It is said that there are some things best left forgotten. If that is your philosophy, stay away from New Jersey community radio station WFMU-FM’s wonderful Beware-of-the-blog blog. There WFMU listener Bob Purse has posted a slew of Dominos Pizza radio ads from the 1980s in MP3 format.
I thought I had blocked these insipid little spots from my organic hard drive, but no. I remember “The Noid,” or, as Purse correctly puts it, the “wholly annoying ‘The Noid’ campaign.”
Here’s an MP3 of one of the jingles, set to the background of Paul Dukas’ Sorcerer’s Apprentice, with cartoonish boing sounds and cackles inserted at appropriate moments:
“The Noid’s a wicked wizard
who makes pizzas old and cold.
He waves his wizard’s wand,
and freezes them, we’re told.
But when it comes to steamy pizza
there’s one that takes the lead.
Dominos pizza delivers!
Hot and fresh guaranteed.
The Noid may boast his wizardry
and wave his wintery wand.
But Dominos has magic too,
and their’s is far beyond . . . “
There are two more stanzas, but you get the idea. Listening to some of the more generic ads, what’s striking is how thoroughly they integrated pseudo Motown, disco, and Broadway sounds (The Wiz, etc) into their presentations.
Mr. Snoid (Kitchen Sink Press)
But getting back to “The Noid,” the best part of Purse’s discovery is that some of the tapes were probably just demos being shopped around by the advertising agency that produced them. I’m wondering now if The Noid was a knock-off of a Robert Crumb character, “Mr. Snoid.” Perhaps we’ll never know.
