mr. and Mrs. Eskimo, Mr. and Mrs. Gestapo, King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, Mr. and Mrs. Volga Boatman, Alice and the Mad Hatter, Hinemoa and ‘Tutanekai, Paris and
Helen of Troy, and countless others, right back to Adam and Eve. Comedy is the keynote, the message about the sponsored article being discreetly slipped in at unexpected moments. George is George Boyle himself, and Gwen is Mrs. Sinclair Ronald, well-known in. Wellington repertory circle. The number of voice changes which they accomplish is a.feat-and a problem-in itself. The biggest problem, however, is thinking up new ideas. There is a limit to the number of types and historical characters who can be introduced into such playlets-a limit, too, to the frivolous dialogue that can be put into their mouths.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 126, 21 November 1941, Page 9
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321WANTED: Ideas For Unhistorical Episodes New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 126, 21 November 1941, Page 9
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