Rice-A-Roni’s Classic Jingle Will Return

Rice-A-Roni is bringing back the jingle that was once its meat and potatoes.

Beginning Monday, “Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco treat,” will be sung on a TV commercial near you.

If you sense it hasn’t been long since you last heard it, you’re right. It was only three years ago when Golden Grain Macaroni dumped the 30-year-old jingle for the side dish that was once promoted as a potato substitute. At the time the jingle was killed, a company executive said the ad had become so familiar that “people stopped listening to it.”

Well, Golden Grain has changed its tune. Actually, the tune is about the same--just a bit more contemporary. And the baby boomers who eat Rice-A-Roni in the new spot wear things such as suspenders and designer eye glasses.

“We gave it a couple of years’ rest,” said Steve Odland, director of marketing at Oakland-based Golden Grain, which is owned by Quaker Oats. “Now, we think we’ve given it enough of a hiatus to have it break through again.”

Certainly, Rice-A-Roni is not the first to bring back an old theme. Campbell’s Soup recently brought back “Mmm, mmm good.” Nestea has revived its “Nestea Plunge.” And while trying to recover from some recent bad publicity, Perrier returned to its familiar “Earth’s first soft drink.”

Officials insist Rice-A-Roni sales are up--not down. An executive at the agency that revived the new campaign said the timing is right. “There’s a lot more return to the family these days,” said Mike Moser, co-creative director at the San Francisco agency Goldberg Moser O’Neill. “Today, you can turn on Nickelodeon and watch ‘Dobie Gillis’ and ‘Donna Reed’ while eating Rice-A-Roni.”