Switched on Pop - Is pop music just fast food? (with Gastropod)

Episode Date: May 14, 2024

Where were you when you learned that the McDonald's jingle "I'm lovin' it" was originally part of a full-fledged pop song by Justin Timberlake and Pharrell that flopped on the charts but found staying power as a slogan? For us, it was recording our live episode about sponsored content in pop back in March 2024, and we have not been the same since. Shaken by this revelation, we found ourselves asking, "What else don't we know about fast food jingles?" Turns out, it's a lot. From Taco Bell to Popeye's to Chili's, the music of fast food represent some of the most familiar melodies in society, across state lines and generations. But the stories behind those songs, and the way that fast food production and pop music production often move in parallel, was something we never saw coming once. Since we are music experts but amateur foodies, we invited the brilliant hosts of Eater's Gastropod podcast, Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley, to help serve up the history of fast food and its changing role in culture. Tune in and pig out with us as we listen and debate the artistic and ethical implications of the sounds of fast food. More Check out more episodes of Gastropod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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All right, Rihanna. A few months ago, we talked about this classic tune on our live episode about SponCon in music, sponsored content. That, of course, is a few variants of McDonald's iconic jingle. I'm loving it. This was originally written as a full-on pop song for none other than Justin Timberlake to perform. But the song, Now, while the song itself flopped, the jingle lived on, and arguably is one of the most memorable fast food jingles of all time. And we couldn't get this story out of our heads. And we wanted to ask, what makes a jingle work and what makes it not work as a pop song?

Like, this is something we couldn't stop thinking about. So, Rihanna, we want to talk today about the jingle as a concept and specifically its relationship to food. and who better to discuss food with on Switched on Pop than the two hosts of Eaters podcast, Gastropod. Welcome, Cynthia Graber. Hello, great to be here. And Nikki Twilly. Hello, delighted to join you. All right, Cynthia, Nikki, you're two people that know food.

You study food, maybe in the same way that we study and dissect music here on Switched on Pop. So we wanted to talk to you a little bit. about this relationship between food and music. Now, I think a good fast food jingle would mirror the sort of values of the world of fast food. So I'm curious if you can help us understand this world of fast food. When you think of the qualities of fast food, what comes to your minds? Fast. That's one thing.

Definitely cheap. And I also think of colorful when you picture like, McDonald's, you played that earlier, really trying to entice families and kids and everything is very vibrant and it's very kind of catchy. Those are some of the first things I really think of with fast food. I mean, when you say fast and cheap, I always say out of control. Just a little homage to Errol Morris there, but I feel like they are uncontrollably catchy. The food is supposed to be irresistible and the tunes have to go with that. So, you know, if the food is supposed to be, you can't stop popping those chips in your mouth, then the molten

lava cake for dessert and just cannot resist, the music is the same. You know, in terms of McDonald's jingles, I still, from my childhood, can sing to all beef, patty, special sauce, lettuce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a satsby seed bun. That will be with me for my entire life. When I told my parents that I was doing an episode on fast food jingles for the show, that's what they launched into right off the bat. They sing that. It's lodged in their brains. And I think that's a testament to the jingle where much like the food it's supposed to represent, it sticks around. And I feel like you can crave it in a similar way where you're like, I need to hear this right now because it's not getting out of my brain.

I feel like the jingle is the closest I've been to some of the Like, I didn't grow up in the U.S., so I've actually never been inside of Popeyes, even to use the bathroom. But I know that I love that chicken from Popeyes, so... I'm loving it isn't the only massive jingle. So using this framework that we just established, I'm thinking, let's get into some of the most famous fast food jingles of all time, see how they wiggled their way into our brains, and try to think about how they properly, represent the food they serve. But before we do, we have to establish what counts as a jingle. Hmm. Okay. An important ontological question. So this is something I am curious about, because is that Taco Bell a jingle? It's one note. And same thing with the description of, you know, that whole list of ingredients that

were part of the sandwich. Like, is that a jingle? And, you know, does it have to be shorter? Like, is there a specific length? Yeah, that feels like too long. That's a whole song. Exactly. That felt too long for me to be a jingle jingle,

but it definitely is a fast food song ad. I mean, what's the difference? I think our definition for the sake of this show is going to be very loose and broad. You know, I think the dictionary definition of a jingle is a song with a melody used to, represent a product. But for the sake of musically unpacking some of these jingles, a couple of which you've already mentioned, the main distinction that we have to make is the difference between

a slogan and a jingle. I'm loving it, quintessential example of a jingle, but something like Arby's, we have the meats. Not a jingle, a slogan. We are looking at jingles as something featuring some kind of music. And so, yes, for us, the Taco Bell Dong is a example of a jingle. And in fact, maybe that's a great place for us to start. One of the biggest fast food chains, the Taco Bell bell chime. Let's get that in our ears now. I think it's going to ring a bell.

Oh, man. Brutal. It's so funny when you hear it on its own, because now it's making me think of, like, that Intel inside sound. Boom pep, boom, babe. Exactly. Or the Netflix. To do you.

Right, exactly. That's what it reminded me of. But don't those have a name that isn't a jingle? I hate to ruin your show. Yeah, I thought a jingle had to have words. I thought that was like a sound mark something or brand sound or whatever advertising people call these things yeah i'm feeling a little tact you know coming coming on our show uh correcting our our musical logical insights right off the

bat but i i can't deny that you make a good point let's amend it to jingles and sound marks okay that's that's now our purview jingles and dings jingles and dings oh yeah that sounds like fast food Sounds like a pop-up restaurant already. There's something they're missing out on, though, by not having something you can sing along to, because it doesn't get stuck in your head the same way. The longevity of this sound kind of surprised me. In our research, we found that the ding goes back to 1989. We can hear it here in situ from a commercial of that era.

I hear what you're saying, Nikki, and I wonder if. if part of the appeal of this sound is simply the sort of heritage that it brings to the brand, a certain sense of familiarity and maybe even comfort that people feel when they hear that sound? That's really interesting. It makes me wonder if you have to pick one or the other, too, because listen, Abel, you can't go wrong. You're not going to have to update it for a new audience. You're not going to find it's suddenly not speaking to your demographic anymore. Are you allowed to do both? Does Taco Bell done both? Have they had jingles as well as the sound mark?

They've had songs. So the 1989 commercial that we just played features a full-length song that did not last the test of time the way that the bell did. But that goes back to the thing. It's just, it's so long. And it doesn't have that, like, one little hook except for the, like, running for the border. It's not like... I was going to say, I was ready to get down to running for the border. They got, like, a Huey Lewis thing going.

But that's singer. Very much. I was like, keep more of that piece. Yeah. Bring it back. Well, it does make me think that the longer your jingle, the more danger there is of it becoming dated. Because when I hear that, I think, wow, that sounds really old.

It sounds of another era, the melody, the instrumentation. It doesn't make me want to run out and get a taco for 69 cents. Though it does sound like a good deal. The bell maybe provides a sense of a sonic signal. while it doesn't have any danger of becoming outmoded. It is eternally sort of relevant. And not offensive to anyone. I mean, running for the border.

Didn't age well? Yeah, the bell is a safe, safe sound. Well, the simplicity of the bell is interesting, right? Because sonically, it is a simple e-note. And the tubular bell that we hear actually, comes from a regular patch on the synthesizer Yamaha DX7, which is one of the most popular synthesizers of all time. It's simple, and I think it suits Taco Bell

because both the sound and the food are cheap, it's processed, and it's easily accessible. You know, Taco Bell is Mexican food for people that don't have time or access to Mexican food. And the jingle quotes around that because it's just a bell, it makes sense because it's a simple note from an extremely popular synthesizer. It's similarly accessible. Lowest common denominator of both food and sound is what we're saying here. Right, which makes sense then.

And as we're discussing it, it makes me realize that, yeah, not only is the sound and the food cheap, processed, lowest common denominator. It's also entirely whitewashed in the sense that this sound doesn't try and really make any overtures to the culture that this cuisine nominally represents. It's a very American, Mexican, in quotation marks, food as fast food. And I think the sound is like we would prefer you not to think about this too much sort of sound. Yeah. Like, let's not go into the history of Spanish colonization, folks. Let's have a crunch rap. Let's move on to a jingle that's a lot more modern and a lot more involved. We're moving from taco to burger and the new Burger King song. Whopper, Whopper, Wopper, Wopper, Junior double, triple wopper, flame grill taste with perfect toppers. I rule this day.

It's very catchy. This feels to me like the type of thing that you could imagine, you know, if it catches on the same way the McDonald's one did in a few decades, people singing it the same way that I was singing the McDonald's one. It's interesting that you mentioned the catchiness because this tune has inspired such anger, such vitriol. There's a subreddit that's R slash commercials I hate. And there's a Reddit post on that subreddit about the tune, with comments such as it's effing annoying, I changed the channel, why anyone thought this was a good ad campaign should be fired.

Another one that says, people in my area apparently hate this commercial so much, they've gone and shut the local Burger King down, L.O.L. So that is so funny because I feel like the, I mean, it just sounds to me like the classic type of fast food jingle, right? It's like catchy, it's kind of silly. It's got a little bit of whatever the sound of that particular moment is just a little but not too much. It's, I would say, bland, but meant to be an earworm.

And I kind of wonder, like, if there had been social media in the same way when some of the earlier jingles were coming out, what the reaction would have been to things that kind of ended up lasting but might have inspired really strong negative feelings at the time. Well, it's interesting because this tune is decades old. It comes all the way back from 1974. Hello. Wow, I've never heard that. And that's hardcore 70s. That's amazing.

It's beautiful. You hear the tune match up in the way that they say, have it your way. It's the same in the rap. But I think what really aggravates people is the way that the new version is sung. Well, the new version is the kindergarten version. It's like, ba-b-b-b-b-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba.

Whereas the old version had some like harmonizations, some musicality to it. This feels like the wheels on the bus go round and round. But don't you feel like that's what, to me, that's what fast food jingles have always sounded like? I think that's why it just sounded so familiar. It sounds like those like the kids kind of start snapping along to it type jingles. I mean, I understand those Reddit people because that's the only ad that gets silenced in our house.

I mean, I never heard that ad before. This was literally the first time I've ever heard it. I live in a house where I'm not allowed control of the remote, mainly because I don't know what I'm doing, but it gets silenced because it is unbearable. The point of the ad does seem to be to provoke. you a little bit because it is so simplistic because the voice of the lead singer is a little bit out of tune. Right.

And I'm trying to think why they would do that. And maybe it's supporting their slogan of have it your way. It's like this is very inviting, you know. This isn't saying you need to be an opera singer to eat this food. Anyone can come to Burger King and have it their way, so just. speak. A talent-free two-year-old is welcome. Anybody is welcome at the BK. And I have to say every time I see this ad, and like you, Nikki, I see it a lot.

I always wonder, who is singing this? Because I think it's kind of a masterful performance. To answer your question, I did some digging, and the man that sings the BK jingle is a man named Will Crown, who is a musician behind the same. self-described conscious alt hip-hop project, Crown and the MOB. Here's a clip of their song, Love My People. Peace to the soldiers of bro, we salute you. Protect and serve all is beautiful.

Go hard for yours, life sweet. Feels good having your lacrossees. That could be a five-food jingle. That kicked butt. I know. So he's a real rapper. And the way that he got in the stew to record this jingle was that he was that he was just hanging out around where the Burger King spot was being recorded. And allegedly he walked in the

room and the people that were working on it were like, hey, Will, you should give it a try. And the rest is history. And I find it fascinating that this is the music that this man makes. He's very clearly a skilled rapper with a very skillful flow. And on this Burger King jingle, it's so simplistic. But I want to push back a little bit. I mean, because think about who is going to be begging their parents to go to a fast food restaurant. Who's going to be running around and singing the jingles? We may be the target audience because I'm sure, you know, it's adults who are going and buying stuff. But it's the kids who it gets into their ears, who run around singing it, who then go to their parents and saying, so you're saying it's simplistic.

But I think, like, I think it's supposed to be simplistic. Like, I can sing so many jingles for. from my childhood because I was a kid, they caught my ear, and kids aren't going to sing those types of things. The other thing I'd say is the same way that, you know, the Burger King Burger is not the Michelin-Star Burger. It represents a lot of ingenuity, R&D, hardcore, you know, experimentation to refine it to what it is.

There's a lot of effort that goes into simplistic as well as complicated. Once again, Cynthia and Nikki, your descriptions make me think that so much of what you're saying could be used to describe pop music as well. It is carefully crafted. It is R-Indeed. It is assembled by a team of artisans working in a sort of atomized assembly line to create something that will have the most universal appeal. So these playbooks are looking more and more similar as we go through these different examples. And the music that, like, I would very quickly turn off. My 10 and 12-year-old nieces cannot get enough of. So the Burger King jingle was carefully engineered in a different way than a pop song might be in order to stick into our brains or maybe kids' brains, right,

and trigger a craving for this carefully engineered fast food. After the break, we're going to get into two more iconic jingles and the crazier. and the cravings that they trigger in us. Maria, you have a podcast now and you need to start acting like it. What's the first step as a podcaster? Well, you have to ask lots of questions. I'm Maria Sharpova, and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough. Every week, I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic,

and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness. I have a few pretty tough questions for you. Okay. Ready? Ready. Do not sugarcoat something first. No, no, no. We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives,

actors, entrepreneurs, and other individuals who have inspired me so much in my own journey. Pretty tough is your front row seat to the women who have demonstrated the power in being unapologetic in their pursuits. I hope you'll join us. New episodes drop Wednesdays on YouTube or in your favorite podcast app. All right, y'all, let's take it down south to Louisiana for some chicken. Love that chicken. That's chicken from Popeye. Everybody loves Popeye.

That's a classic. Stone Cold Classic right there. I think this is honestly better tune than the BK one. Catchier. More of an earworm for me. Shorter, too. That's what I like about it. Yeah.

That particular version we just heard was from 2000, but it's still in use today, and it goes all the way back to the 1970s. And I think part of the reason we're all responding to it in a favorable way, myself included, is because the author of this jingle is a legendary New Orleans musician, Dr. John. This is someone who's in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has won multiple Grammy Awards, known for songs like Right Place, Wrong Time. So this is someone with some real bona fides to this musical tradition and perhaps this culinary tradition.

as well. It sounds good. It sounds real. I feel like this is a smart choice by Popeyes to have this iconic musician providing their jingle. He's a Louisiana icon and even in right place wrong time, like you can hear a distinct voice and groove. You know, that song is a hybrid of blues, jazz, funk, R&B. It has a pop songwriting quality to it. Writing the Popeye's jingle makes sense. Like, I'm surprised that not every place gets storied songwriters to write their jingles. It works better. But what you're saying is really interesting because Popeye's deliberately still plays up its Louisiana connection.

You don't find Burger King being like, oh, we're from wherever they're from or McDonald's. No one can tell you where that was founded. And they don't want you to know. That's not something they want you to think about. So I do feel like Popeyes is playing off a culinary connection and trying to almost get some of that sort of aura of, oh, we all know Creole Cajun food is good. That transfers onto your perception of Popeyes maybe

by playing on that Louisiana connection. So it makes sense for them to get a jingle that ties into that and helps reinforce that message. I have a question, though, for Nate, which is, he did a great job with a jingle that has stuck with all of us for decades, right? Love that chicken from Popeyes. You know, that's just, it's classic. Is it really every musician who's going to be able to take their skills at writing a full song,

write a hook that's maybe four or five words, four or five notes, can be transformed into different things over the decades and really works? Cynthia, I think that's a great point. You know, when I think about New Orleans culture, it's really mirrored. the kind of music that Dr. John makes. And even as silly as this is, we could take this Popeye's jingle and break it down a little bit.

Love that chicken. I mean, there's all these different elements. The rhythm is drawn from the Latin history of New Orleans as this port city with access to the Caribbean. It's got this syncopated trisio rhythm. The piano lines that we hear are drawn from the African-American tradition

of jazz, which New Orleans is one of the most important spots of development in the United States. And then the vocal melody is like part of this blues gospel tradition, which was popular throughout the southern United States. So in just this small snippet of music, you can hear a lot of like complex cultural history. I'm sure some of which is mirrored in the kind of cooking itself, which brings together all these diverse influences. I'm not saying that like any Popeye's location is carrying the torch for the great, you know, creole, Cajun culinary traditions. But certainly they're trying to mind that in order to get people in the door. 100%. Yeah.

I think that's a sort of positive aura to be associated with for them, even if the fried chicken, which I have not tried, wouldn't necessarily live up to everything promised by that. But people really, you know, people love Popeyes. Like the song, they love that chicken. I love that chicken from Popeyes, me. I get the sense that even though fast food is something that is maligned and not really taken seriously and criticized, it's also something that people have a really strong emotional connection to.

Cynthia and Nikki, where do you think that comes from? Well, I mean, we've done some reporting on fast food in general. We focused on McDonald's. But if you think about people's childhood, you know, where they grew up, where they went with their parents, where they went after school or after sports or theater or whatever, you know, this was a place. Both in cities and in the suburbs, these were places that kids could go and hang out. And so I think that there's, you know, a really strong connection. that lasts because of that. So it just has, I think, no matter what,

whether you like the food or not, or whether it's a place you go to frequently or not, I think it really plays into a strong, emotional tug for a lot of Americans because of that. It's a place of comfort when you're a kid. It's always the same. That is very comforting, deeply comforting, in a world that is not always the same

and that is changing very fast when you're a kid. And then that there aren't that many places. where people are like, yeah, let's have a crowd of teenagers hang out, and not that many places where teenagers can afford to hang out. And so fast food places often fit that bill. And having those two experiences, you can imagine, it gets sort of burned into you that sort of loyalty, which is why people then still have strong feelings and strong cravings and that kind of proustian feeling of coming home almost when they do taste these flavors. Those feelings paired with a spot like Popeyes, right?

Which prides itself on its home style cooking. It's bringing together all of these memories. I like it. All right, Rihanna, take us home. All right. We're going to end on a high note here. The jingle to end all jingles. The Chili's Baby Back Ribs song.

I want my baby back, baby, back, baby, back, baby back, baby back, baby back. Short, sweet, baby, back, really. I want my baby chilis, baby back with. Barbecue sauce. I want my baby back. Chili. Baby. Short, sweet to the point.

Love it. That barbecue sauce line there. Beautiful. Yeah. Another stone cold classic. That's from 1997. And Chili's, of course, is a fast casual joint. It's making me wonder in its competitor league.

like Sizzler or are there other catchy jingles or is his chili own this space? I don't know. TGI's. I don't think TGI's has a jingle. I don't think Applebee's has a jingle. I can't think of them. It's interesting.

And this jingle, the Baby Back Ribs jingle, is catchy. It was named the number one song most likely to get stuck in your head by Ad Age in 2004. And the jingle, rather than being created by an established musician

or somebody in the industry. This one was created by a man named Guy Bamarito, who was the executive creative director at an Austin-based ad agency in the 90s. This goes along with what I was saying earlier that I really think that it can be kind of a different skill to get that right, you know, the hook and the earworm and the length that it takes that kind of ad brain,

you know, in addition to the music brain. Also, I'm curious about this one, because it's really about baby-back ribs. It's not about chilies. Like, I feel as though when I think about chilies, there's a vast menu, whereas this is giving me the feeling that I'm going there for ribs. And so I am curious if that's something they've had to fight,

if that's something they've played into, you know, the way that, like, Red Lobster, it's not just lobster. They have to sort of always work with that as both a sort of plus and a minus for how people think about them. So I wonder if Chili's has found that this plays well for them because it does sort of pin you down in a carnivore mode.

Yeah. This song, I think, has come to stand as a larger representation of Chili's. This song is Chili's legacy. The song has a life of its own. It's been featured in media like The Office. and Austin Powers. Chili, baby, bat,

and ironically, one person who doesn't think much of the Chili's jingle is Guy Bamarito, the guy who wrote it. In interviews, he's called Jingles the lowest common denominator form of advertising, that they were quote unquote, typically annoying and unpleasant. He said he wrote the Chili's Jingle in five minutes and didn't particularly enjoy writing it, and the jingle just took off.

That is hysterical. Yeah. It's his legacy. Literally, what else is Guy Bomberito done? Sorry, my friend. He's the baby back ribbeds guy. Yeah. Can you imagine being known for something you did in five minutes and kind of regret?

Yeah. So like I said, the jingle has a life of its own. People liked the original so much. A later version was retracted by four musicians. Three of them provided backup vocals for Michael Jackson, and one of them, the guy who sings the famous Barbecue Sauce line, he was the Temptations lead singer in the 70s. Wow.

So there is a litany of musical talent contributing to this jingle, and there's a video of the four of them in the studio that's one of my favorite YouTube videos of all time. Barbecue sauce. Exactly. Sauce. Sauce. Sounds great, so much better. I have to say, it's interesting that you say that because the jingle and the singing really reminded me of old, you know, I was wondering when it was going on, like, what year it was created.

And it reminded me of music in the late 80s and even going back to the 70s. Like, there's a sound to it that's, I don't want to say timeless, because that's obviously not true. But it isn't one particular moment in time. There's a bunch of different moments in time that it could be. It seems like an example of how, even though these fast food restaurants are these carefully corporatized and planned entities, these jingles can sort of expand in ways that maybe the company itself couldn't predict. And I think that they even retired this in 2006, you know, possibly because of what you were saying, Nikki, that it was sort of diminishing chilies into just the baby back rib, you know, place. and yet they discovered that people were so enamored with it that they had to bring it back just three years later.

So the image, I guess, that they wanted to portray was sort of out of their hands at a certain point. That's an interesting thing that happens with fast food, though, like that sort of fan dynamic, where you get Taco Bell that I think has been one of the best at embracing this, where it will bring in, you know, crossovers and fan-inspired mashups, and those become hugely popular menu items.

It's very difficult, I think, for a fast food place that is so built around control, and you have to be built around control to deliver that many identical meals at that pace, at that scale. To have that flexibility to then also go with your fans to where they're going. So I could see how they're trying to control the message, and then baby back ribs get away from them. it's good that they were able to sort of embrace that and play with it because it's tough for a corporation. All right. We have gone deeper into these four jingles than perhaps anyone has or frankly should. And if we zoom out now, I'm curious to get your insights on a more sort of moral and ethical judgment of these jingles and their respective fashion.

food brands. Because as we saw with the Burger King example, for instance, people hear certain jingles and they have a really negative reaction. And I think that's true of fast food in general. It's perceived as processed, exploitative, destructive for the world and society, perhaps, even. And yet, as we've seen, people also have these profound connections and even love for these fast food brands. As people who spend a lot of time thinking about food and its role in culture and society, how are we supposed to judge fast food? Is it something we can just dismiss and sort of wish away from the earth like we might an annoying jingle? Or is it something that we have to sort of reckon with and acknowledge and even find ways to love? Well, I would say we can't ignore it,

right? It's too big to just say it's bad and forget about it. I'm going to take one. I'm going to take one example, which is, you know, there was a big issue with tomatoes in Florida and the condition of the workers. And to make the condition of the workers better, they had to try to get fast food companies on board with paying like a couple cents more. And not every company agreed to go along with it, but this was a huge movement. And often to get change in the food system, you have to go with big players. And they're just a big player. Like we can't say, oh, it's horrible. It's you know, all the processed food and all the meat from these big factory farms, and we're just going to ignore it and it's bad. On some level, it does have to be engaged with. And I don't know really know how to bring that back to music. I mean, the music is just something that you can't help but engage with. I mean, I think that's what we've been saying. It sticks with you. It catches you. It just sort of helps complexify this issue of good and bad, I think, you know. It's not as easy as it looks.

Well, it's interesting that you say that because much like fast food, jingles exist in this kind of gray area. Despite them being musical, they're not the same as a pop song. And I think a jingle because of its association with fast food can also be seen as cheap and processed and not worth any musical merit. But similar to fast food, maybe a jingle is okay to consume in moderation, much like a Whopper or a Big Mac. You know, you can have it every now and again. It can make you smile.

And at the end of the day, what's better than that? I love jingles. I think they're awesome. They make me laugh. What's better than that? Totally. Cynthia, Nikki, thank you so much for stepping out of your gastropod world for a moment

to come discuss jingles with us. I don't think I'll hear a Burger King Taco Bell, Popeyes, Chili's jingle the same, and I'll probably never eat this food the same way again. So we really appreciate you joining us today. Thanks for having us. This is super fun. They're all stuck in my head now, too. I hope you're putting a warning at the top of this show.

Switched on Pop is hosted by me, Nate Sloan, and my erstwhile partner, Charlie Harding. We are produced by Rihanna Cruz. Art Chung is our editor and Brandon McFarland is our engineer. Iris Gottlieb does illustrations and Abby Barr does community management. Our executive producer is Nashat Kurwa. We're a member of the Vox Media Podcast Network and a production of Vulture. You can find more episodes of our illustrious show at switchedonpop.com or anywhere you get your podcasts.

And you could find Cynthia and Nikki's podcast, Gastropod, Simps, Similarly, anywhere you get your podcasts, and on gastropod.com. We are also on social media at Switched on Pop. Hit us up. Tell us what your favorite jingles are. We'd love to hear them. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. And until then, thanks for listening.

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