Happy Morning

In 2006, Folgers made what I consider to be one of the best commercials of all time. It was originally going to be featured during the Superbowl but rumor has it that upper management felt the commercial too annoyingly happy to do well. After all, the point of the commercial was that joyous morning sunshine is so intolerable that only through the consumption of Folgers coffee might someone bear it. Hence the campaign slogan “Tolerate Mornings.”

The commercial was met with mixed criticism from viewers. Some found the happy golden dancing people and their intentionally obnoxious singing so annoying that they associated the Folgers brand with that annoyance rather than the intended way to get around it. Others met the commercial with optimism and found the song humorous and memorable. Each chorus was met with an increase of volume and the commercial song even featured a bridge with a rising key-change: both musical qualities emphasize the rising sun rays getting stronger and more invasive. It’s a beautiful example of music-psychology.

As for the video, imagine Ned Flanders dancing around, playing the kazoo in a blond wig, basking in morning sunlight as the Sun’s rays force through the curtains of Homer’s window. It’s quite frankly what every parent with young children have to face on a daily basis.

Sadly, the http://toleratemornings.com/ website and all its goodness is no more, and it doesn’t ever last on YouTube for more than a few months before being removed. I think Folgers insistence of wiping the commercial from existence on all the video boards shows some backward thinking. After all, this is a commercial that they payed television stations to air and these fans are posting it up on the internet for people to watch without Folgers having to pay another dime. It’s a good commercial and they should have made more. Maybe showing the ramifications of a dry dessert that can be overcome by the dark brown richness from a hot cup of Folgers coffee.

Well… here are the lyrics to the best of my knowledge:

[Think Jimmy Durante]
Hah cha cha chahhh
Hah cha cha chahhh

Hello World, we’re shining so bright.
A new day’s here, it’s really dynamite.
Feel the love. Savor the door.
There’s a rainbow for each girl and boy.

On this [clap clap] happy morning! (Rise and shine!)
[clap clap] happy morning! (We’re doin’ fine!)
Get up, get out of bed. You can sleep when you are dead.

Partied hard; stayed up real late.
It’s time for work and you can hardly wait.
Scrub-a-dub-dub. Doodily-doo.
Spread the sunshine inside of you.

‘Cause it’s a [clap clap] happy morning! (Happy day!)
[clap clap] happy morning! (It’s nice today!)
Wake up you sleepy head. You can sleep when you are dead …

You can sleep when you are … [very bad Yamaha recorder instrumental]

La la la laaa
La la la laaa

[key change – rises like the sun]

Chahhhhh! Happy morning. (Rise and shine!)
Happy morning. (It’s wake-up time!)
Wake up you sleepy head, you can sleep when you are …
[clap clap]
Happy morning. (Happy day!)
Happy morning. (Feel right today!)
Wake up you sleepy head … [fade]


I enjoyed the song so much that I made it into a ringtone (or more appropriately, a wake-up alarm on my iPhone). The audio had to be stripped out of the commercial then carefully amplified and cut to produce the result. Audacity was used for the editing. I can’t remember what was used to pull the audio out of the video file.

Happy Morning Short Edit.m4r for the iPhone.

happy_morning_short_edit.mp3 for other devices.

Science’s marriage to law

Science apart from law doesn’t exist.

We have irrefutable laws of math, physics, chemistry and biology from which all other genres of science stem. How is it, then, that any so-called “science” could exist without laws?

Founding fathers of scientific principles believed strongly in a law-giving God. If the God that created the universe provided laws for the most obscure segments, such as the human soul, then He would certainly also provide laws for the more obvious parts of nature. Believing that there is a solid law is what led Louis Pasteur to also believe there is no such thing as spontaneous generation. This belief guided him into being the founder of modern day microbiology against the competition of his pagan predecessors and colleagues who supported an untested belief that spontaneous generation acts as the mechanism for evolution.

Galileo had plenty of difficulties because of the Catholic Church, but he addressed his difficulties as coming from people’s blindness both in what the Bible said and in what the Bible didn’t say. He’s quoted as saying “The Bible shows the way to go to heaven, not the way the heavens go.” But he held that observation reveals an order and law in the heavens that supports scripture, and that it’s dangerous to blindly accept what politicians tell people to accept as truth since the “truth” of politics can change.

Kelvin, one of the founders of modern day physics and entreated other scientists to design an absolute thermometric scale. His understanding of absolute properties stemmed from his understanding of God: “Do not be afraid of being free thinkers. If you think strongly enough you will be forced by science to the belief in God, which is the foundation of all religion. You will find science not antagonistic but helpful to religion.” From this, we infer that he considered a belief in God, and hence religion, to have a foundation that branches out to science and for science to be the process of gathering evidence of God. This only leads to one conclusion: “I cannot admit that, with regard to the origin of life, science neither affirms nor denies Creative Power. Science positively affirms Creative Power. It is not in dead matter that we live and move and have our being, but in the creating and directing Power which science compels us to accept as an article of belief.”

I’ll close with some thoughts from Isaac Newton. He defined science as the “frame of the world” that isn’t random or complex, but as simple as the other laws handed down by God. “It is the perfection of God’s works that they are all done with the greatest simplicity. He is the God of order and not of confusion. Therefore … they [that] would understand the frame of the world must endeavor to reduce their knowledge to all possible simplicity.” In other words, the key to the perfect works of a master craftsman is to have perfect adherence to simple rules. Since God’s scripture outlines simple rules for living, all other aspects of life must also adhere to simple rules.