Love Philly? So do we. Let’s be friends. Sign up for the Billy Penn newsletter today.
Philadelphia summers are filled with annual traditions — driving to the Jersey Shore, block parties, Center City Sips — and, of course, Wawa Hoagiefest.
Wawa’s summer campaign has been a local ritual since it launched in 2008 with ads featuring a groovy John Lennon-looking hoagie man bestowing discount sandwiches (shortis $2.99) to all. The retro font and psychedelic colors harkened back to the peace and love hippie vibes of the 1960s.
The visuals of that original campaign have remained largely the same over the last two decades, but the music back then was something else.
Masterpieces like “Hoagiefest Is Back” and “Here Comes the Hoagie Man” played over and over on local televisions. The jingles were Beatles-inspired and set to images of the cartoon hoagie man coming to town — sometimes on a hoagie hot air balloon — and spreading joy with turkey, buns and lettuce for reasonable prices. When I was a kid, my brother actually got a CD with nine different Hoagiefest songs at an event, and we would listen to them in the car.
The songs were silly, bright, catchy and they were also all written by just one person — Parry Gripp. Whether or not you’ve heard of Gripp, you’ve likely come across his work.
You may know him as the frontman of Nerf Herder — a ‘90s punk band that has toured with Weezer, the Bloodhound Gang and also created the opening theme for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Or perhaps you watched one of his early viral internet videos, songs like “Do You Like Waffles,” “Hamster on a Piano” and “It’s Raining Tacos,” which has been viewed more than 100 million times on YouTube. Or maybe, you caught his music on children’s television shows, including “Ben 10: Omniverse” and “The 7D” — the latter of which he won an Emmy for.
We talked to Gripp to reflect on that simpler time when Hoagiefest shortis were truly just $2.99 instead of the hefty $6 they are today, and you could eat lettuce without even knowing the word cyclosporiasis.
This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
You’ve worn a lot of different hats throughout your music career. You were the lead singer of Nerf Herder. You worked on cartoon theme songs and the Wawa jingles. You created a lot of early viral videos. I’m wondering out of all these career phases, what has been the most surprising?
Oh man, the whole thing is surprising — I mean just to make music as a living. I sort of stumbled into it, and it just seems like an accidental thing that you couldn’t plan to have happen, like Hoagiefest. From the viral videos to doing the Buffy theme, it was just stuff you couldn’t even dream up. I never said, ‘Oh, I really want to do sandwich songs for a sandwich chain.’ (Laughs). It all seems very unlikely.
What do you think makes a good viral song?
Well, I think there’s two sides to that. One, it has to be really catchy, and then the reverse side of that is it has to be kind of annoying. You know what I mean? Like it’s sort of repetitive. It gets in your ear like an earworm. You got to say some words over and over again, which is probably irritating to some people, but I think that’s the main thing. For Wawa, it’s got to be kind of upbeat and fun sounding. If you can think of something that’s sort of annoying and then tweak it a little bit and make it likable, then that’s the magic.
I’d love to hear more about the creative process behind those commercials. How did they come about?
Years and years ago, the first kind of viral thing I had was a song called “Do You Like Waffles.” It was before YouTube. Some guy in Pittsburgh animated it, and it became this viral video. And when Wawa was starting Hoagiefest, they wanted to have a website, and the guy who was making the website was friends with the guy who had done this “Do You Like Waffles” video.
Wawa wanted music just for the website, and so my buddy contacted me. He was like, “Hey, they’re looking for music for this website about sandwiches — like a ‘60s Beatley sounding thing — would you like to come up with some songs?” And so, that sounded super fun to me. It wasn’t even a job for me. It was just like, oh yeah, that sounds super fun.
I specifically remember when the contract was being written for the website, the guy negotiating it for me — the guy with my record company — was like, “Hey, well, if these ever go to TV, will Parry get some more money?” And the people at Wawa were like, “Oh no, this is never going to TV. This is just for the website.” But it did. Eventually it went to TV.
The 1960s cartoon visuals are really linked in my head to Wawa Hoagiefest. Did you see them before creating music, or did they come after the songs?
I saw all the graphics and stuff. They had a lot of that figured out beforehand. It was inspired by The Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine” movie, which was inspired by a guy named Peter Max. As soon as you see those graphics, you’re like, “Oh, this is what it should sound like, because the artwork is so tied to that sound.” The artwork was really influential on me when I saw it.
I’m a music nerd, right? So I listen to all kinds of music. This thing I really listened to a lot trying to get in the frame of mind to do Hoagiefest over the years was a band called The Rutles — which is a parody of The Beatles. It was some of the guys from Monty Python. They came out with this movie, and they had a record, and it was just super funny.
So the commercials are like a parody on a parody in some way.
Yeah, I would say so.
Did the advertising agency ever hear one of your songs and say “No, that’s too weird.”
Tons of them. There’s so many leftover songs. There’s probably like 20 extra. It’s actually really weird. Usually, with advertising at places as big as Wawa, they have an advertising agency and they contract with a music house. So there’s a business, and they have all these songwriters, and they pitch different ideas. You never have like one dude across the country writing all the songs. That’s wholly crazy. So it’s really, really bizarre that I ended up doing so many of those songs.
Do you have a favorite song or one that stood out to you?
Oh man, I don’t even remember all the titles, but I do really like… I think there’s one called “Captain Hoagie’s Shorti Brigade.”
I remember that one!
That one to me is really funny. I just was laughing a lot when I did that one and probably “Here Comes the Hoagie Man.” I love that too. I know they’re probably very irritating to a lot of people, but I had so much fun doing them and I’m really proud of them.
Did you do any other Wawa-related projects?
There were a couple years where I did all the voiceovers, and it was really challenging because you had to talk really fast. So I’d be like, “Get a roasted Italian shorti for $2.99. Gotta have a Wawa.” Like I’d say it. It would have to be really fast, so it was challenging.
Is the Hoagie man basically John Lennon? Can we say that?
No, I don’t think we can say that. He’s based on the idea of a ‘60s guy. It’s definitely not John Lennon because that would be problematic. I think he’s just a groovy ‘60s-looking guy.
You live in California. Have you ever been to Hoagiefest? Have you been to Wawa?
I’ve been to Wawa because of my band Nerf Herder. We toured a lot on the East Coast in the late ’90s and early 2000s. We did a lot of touring with a band called the Bloodhound Gang. They’re from Philadelphia, and those guys — who are very nice guys — they introduced us to all kinds of Philadelphia stuff like scrapple and Tastykakes and Wawa. We definitely went to Wawa with them. But since I did Hoagiefest, I’ve probably been to Wawa once. I don’t think it was during Hoagiefest.
So you didn’t get any of those sweet, sweet summer deals?
No, I didn’t get any deals. I mean, the deal of getting to write those fun songs, that was the best deal. I feel like I got a great deal out of the whole thing.
That is fair. Although now that I think about it, it does seem like you should just get free hoagies no matter what time of year.
You know, I’ll try to do that next time I’m back East. I’m going to go into a Wawa, and I’m going to say, “Hey, I’m the guy that sings those hoagie songs. Give me a sandwich.” We’ll see what they do.
You did those commercials for years. By the end of it, was it very second nature or did you have to continue to push yourself to find new ground?
I think I was all hoagied out by the end. There’s only so many hoagie songs you can write. I was really surprised every year they came back and said, “Hey, do you want to do another song.” I think I said all I had to say about hoagies to be honest. There’s probably other people out there. There’s probably all kinds of people who would love to write more hoagie songs.
What are you working on now?
So the main thing I’m working on is a Space Unicorn movie. It will be a few years before it comes out. And I’m also still writing some songs, but I’m kind of semi-retired. Nerf Herder still plays around. We just went to Europe, which was fun. We played in Germany and Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Austria. It was great. It was before it got really hot over there, and it was just nice. There were no hoagies, but there was a lot of good food.
