#clint mcelroy

Other times I'm watching a local theater group advertise their production of 1776 and realize Clint McElroy is doing the voice over for the ad.

yes. yes it can. because this happened to me following mbmbam ep 800: platonic soapbox sex coffin, where during the turbo news bit justin says, "i'll do the ads, coming back. half price, half price, half price, half price, half. price. shoes." to which travis flatly says "what a specific reference." understatement of the fucking year. (make it stick!)

i have had this jingle in the back of my mind since that episode came out in february, and today is the day i thought "i should really figure out what the hell that's from." well, i did, and it took me down a weird rabbithole and that is why i am writing this (obviously).

that was the jingle for foard-harwood shoes, a shoe company that was founded in huntington in 1924; the first store was a few doors down from the keith-albee theater (which, notably here, the mcelroys have performed at multiple times, and 2025's candlenights live show was the opening performance after the theater was remodeled) in what is now an empty lot. in 1972, they relocated to a storefront downtown, and in 1980 they opened an additional location at the huntington mall (which is actually in barboursville, which griffin rants about here). during the 1960s they had an in-store x-ray machine where you could get x-rays of your feet (no, i don't know why). the downtown location shuttered in 1994 and the one in the mall closed in 2003. btw huge shoutouts to the herald dispatch's lost huntington series and also the wayback machine which was the only way i could actually read this article where literally all online available information about foard-harwood's history seems to have originated. the same family/company (foard-harwood inc.) owned a stride-rite (a shoe store chain from boston) franchise in charleston which closed in just 2019.

the part justin sings is, as far as i can tell, only part of a full radio ad that has been lost to time (trying to reconstruct it piecemeal from elderly folks nostalgiaposting is not exactly easy), but it's seemingly the most memorable part. there are exactly four (4!!) unique references to this jingle on the internet (not counting the mbmbam ep or its clips, although i did go through the entire comment section of the clip and nobody aside from me noticed or mentioned this). the aforementioned articles, a facebook post, and an r/westvirginia reddit thread. if you, like i do, love west virginians, i cannot recommend reading through all of those enough. but this absolute gem of a reddit thread is what made me need to write all of this.

"Anybody got this old commercial recorded anywhere?" asks the OP. and, as we now know, no. it's lost media. but one user, u/HMSDiversity, comes in clutch (as redditors in local subs so often do) with a wild unsubstaniated rumor: "Clint McElroy did the voiceover on the jingle; of this I am 100% certain." [WHAT.] "You may know his kids, who put on the podcast My Brother, My Brother and Me and others. I would be incredibly surprised if they didn’t have access to the audio for that jingle somewhere." is this true? i have no fucking idea. as far as circumstantial evidence goes: justin referenced it, travis recognised it, and it aired in the huntington area during the 70s-80s, while clint was very much still doing radio. personally i am about 60% convinced, but i am certainly not going to pester them about it. well, good/bad news, the OP already did! "I emailed the kids to see if I can get a copy or if they can post it to YT. Fingers crossed." there is something so funny and precious to me about these middle aged men still being referred to as clint mcelroy's kids. what a fucking insane shadow to live in, and only in your hometown. and the idea that they would randomly post a 10 second radio ad clint did 40+ years ago for a business that no longer exists to their youtube channel is just *chef's kiss* beautiful. i mean, maybe they would.