Around twenty-five years ago, the New York radio station WPIX tried to win the hearts of listeners by switching to an all-love-song format. It was aggressive about letting people know about this rebranding, blanketing the New York City area’s TV channels with ads like the one above. Remember that this was the pre-California Raisins era, so the whole concept of “claymation” was restricted to the odd Sesame Street skit—and that only made the ad below the cut, in which Dionne Warwick and Joe Cocker were transformed into butt-naked clay cupids warbling their sappiest hits, weirder. (Really, it haunts my dreams even today.)

What with tomorrow being Valentine’s Day, and the frequency that once belonged to WPIX rumored to be struggling with its “rock that isn’t just by dinosaurs” format, I figured it would be fun to imagine a WPIX ad in the present day, with two singers, molded out of clay, singing to each other over an abyss, and then flying into the sunset to the sounds of Peaches & Herb?

For some reason I keep imaginging Feist as one of the principals in this version 2.0 ad. I’m stumped to think of a guy, though. Maybe George Michael, just for camp effect?

1983 – WPIX FM [Google Video]
Peaches & Herb – Reunited [YouTube]