Man who got generations singing Oscar Mayer Wiener song dies

The Fox River Grove resident who got generations of hot dog lovers singing along to the Oscar Mayer Wiener song has died.

Richard Trentlage died Sept. 21 in Libertyville at the age of 87, according to an online obituary.

With the words, "Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener," Trentlage helped solidify the company's hot dogs as a piece of Americana. The jingle he wrote appeared in a 1960s television commercial featuring cartoon children marching along and singing. The tune remained a fixture for the next half a century.

Trentlage learned of the contest for a hot dog jingle less than 24 hours before its deadline.

That night, with some ideas about kids and hot dogs floating around in his mind, Trentlage went home and composed the tune. He recorded the jingle that same night in his family's living room with his 10-year-old son, David, and 9-year-old daughter, Linda, sharing vocals and he and his wife playing the music.

It was not until a year later that Trentlage learned his tune had been selected from 203 entries as the new Oscar Mayer wiener song.

In a 1998 Daily Herald interview, Trentlage credited the success of the wiener song to three factors: its whimsy, its theme about love and its simple, instantly likable melody.

"If you can get whimsy in an advertising message, people are going to like it," he said. "It has a melody that is so simple people can remember it the first time they hear it."

Trentlage was born in Chicago and began penning jingles as a high school student, starting with one about a fictional company he called Modern Plastic Brooms. The idea was to dream up a believable sponsor for a school talent show and sing the jingle during commercial breaks in a performance modeled after a radio program.

The Modern Plastic Broom jingle was evidently so memorable that his former classmates sang it during a 50th reunion.

Trentlage transformed his living room into a makeshift recording studio, inviting his own children to sing on audition tapes. His children even recorded "on-air" sessions.

"We were always getting out of school to hop a train and meet our dad at a Chicago recording studio," his daughter, Linda Bruun, recalled in the funeral home obituary.

Trentlage was no one-hit wonder. He also wrote "WOW! It sure doesn't taste like tomato juice" for V8, "Buckle up for safety, buckle up!" for the National Safety Council and "McDonald's is your kind of place!" for the burger chain.

While the Oscar Mayer jingle might be Trentlage's most famous tune, it was not his favorite. That distinction belonged to a 1980s ad for Canfield's Soda.

They key to the success of that tune, and all his popular jingles, is the combination of his sales and musical backgrounds, Trentlage said in 1998.

"You have to be a good salesman above all," he said. "If you can combine sales experience and music writing savvy, then you have a good chance of being a successful jingle writer."

• Daily Herald staff writer Charles Keeshan contributed to this report.