Free Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Golden Plunger Awards by Bathroom Readers’ Institute Page B

because of me.”
    When all was said and done, Peller was a celebrity, making appearances on Saturday Night Live and in the 1985 movie Moving Violations . She continued to get commercial work as well, but when she proclaimed, “I found it!” in a Prego spaghetti sauce commercial in 1985, Wendy’s had a beef with her. She would no longer star in any more ads for the chain. William Welter, an EVP for Wendy’s, told the New York Times , “Unfortunately, Clara’s appearance in the [Prego] ads makes it extremely difficult for her to serve as a credible spokesperson for our products.”
    In 1987, exactly one week after her 85th birthday, Peller passed away. But her legacy lives on in American pop culture.

FACTS ABOUT WENDY’S FOUNDER DAVE THOMAS
    • He got the idea for the distinctive Wendy’s square hamburgers from Kewpee, a restaurant in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
    • In the 1960s, he owned several Kentucky Fried Chicken locations in Columbus, Ohio, but sold them in 1969 to start his own hamburger chain. He said there weren’t any good burger places in Columbus.
    • His two-year-old daughter Melinda could only pronounce her first name as “Wenda.” Thomas fashioned it into “Wendy” and named his burger restaurant that.
    • Thomas dropped out of high school at age 15, but earned a GED at the age of 60.
    • From 1989 to 2002, Thomas was Wendy’s commercial pitchman, appearing in more than 800 commercials.

THE “VIDEO MADE THE RADIO STAR” AWARD
    “Take on Me” by a-ha
    The third time was the charm for this catchy hit—thanks to a
groundbreaking video that rocked the music video world.
    OFF THE HOOK
    It took a while for the world to take to “Take on Me.” Luckily, the Norwegian band a-ha had a record company that believed the group was destined for stardom thanks to the band members’ matinee-idol good looks and the vocal range of lead singer Morten Harket. The trio (Harket, guitarist Paul Waak-taar Savoy, and keyboardist Magne Furuholmen) moved to London in the early 1980s to try to get a record deal and finally succeeded in late 1983 when Warner Bros.’ U.K. division signed them. They released “Take on Me,” a catchy pop song about the nervousness of falling in love, in the fall of 1984, but the song lacked a hook. Its midtempo beat was overpowered by synthesizer effects that distracted listeners from Harket’s powerhouse voice. The familiar chorus of “Take on me/Take me on/I’ll be gone/In a day or two” was there, of course, but the energy of the song was plodding.
    Nevertheless, Warner Bros. still felt they had a potential hit band on their hands, and they wanted to recoup the initial investment they’d made in the group. They hired producer Alan Tarney, who’d had success working with such 1970s artists as Cliff Richard and Leo Sayer, to remix “Take on Me,” along with some other songs on the album. Tarney’s direction for the song worked. He rearranged the synthesizer line, bringing it to the forefront to create the hook that would make the song immediately recognizable.
He also sped up the tempo, creating a tune that would have the potential to entice people onto the dance floor.

IF AT FIRST YOU DON’T SUCCEED . . .
    Still, a second release of the single didn’t change matters. Outside of Norway, sales of a-ha’s album Hunting High and Low were tanking. This time around, though, the American section of Warner Bros. Records had an idea. When the band had visited their offices, all the women had gone crazy for the three band members, Harket in particular. Warner Bros. wasn’t going to let that opportunity get away. They convinced their British counterparts that the song needed just one more thing—a good video.
    In the spring of 1985, everyone would be humming along to Harket’s almost glass-shattering chorus and reciting the song’s simple lyrics (“Talking away/I don’t know what I’m to say/I’ll say it anyway”). But ultimately, it was the medium of television that would