Once upon a time, I saw a Tex Avery cartoon titled “Symphony In Slang.”
This short little cartoon was almost entirely in slang (thus the title). When I started studying copywriting and learned the value of using slang in my ads, I looked everywhere for it. I checked video stores, combed the Cartoon Network website and scoured the Internet.
Nada.
There were a few sites in the search engines that had it. But when I clicked on the links I’d find it was yanked offline for copyright violations or because the url had changed.
Tonight I finally found it.
And yep… it was sitting there on good ol’ Youtube.
You can watch it (while it’s still up) on YouTube just by typing in the title name in their search engine.
I suspect it won’t be up long, though.
So in case you’re reading this and it’s gone… I went through it (for your benefit and mine) and extracted all the relevant slang terms. Depending on what you sell, some of this stuff may be kind of hard to work into your story copy.
But much of it can still be adapted for a variety of products and services.
For example, you could treat some of them like “formula headlines” — where you substitute one or more words with words that fit with the story you’re telling in your copy. At the very least they should spark some useful ideas you can use.
Anyway, I was pretty excited when I found this cartoon.
I hope you get as much value out of it as I have.
born with a silver spoon in your mouth
grew up overnight
up at the crack of dawn
back to my hole in the wall
beside myself with anger
make some dough
beautiful girl stepped into the picture
I got goose pimples
clothes fit her like a glove
paintin’ the town red
let her hair down
she ate like a horse
my money was runnin’ out on me
left me in a pickle
I gave him the slip
he drew a gun on me
the law was on my heels
the judge tried to pump me
put my foot in my mouth
sent me up the river
felt myself going to pot
raised a big stink
going though a lot of red tape
threw myself at her feet
got on her high horse
couldn’t touch her with a ten foot pole
guess the cat had her tongue
after that I went to pieces
we chewed the rag a while
I heard from the grapevine
that burned me up
knew he was just feeding her a line
the guy spent his money like water
outside it was raining cats and dogs
I was feeling mighty blue… and everything looked black
a tear ran down my cheek
hot footed it over to Mary’s apartment
I died laughin’
# # #
For a ton more swipe file lessons (including a huge swipe file I personally use to get ideas for my own ads and sales letters), hot foot it over to…
