​We all know the song, and we all love Rockapella.

If you were to search through the annals of YouTube to find this infamous 1998 Folgers Coffee commercial, blurry and grainy videos would be all you could find. 

Granted, the commercial is almost 20 years old.

Thankfully, Rockapella vocal percussionist Jeff Thacher uploaded a beautifully crisp version just for FloVoice. Thanks, Jeff!

Start Your Morning Off Right

When asked how Rockapella ended up doing a Folgers ad, he said:

The very early '90s 'Carmen Sandiego' Rockapella did a Folgers radio ad with largely the same arrangement. Flash forward to 1998 and a celebrity Folgers TV campaign had started. They gave us a call, and we refreshed the song for them. It was recorded in an NYC studio used for many ad recordings back then.

"Humorously, we were then flown from NYC to the Paramount 'NYC' backlot in Los Angeles. The shoot took a day, as I recall. The newsstand set you see in it has appeared in many other commercials and TV shows over the years, if you look carefully. The gentleman sitting near us in one shot was a known commercial actor as well. I remember having a fascinating time watching it all play out and seeing how elaborate such productions are behind the scenes. 

"It helped spark some of my future interest in video production."



Thacher continued:

"Later the next year, we repeated the whole process for the holiday version of the ad. We were flown out to Vancouver to shoot up in the amazing Whistler ski area. For that one, they'd found a log cabin location. But things were a bit warm, so they had to spread an enormous amount of fake snow around. All the snow you see in that ad was artificial.

"The holiday ad actually ended up running longer than the original one. Television advertising can be quite something!"

Here's a live video of Rockapella performing a few of their commercial jingles:

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