It’s that time of year again, folks, when we share the B. C. Clark holiday jingle with you.
Longtime Cladrite Radio readers and listeners will recall that the sharing of the B. C. Clark jingle is something of a Christmas tradition here. 2022 marks the 15th year we’ve spread the holiday spirit in this fashion.
Anyone who grew (or is currently growing) up in the Oklahoma City area knows that it’s just not the Christmas season until you’ve heard the B. C. Clark jingle on television or the radio at least once.
Below are two versions of the jingle—the original, which is admittedly of lower audio quality, and a later version—the one currently heard on radio and TV in the Oklahoma City area—which arguably sounds a bit better, but drops one line late in the song (“The Christmas wish of B. C. Clark is to keep on pleasing you…”), because 30-second commercials had become the norm on local television.
B. C. Clark, for the non-Okies among you, is a jewelry retailer that’s been in operation in the Sooner State since 1892, and since 1956 (a bit outside Cladrite Radio’s typical time frame, but we’re stretching a point for the holidays), they’ve been running the aforementioned jingle advertising their annual sale, which takes place not after Christmas, like most stores (or so the jingle’s lyrics insist), but just before.
So for 65 years, denizens of central Oklahoma have been humming along to this catchy ditty, and it’s our pleasure to share this holiday highlight with folks from other parts of the country (and around the world).
And here’s a fun fact: the good folks at B. C. Clark paid just $300 for the jingle back in the day—that’s $2,836.85 in 2018 dollars, a pretty sweet bargain for a jingle that’s been a favorite of Oklahomans everywhere for more than six decades.
But be forewarned—listen more than two or three times, and you’ll be hooked, no matter how far away you live from the nearest B.C. Clark location. And soon, as with the millions of Okies who have come to associate this venerable jingle with the Christmas season, you’ll come to feel that it just isn’t the holidays until you’ve heard the jingle once or twice (or a dozen times).