Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - Brand Envy

Episode Date: November 15, 2025

This week, we take a look at four brands that have found a way to survive for decades. One company has been entertaining crowds with wax for 200 years. One restaurant has been topping their ice cream cones with a unique swirl for over 80 years. Another company teamed up with a certain debonaire spy 60 years ago. And a fourth brand has made a fortune blowing bubbles for over 75 years. Their stories are fascinating. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is an apostrophe podcast production. You're under the influence with Terry O'Reilly. You're under the influence with Terry O'Reilly. One day in the mid-80s, Andrew Weber, stumbled into a used bookstore. He picked up a copy of a well-fum novel written in 1910. It was titled Phantom of the Opera. Upon reading the book, he started thinking seriously about mounting the story as a musical.

That musical hit Broadway in 1988. It was an interesting inflection point in Broadway's history. Times Square and New York was cross. Riden, Broadway was at a low ebb. Then came what has been called the second British invasion. Big productions from England began rolling into New York. Evita, Cats, Le Mizz, and Phantom of the Opera. The show was an overnight sensation.

Audiences loved it. Performances sold out. Andrew Lloyd Webber made the front of Time magazine. Phantom of the Opera dominated the 1988 Tony Awards, winning seven, including Best New Musical. It was the event of the year. Production-wise, Phantom was a spectacle. Each performance required 125 people,

230 costumes, 22 scene changes, 281 candles, 250 kilograms of dry ice, and 10 fog machines. The key prop in the show was a magnificent chandelier. Weighing 1,500 pounds, it contained 6,000 crystals, 50 pyrotechnical fireworks, and plummeted to the stage dramatically at the end of Act 1 with a deafening boom.

And, of course, there was the music. Over the years on Broadway, Phantom of the Opera was seen by over 20 million people, grossing over $1.4 billion. When the pandemic hit, Phantom of the Opera, along with the rest of Broadway, went dark. When it reopened again, 586 days later, it was a different world. Phantom depended largely on tourists, and international tourism had dramatically declined. Over time, shows had become more personal, less spectacle. Audience tastes had changed on Broadway. With Phantom costing nearly $1 million per week to stage, a historic decision was made.

On April 16, 2023, Phantom of the Opera gave its 13,9,000. one hundred and eighty first performance, then closed its doors. The show that had weathered recessions, terrorism, war, and cultural shifts had run its course. Where most musicals are lucky to last five years, Phantom of the Opera made history by lasting 35. There is a lot to be said for ideas that last. Today, we'll talk about four brands that, like Phantom of the Opera, have lasted for decades. One has been attracting crowds for 200 years. One has been serving customers a little curl for over 80 years.

Another has been leaving people shaken and stirred for more than a century, and one has been chewing on success for 75 years. They all lasted for one very special reason. They're all absolutely unique. You're under the influence. Anna Marie Groschholz was born in Strasbourg, France, in 1761. While not much is known about her family,

her father came from a long line of executioners. The guillotine was steady business back in those days, a topic that will raise its head again later in this story. Her father died before she was born, so her mother took Anna Marie and moved to Bern, Switzerland, where she found work as a housekeeper. Her employer was a prominent physician

named Philippe Kercius. He also taught anatomy and had a sideline producing wax models of the human body. He was quite skilled. The finished wax figure was then touched up and painted,

glass eyes and wigs were applied, and teeth sourced from tooth pullers were inserted. Young Anna Marie took it all in and became his apprentice. Curcheus soon expanded his wax work and began sculpting notable people.

He eventually moved to Paris and opened an exhibition space there in 1770. Anna Marie and her mother followed. Learning from Kirchius, Anna Marie became quite skilled at creating wax likenesses by the time she was 16. Then, in 1789, the French Revolution began. Anna Marie was arrested as a royalist sympathizer and sentenced to the guillotine. Just before her execution was to take place, authorities learned she was a skilled wax modeler. She was spared the blade and recruited to make wax recreations of the most notorious

guillotine victims. The grizzly severed heads were delivered to her studio, and Anna Marie honed her skills making recreations of them. The wax heads were then put on pikes to show the public the evil oppressors had been brought to justice. During the revolution, her mentor Kirchius died, leaving all his property, including his collection of wax figures, to Anna Marie. Not long after, she married Francois Toussou. The marriage didn't last,

and Anna Marie, now called Madame Tussaud, fled to England to start a new life where she created a traveling wax work museum, spending 36 grueling years on the road touring the country. She would personally circulate thousands of handbuilds and posters to promote her wax exhibit in every town she visited. It was exhausting, but profitable. A rare business feat for a woman in that era,

and especially remarkable as she spoke no English when she began. Then, in 1802, she rented exhibition space in the Lyceum Theater in central London. There were two reasons why Madame Tussaud's exhibition was so successful. First, she focused on celebrities, glamour, and sensationalism. And second, she didn't just create wax heads. She created fully formed bodies with exacting costumes. The British public lined up around the block. In the era before photography, the site of life-size royalty and infamous villains created intense fascination.

In the 1820s, Tussaud opened her first permanent exhibition on Baker Street in London. Over the next 30 years, Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum became more and more popular, rivaling other famous British attractions. Madame Tussaud was an amazing entrepreneur and a visionary. She died in 1850 at the age of 88. By the way, it takes over four months, 500 exact measurements, and 150 photos to create a wax figure. Since the 19th century, celebrities have campaigned to have their likeness added to the museum.

Very few turned the opportunity down, except for Mother Teresa, who declined. The wax figures of the Beatles were loaned out for the cover of Sergeant Pepper in 1967. When they were later replaced with more up-to-date likenesses, the fab foreheads were put into storage, then auctioned off in 2005, selling for $135,000, which sounds like a bargain to me. Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum is still one of the most visited attractions in London. It now has 20 locations all around the world, and 10 million people visit annually. It is a brand that has existed for nearly 200 years.

Sherb Noble was born in 19,000 years. In 1908 in Clemens, Iowa. After high school, he took a two-year dairy course in university. He managed a creamery for a short time, then moved to a small town called Kankakee, Illinois, south of Chicago. Noble saw a future in ice cream, and by 1938, was running three ice cream parlors. He served hard-packed ice cream supplied by a man named J.F. McCullough.

One day, McCullough came to Noble with an idea. He believed that hard-packed ice cream was so cold, it literally froze people's taste buds, so they couldn't fully enjoy the flavor. Instead of serving ice cream at zero degrees Fahrenheit or minus 17 Celsius, he maintained it was more delicious served at 23 degrees Fahrenheit or minus 5 Celsius. McCullough invented a unique freezer that could dispense this semi-frozen ice cream.

He called it soft-serve, ice cream that was meant to be served at a milder temperature, thus making it softer. McCullough was convinced soft-serve ice cream would be a hit, but he had no idea how to market his innovation.

Noble suggested they test soft-serve ice cream at his store. He promoted an All You Can Eat for Ten Cent. on August 4, 1938. The soft-serve ice cream was such a success. Noble and his staff ended up selling 1,600 ice cream cones in just 90 minutes. So many people crowded into the store for seconds, Noble was afraid they were going to break through his storefront window.

Not long after, Sherb Noble decided to specialize in soft-serve ice cream, and, together with J.F. McCullough, opened a new store and Joe, Illinois. He called it Dairy Queen. Just as he was opening a second location, World War II interrupted, and Noble went off to serve his country. When he returned, he picked up where he had left off

and continued opening Dairy Queen locations. Soon, Dairy Queen became a pioneer in the franchising business. There were 10 by 1941, 100 by 1947, and over 1,400 by 1950. The first Dairy Queen in Canada opened its doors

in Saskatchewan in 1953. Two years later, there were over 2,600 locations across Canada and the U.S. If you've ever been to a Dairy Queen, you'll know their ice cream cones have a distinctive curl

at the top. That That curl, which employees call the Q, is not just a cute Dairy Queen's signature. It's a registered trademark. That's why you don't see a curl on cones at McDonald's or Wendy's, and Dairy Queen has gone to court to fight and protect that little ice cream curl. By the way, that soft-served ice cream recipe is like the Colonel's blend of 11 different herbs and spices. It's a closely guarded secret, kept in a safety deposit box, and only a few people, have a key. Today, Dairy Queen has rebranded as DQ, in part to remind customers they sell more than ice cream now.

There are over 7,000 Dairy Queen locations in Canada, the U.S., and 18 other countries. It serves 35 million customers every day. The Blizzard is its most profitable item. Texas is the state with the state. most DQ locations. Ontario is the province with the most. Back in 2012, the busiest DQ location in the world was in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. The noble family still owns Dairy Queens in Kankakee, Illinois, and the original location has been designated a historical landmark. Dairy Queen has survived for over 80 years, and for that it makes our list of enviable brands.

Another one of our enviable brands was actually named after a hill. One day, James Bond went to pick up his Bentley at the R&D branch of British Secret Service and was given some news. Where's my benton? Oh, he's headed's day, I'm afraid. But it's never let me down. The M's orders, 007. You'll be using this Aston Martin, DB5 with modifications. Bulletproof windows, revolving license plates, left and right machine guns, radar scanner,

retractable tire slasher's, and, best of all, an ejector seat. Ejector seat, you're joking. I never joke about my work, 007. Yep, Q wasn't a jokster, but he sure knew. how to invent some cool gadgets. That Bond film, Goldfinger, put Aston Martin on the map. Astin Martin has a long history, dating back to 1913. The auto company was started by engineer Robert Bamford and racing enthusiast Lionel Martin.

They worked out of a small garage in West London, where they sold and modified cars built by Singer Motors, a small 10-horsepower automobile brand sold in Britain. One day, Lionel Martin entered a prototype car he and Bamford had built and raced it in the Aston Hill climb. Aston Hill was a renowned motoring venue, and Martin achieved success racing there in 1914. That win and their growing reputation encouraged the pair to start designing and building their own cars.

Just as the company was getting off the ground, the first world war abruptly halted their plans. By the time the war ended, Bamford had left the partnership. Martin continued on, built his first new car the following year, and needed a name for it. Because there was a growing number of car manufacturers at that time, Martin's wife Kate wanted the company to be listed first in alphabetical direction. and, cashing in on our husband's racing success at Aston Hill, suggested the name Aston Martin. In 1922, Martin produced cars to compete in the French Grand Prix and set world speed and endurance records at racing circuits in the UK.

But production was expensive, and Aston Martin went bankrupt in 2024, prompting Lionel Martin to leave the company. Because the Aston Martin brand name still had value, it was rescued by investors, producing 700 vehicles before being interrupted yet again by World War II. After the war, the business would go bankrupt several more times and was sold again, this time to the David Brown Company, a gear and machine tools manufacturer. That's when the Aston Martin DBs began production. the DB standing for David Brown.

Which brings us to James Bond's famous Aston Martin DB5 in 1964. Ashton Martin and James Bond have become synonymous in pop culture. And it's the Goldfinger DB5 that is the most famous of all the Bond vehicles. When I was a kid, I owned the Corgi toy version of Bond's Aston Martin. I remember being disappointed that it was gold-colored, not the cinematically authentic silver. Apparently, Corgi thought silver looked like an unpainted toy, so it chose gold to play off the popularity of gold finger. Boo. But the corgi did come with a lot of the cool bond gadgets, including a fully functioning ejector seat with quite the kick to it.

And I lost the little gun-toating bad guy it came with when I ejected him across our front lawn, over the fence, and into the bushes on day two. Not long ago, one of the gadget-filled Aston Martin DB-5s used in the Bond Films was purchased at auction for $6.4 million. As we've mentioned before, Sean Connery owned a 1964 Aston-B-Fyves. Martin D.B.5. Surprisingly, he purchased the car at the age of 88. When he passed away two years later, his estate sold it for $2.4 million. If you think that's a lot of money, know this. Several vintage Aston Martins have sold for over $20 million each. That's how powerful the Aston Martin

brand is. It has survived two world wars, seven bankruptcies, multiple owns, and massive competition over the last 100 years. Like Bond, it has chosen to die another day. Don't go away. We'll be right back. When I was a kid, I would get my allowance. and skip down to the corner store. Then I would peruse the candy counter with big eyes and buy my favorite treats.

And part of that hall always included Bazooka Bubble Gum. They were one cent each, so I loaded my pockets. Bazooka was introduced by the Tops Company just after the war in 1947. The word Bazooka, by the way, was coined by a musician named Bob Burns. He had created, an instrument that had a long tube and a wide funnel at the end,

not unlike the look of a trumpet. He named it a bazoo, then added the letters K-A to the end of the word, so that it sounded more like a legitimate instrument, like a balalaika or a harmonica. So the bazoo became a bazooka. When the military was demonstrating a new rocket gun, a captain said,

That thing looks just like Bob Burns' bazooka. The name stuck, and Tops borrowed it for its bubble gum. The first bazooka gum came in a roll, like a tootsie roll. It contained six pieces of gum in a white, blue, and red wrapper that sold for a nickel. It also came with a small comic strip. The main character was Bazooka, the Adam Bubble Boy. He would blow big pink bubbles that would float him off to various adventures. The character didn't prove to be popular,

and the public preferred spending a nickel for a full-sized chocolate bar. So Tops changed their strategy. They started selling single pieces of bazooka bubble gum for a penny and created a new character for its comic strips. Enter Bazooka Joe. Bazooka Joe had a very unusual look. He wore a baseball cap and, for some reason, never explained in the comic strip, he sported a black eye patch.

But there is a reason. Back in 1947, a man named Harold Rudolph wrote a book titled, Attention and Interest Factors in Advertising. One of Rudolph's rules was that a photo with a story element grabs attention. Ad man David Oglevy read that book. It influenced one of his most famous ad campaigns of the 1950s. Ogilvy created a character called The Man in the Hathaway shirt. And to give him some mysterious story appeal,

Ogilvy put a black eye patch on him. It was a strange choice, but that eye patch made the campaign and Hathaway shirts a runaway success. So in 1950s, the Topps' creative team satirized the Hathaway campaign and gave Bazooka Joe his iconic eye patch. The resulting Bazooka Joe comics were an instant hit and ignited sales of Bazooka Bubblegum.

Each comic was a sequential story containing three or four frames. Each told a silly joke and a wise-cracking Bazooka Joe usually had the punchline. The canvas was just 2.5 inches, but the bazooka team pulled it off. The bottom of each comic also contained a one-line fortune, like a fortune cookie. They were pretty amusing and specific. For example, one said, you'll use your love of flying to become an airline pilot. All righty then. Topps did extensive advertising to a while.

retailers persuading them to stock bazooka gum. The company sweetened that offer by figuring out a way to encourage brand loyalty. It began offering prizes to kids that could be redeemed with comics. For example, you could get a necklace by sending in 100 bazooka comics, or a pocket knife for 375 comics. Before long, kids were buying half a billion pieces of bazooka gum every year. Topps created 1,500 Bazooko Joe comics over the decades and came to realize they could recycle them every seven years. The main target for Bazooka was kids 6 to 13, and every seven years a new generation arrived who were fresh to the comics.

Every so often, Bazooka Joe was updated to keep pace with the times. His look changed first in the early 60s, then again in the 80s. In the 90s, he began wearing low-slung baggy jeans and his baseball cap was worn backwards, but the eye patch remained. Then, in 2012, Topps faced a crisis. Sales dropped 48%. So, after 59 years, the company decided to discontinue the famous Bazooka Joe Comics. The Bazooka Packaging was completely. redesigned, a new flavor was added, and brain teasers replaced the comics.

The next few years saw a resurgence in all things retro, especially in the candy industry. Tops responded to the trend by finally answering the number one request they kept hearing from customers, Bring Back the Comics. So in 2019, Tops announced a limited edition throwback pack. It featured the nostalgic packaging. and original flavor bazooka bubblegum wrapped in classic Bazooka Joe comics. Last year, Bazooka Bubblegum celebrated its 75th anniversary. After all this time, the bubble still hasn't burst.

So few companies last 50 years. They have to survive shifting tastes, crippling recessions, intense competition, and an ever-evolving door of executives. And through it all, some companies managed to find a way not just to survive, but thrive. Madame Tussaud was a pioneering female entrepreneur who figured out a shrewd marketing plan. She focused on celebrities, a fascination that hasn't ebbed in over 200 years. Dairy Queen has survived in the brutal fast food category for more than 80 years and is now owned by legendary investor Warren Buffett,

who knows a sweet deal when he sees one. Aston Martin has been driven for over a century in spite of multiple bankruptcies and a parade of owners, proving you can't keep a good brand down. Many of the bazooka gag writers went on to write for Ronan Martin's Laughin, the Carol Burnett Show, and Saturday Night Live. And with half a billion bazooka gumpieces being sold every year by the late 1960s, those bazooka writers could be considered the world's best-selling authors.

Unlike Phantom of the Opera, which rarely made dramatic changes from its original version, each of these brands today survived because they did change to keep up with the times. Toussau's Museum always features the most current celebrities. Dairy Queen ventured into hot food, Aston Martin is about to launch its first electric model, and Bazooka Bubblegum looks nothing like the good old days. And that is the secret to a long life. Keep your core intact, but roll with the punches.

When you're under the influence. I'm Terry O'Reilly. This episode was recorded in the show. the Terstream Mobile Recording Studio. Producer, Debbie O'Reilly, sound engineer Jeff Devine. Research, Patrick James Aslan. Under the Influence theme

by Ari Posner and Ian Lefeber, music provided by APM music. Follow me on social at Terry O. Influence. If you're enjoying this episode, you might also like last season's brand envy show, season 11, episode 22. You'll find it in our archives on your favorite podcast app.

You can now listen to our podcast on the apostrophe YouTube channel. See you next week. Fun fact! Ever wonder why bubblegum is pink? Back in 1928, when bubblegum was first invented, pink was the only food coloring the factory had on hand.