Terry O'Reilly

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4,084 appearances 18 recordings 1 series first heard Apr 2026 last heard 5 Sep

Terry O'Reilly’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 18 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 5.

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Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly · When You're This Big, They Call You Mister · 18 Jul 2026 podcast

They considered Captain Softee and General Softee, but nothing grabbed them.

Then Bill Conway said, What's wrong with just calling it Mr.?

Mr. Softee.

The next step was to advertise Mr. Softee.

So they hired the Gray Advertising Agency in Philadelphia and commissioned a jingle.

The resulting radio commercial was written by Les Waz, who was one of the top jingle composers of the era.

While you may be familiar with the melody, the original Mr. Softee radio commercial had lyrics.

A couple of years later, the company made a loop of the melody and played it through loudspeakers from their trucks.

It was a turning point.

The jingle became a nostalgic summer tradition, tempting families to come running when the Mr. Softee truck rolled into their neighborhoods.

At its peak, the company had over 1,600 ice cream trucks on the road.

Years later, the company sent a telegram to Les Was thanking him for the jingle, saying they would still be a tiny three-truck company if it weren't for that incredible Sonic branding.

The company, still in the Conway family today, became one of the biggest distributors of soft ice cream and one of the largest franchisors of ice cream trucks in North America.

Today, the fleet still rolls across streets in Canada and the U.S.,

And the logo on the trucks hasn't changed since 1956.

Watch for the Mr. Softee truck.

It's a soft ice cream store on wheels.

While some brand names are created by enterprising marketers, some were inspired by an aquatic military vessel.

The submarine sandwich has an interesting history.

It appears that an Italian immigrant named Dominic Conti came to America in 1895.

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