Next on our list (or YouTube’s list really) of catchy, never-to-be-forgotten-if-you-watched-a-lot-of-TV-in-the-70s jingles is the classic ‘Be A Pepper, Drink Dr,. Pepper’ production number. The lead in this niftily staged ad is David Naughton, later to star in ‘An American Werewolf In London’ and a slew of TV shows many of which were cancelled, preventing Naughton from ever truly surpassing his recognizability as a singing Dr. Pepper spokesman. The jingle itself is a marvel of compressed musical sections–in less than 40 seconds it manages to wend its way through a four-part structure. 1) Statement theme: ‘I drink Dr. Pepper cause I’m proud…” etc. This covers bars one through eight. 2) Release refrain: ‘I’m a pepper, she’s a pepper…’ etc. This covers bars nine through twelve. 3) This is a restatement of part two, only up a key, giving it a modulation kick like all good musical numbers usually offer. 4) This is the tag–four bars of ‘Be a Pepper, Drink Dr. Pepper’, taking us out with a satisfying groove. Naughton is awfully good and the staging–four long takes–recalls the energy and simplicity of Busby Berkeley’s ‘marching’ dance numbers in ‘Hollywood Hotel’ and ‘Small Town Girl’. For completionist’s sake, I’ve included below another version of the ad in which Popeye makes a cameo appearance. The whole things’s set on a ship and the production value is rather more elaborate than the original. But despite the bells and whistles, I am curiously unmoved by the entire escapade. The original fulfilled its mission in a fresh, pleasingly simple and open-hearted way.