Pet Pitches For Coca-Cola

It’s already been over a year since the PBS program The British Beat, hosted by Petula Clark, first aired. Take a look at this video clip I posted, and you’ll see what Comcast analog cable TV looked like, and why I switched to Verizon FiOS digital.

That show wasn’t the first time Pet had been paired, in a sense, with legendary New York DJ Bruce Morrow, aka: Cousin Brucie. Pet did some radio spots for Coca-Cola in the sixties, with Cousin Brucie doing the intro.

[flv:/Video/2008/APR/PetCocaCola.flv 440 330]

I know that Pet greatly admires the late Dusty Springfield, but as a kid I had a hard time recognizing Dusty’s new songs. Versatile to a fault, is how I would now describe her work. In this regard Springfield was similar to Bobby Darin.

Petula Clark, on the other hand, has a distinctive and immediately recognizable sound that’s all her own, whether she’s belting out a pop tune or a love song. She’s done it all, from small French cabaret performances to lavish Broadway productions. For myself, growing up when I did, Pet represents the same thing the Beatles do — the absolute finest in popular music.

3 thoughts on “Pet Pitches For Coca-Cola”

  1. I guess it must have been 1958 when she started seriously working in France…. so she was in her mid 20s – late 20s when she seriously started speaking French. On stage and on tv she speaks with a really English sounding accent, but I’ve heard her speak faster and with a pretty French sounding accent, on a one to one with Claude. Her accent, it appears, is part of her image. La petite Anglaise.

  2. Somewhere on one of my hard drives I’m pretty sure I have the audio to all of the Pet Coke commercials. Was Petula really nearly 30 when she learned how to speak French? That’s quite an accomplishment. Two weeks from now I’ll be seeing Pet in person!

  3. She must have advertised coke for quite a while (a nice earner), because she did 4 different versions of her coke ad in English. This one would seem to be associated with “I Know a Place”, and there was another one that bore a distinct resemblence to bits of “Don’t Sleep in the Subway”. She also recorded ads in French with a song called “Y a d’la joie” (There is [some] joy), which didn’t resemble any of her work at the time. A much more jazzy, big band sound. I don’t know if they were for Canada, or Europe.

Comments are closed.