Terry O'Reilly

Time magazine said it comes as close to any cartoon ever has to perfection.

Steven Spielberg called it the Citizen Kane of the animated short.

And the song Hello My Baby has an interesting history.

When Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, he answered calls with the nautical greeting Ahoy, Hoy.

It didn't catch on.

Thomas Edison suggested another greeting instead, the word hello.

Up until then, the word hello was an exclamation of surprise as in hello.

Soon, people began adopting hello when answering the phone.

It was a brand new word for a brand new invention.

Because the telephone was such a revolutionary device, and because saying hello was so new, a novelty song was recorded to poke fun at it all.

Titled Hello My Baby, the song was written in 1899.

The lyrics tell the story about a man who has a girlfriend he knows only through the telephone.

The song was first recorded by a singer named Arthur Collins back in 1899.

The song, beyond being used in One Froggy Evening, has two important distinctions.

It is credited as the first song ever written about the new invention called the telephone.

And it's the very first song to make fun of the brand new telephone greeting, hello.

Today, we take a look at marketing firsts, specifically the very first commercials ever produced for popular products and companies.

Television was brand new in the 40s and 50s, and it ushered in another new thing, the television commercial.

From the debut of the Jolly Green Giant to the first Kentucky Fried Chicken commercial to the very first pharmaceutical ad and all the way to the first iPhone commercial, we say hello to these products for the first time.

You're under the influence.