RCA, high technology even your dog can use
In a fall 1991 big advertising campaign, RCA declared war on high technologys confusing terminology. A large role in this assault on technological gobbledygook was played by “Chipper”. The campaigns TV commercials and print ads, through the Christmas sales season, reassured would-be buyers that RCA consumer electronics products uncomplicated high tech with built-in features, and left users with fewer buttons and gadgets to contend with. “Finally, a VCR everybody and his dog can program,” said the headline of one print ad. “At last, technology that serves man,” said the headline of another. “If your VCR is a pain to program, then get rid of it”, said an announcer in one spot. Research showed that, by blending older and younger elements, through the “Nipper”+“Chipper” combination, RCA products are contemporary yet traditional. Consumers are convinced that “Nipper” and “Chipper” should continue to tell the RCA brand’s story for the next 100 years. ×
Central America
América Central y el Caribe (Español) Dogs have been getting a lot of attention from colleagues of mine in the magazine lately, what with the selection from Susan Orlean’s book “Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend,” which ran in the issue of August 29th, and Adam Gopnik’s Personal History, “Dog Story,” which recounts his recent conversion to the world of dogs, thanks to a charming Havanese named Butterscotch. My own claim to distinction in this arcane area began when my wife, Carol, took our fox terrier Willy out for a walk one morning in 1990, and encountered a fashion shoot in progress in Central Park: a photographer working with a chocolate-brown Lab and a tweeded-up male model for a Paul Stuart advertisement. When Carol and Willy came past again, on the way home, the photographer asked if he could please borrow our dog for a few minutes, and heartlessly made the switch. The resulting Paul Stuart ad ran in the issue of October 29th. My only disappointment was with Willy’s commission, which turned out not to be a fifteen-hundred-dollar Italian silk-Irish-tweed-mix jacket for his owner but a free copy of the Paul Stuart catalogue.
Dogly type deposes to take mild exception to a line in Tad Friend’s Talk of the Town piece, “Sound of Silence,” in the current issue of The New Yorker, in which he states that the Jack Russell terrier that appears in the new movie “The Artist” is “the breed that once cocked an ear to RCA Victrolas.” I don’t think so. The dog sitting attentively and eternally next to that old-fashioned phonograph horn on RCA Victor records is a pooch named Nipper, who looks to me like a fox terrier or something close. The canine belonged to a Royal Academy British artist, Francis Barraud, who painted “Dog Looking At and Listening To a Phonograph” (above) sometime in the eighteen-nineties. The picture was acquired by the Gramophone Company in 1900, and shortly thereafter rights to it went over to Victor, where the painting was edited into its famous His Master’s Voice trademark. Only lately has anyone suggested that Nipper might have been a Jack Russell, but a good second look at those elegant Ionic forelegs dismisses the claim.
Jack Russell terriers are the wildly popular, intense short-legged cutesters now probably visible (and audible) on a taut leash in your apartment lobby or around the nearest shopping mall. Fox T.’s, which come in the smooth or wire-haired model, are taller and narrower, and, by a fraction, more staid. Though probably outnumbered by Jacks just now, they are the older, more established breed; one version of Jack Russells, a country cousin, was developed in the eighteenth century by a British divine who gave the breed its official moniker, the Parson Russell Terrier. The American Fox Terrier Club was founded in 1885; the Jack Russell Terrier Club of America in 1976. I grew up in close proximity to dogs, but the first time I ever heard of a Jack Russell or laid eyes on one was in 1965, when an old Boston friend of mine, Kornie Parson (yes), introduced me to a delightfully waggling football he’d just picked up on a business trip to England.
Fox terriers were bred for foxhunting, but not on foot. After the much bigger, no-relation foxhounds (with their floppy ears and waving tails) had driven the fox to earth, the F.T. would be handed down from a bag or basket on the Master of Hounds’ saddle and would instantly dig out the poor beast. Foxhunting has pretty much been abolished now, even in England, but more than one owner of the breed must have noticed that somewhere along the line fox terriers—with their long faces, straight front legs, and pricked ears—had been selectively bred to look a lot like horses. The young incumbent at my house, Andy (above), has yet to encounter a fox or a horse, but doesn’t seem to mind. My son, noting his unusual patching, thinks he looks a lot like a cow.
A smooth fox terrier, Ch. Warren Remedy, won the Best in Show award at the very first Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, in 1907, and repeated in 1908 and again in ‘09. Between them, smooth and wire foxes have won seventeen Best in Shows at Westminster, more than any other breed (Scotties are second, with eight). The most famous fox terrier was Asta, a wire who stole scenes from William Powell and Myrna Loy in all those “Thin Man” movies in the nineteen-thirties and early forties, and the next-best probably Ch. Nornay Saddler, who won fifty-one Best in Show awards (then a record) between 1937 and 1940, but somehow never the top Westminster prize, and became the subject of the very first New Yorker dog Profile, written by E. J. Kahn, in 1940.
What breed is the target dog?
Bullseye made his debut in Target’s iconic 1999 advertising campaign “Sign of the Times,” which featured a white English bull terrier with the Target logo over his left eye, set to a reworked version of the 1960s Petula Clark pop tune “A Sign of the Times.” The campaign proved to be a hit—and guests and team members …
How 100 Years Of Breeding Changed These Popular Dog Breeds
At the mention of “the RCA dog,” most of us instantly see the iconic of the white-and-black dog with his head cocked, listening intently to a phonograph.
Though my series is generally dedicated to American dogs, we’re going to permit Nipper, a Brit, to make an appearance because he qualifies as “very well known by Americans.” As it happens, the trademark was listed as one of the Top 10 of Famous Brands of the 20th Century.
Nipper Nipper (1884-1895) belonged to one of several brothers in the Barraud family of Liverpool. The dog was born in Bristol, where an older brother lived. When the fellow died unexpectedly, younger brother Francis Barraud (1856-1924), a struggling painter, took the dog home with him to Liverpool.
Nipper was probably a terrier mix. Some think he was a Jack Russell Terrier, but others feel that he was a Fox Terrier, a Rat Terrier, or a Pit Bull Terrier.
The name Nipper came about because of his tendency to bite the backs of visitors’ legs. This may have simply been a trait of his puppyhood.
Model for a Painting Though Nipper died in 1895, Barraud did not start this particular painting until 1898. He explained that the family had a phonograph, and Barraud decided to try to depict the puzzled look the dog had when the family phonograph played.
Barraud originally called his work, “Dog looking at and listening to a Phonograph.” It was not an instant success. Barraud approached the Royal Academy, hoping to have it displayed, but he was turned down. The painting was also rejected by several magazines.
Thinking commercially, Barraud wrote to the Edison Bell Company in New Jersey, noting that the dog was listening to an Edison Bell cylinder. “Dogs don’t listen to phonographs,” was the response from Edison Bell management.
Modifications Recommended Friends liked the painting and suggested to Barraud that he might make it more appealing by substituting a gold horn to replace the black Edison horn. Barraud liked the idea but needed a gold horn from which to model the new version of the painting, so he visited Liverpool’s newly formed Gramophone Company.
The manager, Barry Owen, understood the commercial possibilities. He offered to buy the painting and the rights to it if Barraud would make it a gramophone. A deal was made for both the painting and the copyright, and in October 1899 the deal was sealed when Barraud delivered the painting.
At first the Gramophone Company used the sparingly. Then Emile Berliner (1851-1928), the U.S. inventor of the gramophone, talked to Owen about assigning to him the U.S. rights to use the picture. Owen did so, and in the U.S. Berliner was working with the Victor Talking Machine Company, which made the Victrola. In 1929, the company became RCA-Victor (1929), and became well-known for radios as well as phonographs and records. For both Victrola and later for RCA-Victor, and eventually RCA Company, the Nipper trademark became well-known. Even today Nipper collectibles are very desirable.
Painting Re-Named Today we know the painting by the perfect name, “His Master’s Voice.” Another writer, Erik Oestergaard, learned how the new name may have come about. He writes that in 2006 he heard from Heather Readman of Canada. Readman wrote that the Gramophone Company held a contest, soliciting slogans to go with the painting. Her great-grandfather William Graham, then living in Scotland, entered with “His Master’s Voice.” Unfortunately, he was never able to claim the prize; entrants were required to purchase a specific quantity of merchandise in order to win.
Barraud and Nipper Nipper was buried in Kingston upon Thames. This is now the parking lot of a Lloyds Bank on Clarence St. However, there is a plaque on the wall noting that Nipper is buried nearby. While Barraud did not necessary strike it rich from the painting, he did spend most his remaining years working for the Gramophone Company, painting replicas of the painting to be used in different circumstances.