A classic Oscar Mayer jingle returns

Kraft Heinz, which now owns Oscar Mayer, a former Madison, Wisconsin, industrial juggernaut, has brought back a commercial that in 1974 featured 4-year-old Andy Lambros who, while sitting on a boat dock, riffed on Oscar Mayer and taught the world how to properly spell B-O-L-O-G-N-A.

The commercial aired over the Thanksgiving weekend as a way to pay homage to the classic spot and to kick off a contest that runs through Dec. 15 in which fans can sing the jingle for a shot at free groceries by submitting an audio recording of the "bologna song" to SingtoPay.com. People in select select cities can also sing the song in person to Hotdoggers, the drivers of the 27-foot-long Wienermobiles and in exchange receive a package of bologna. 

“We knew this anniversary was a moment that needed to be celebrated in a big way, both for those who remember and those that are new," said Shelby Max, a brand manager for Oscar Mayer. "By re-airing the original ad and becoming the first brand to accept singing as a form of payment, we want to remind fans everywhere that bologna has a first name – it’s O-S-C-A-R.”

The jingle was written by Jerry Ringlien, an Eau Claire, Wisconsin, native and University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate, who at the time was the company's vice president of marketing and at a time when the company had more than 1,000 employees on Madison's North Side. In 1919, Oscar Mayer, then based in Chicago, expanded to Madison and in 1957 moved its headquarters adjacent to the Oscar Mayer plant. The facility closed in 2017 but remains an indelible Madison and Wisconsin story.

The Wisconsin Historical Society has in its collection the banjo ukulele used in 1962 to compose "Oh, I wish I was an Oscar Mayer Wiener" and a photo of Meinhardt Raabe, the Watertown, Wisconsin, native who played the Munchkin coroner in the Wizard of Oz and for years played "Little Oscar" as a spokesman for Oscar Mayer. There's also a jacket worn by a driver of a Wienermobile and a Wienermobile that is stored in the State Archives Preservation Facility on Madison's East Side and is likely to get a spot in the Society's new museum being built on Capitol Square and scheduled to open in fall 2026.