Masonic Building – Home of The Fun Shop – Google Street View August 2015
Anyone who grew up in Shamokin is sure to remember The Fun Shop. Located in the basement of the old Masonic Building at Eighth and Independence Street, The Fun Shop was a gift shop that offered something for every location. From the friendly staff to the novelties found inside, The Fun Shop was a Shamokin institution for over eighty years. The Fun Shop grew over time and expanded into many of the local malls that opened through the 1970s and 1980s including locations in the Columbia Mall in Buckhorn, The Schuylkill Mall in Frackville and The Lycoming Mall in Montoursville.
The Masonic Building with The Fun Shop in the Basement – 1950s
In 2016 it was announced that the Fun Shop was closing marking the end of an era and leaving another vacancy on Independence Street. To make matters worse, in the early morning hours of December 14th, 2017, a fire broke out in the building causing a total loss. What was left of the building had to be removed due to the extent of the damage. Today a Dollar General store stands at the former location of the Fun Shop.
Masonic Building Fire – Daily Item Photo December 14th, 2017
The Fun Shop Valentine’s Day Ad – Shamokin News-Dispatch February 12th, 1968
In this exhibit, we go back to 1987 for a series of radio advertisements that aired on WISL and other area radio stations promoting the goods and services that so many remember that made The Fun Shop a destination in Shamokin.
AUDIO EXHIBITS
The Fun Shop – Over The Hill
The Fun Shop – Penn State National Champions Salute
The Furhmann & Schmidt Brewing Company was formed in 1906, operating from a facility located at Commerce and Washington Streets in Shamokin. Known as simply F&S, They produced a variety of brews that could be found in tap rooms all over the city. Although the brewery closed in 1975, the memory is still very much alive. If you would like to learn more about the rich history of Furhmann & Schmidt, Larry Deklinski, Staff Writer for the News Item, published an amazing history of F&S.
F&S Premium Half and Half with Sealed Ageing store sign
Business was booming by the 1950’s and F&S began an eight year expansion program, ending in 1954 with a new bottling shop, garage and offices. To promote these enhancements a new advertising campaign was developed touting the “Sealed-Ageing Process”. The commercials presented here are part of that advertising campaign and aired on WISL in 1956. It’s likely that these commercials were written and produced by a large advertising agency and would have been hears on many other stations at the time, not just WISL.
An Assortment of F&S Beer bottles
These particular discs were uncovered in 2005 when Dr. Edward Twiggar, owner of the Lark Building, permitted the WISL team to remove the contents of the former WISL Studios. These original acetate discs were found in the record library in a section labeled “Tom’s Box”. These discs were in pretty rough condition. In order to get the best audio quality to preserve these historic artifacts we had these discs sent to Evergreen Computer Services to have them professionally transferred to digital files.
Below are photos of the labels from the records found in the former studios of WISL.
F&S disc label
F&S disc label
F&S disc label
F&S disc label
What you will hear are two groupings of commercials for this F&S Sealed Ageing campaign. The first set, (cuts #4-11) was intended to target a male or general audience while the second set, (cuts #43-47) are targeted at a female audience. You will also hear some isolated jingles to be used during local commercial production. A full jingle, short open jingle and short closing jingle are included.
In addition to the commercials that were found on these discs, there are few extras included. These were saved by Tom Kutza on a cassette tape, many years ago and feature a different “Sealed Ageing” jingle from the one heard on these discs. You will also hear WISL’s Bernie Sacks on some locally produced commercials, including one that features a “man from Mars”.
So now, let’s go back in time with F&S and WISL!
AUDIO EXHIBITS
F&S #4 (Sealed Ageing – Seals In Goodness) 1956
F&S #5 (Sealed Ageing – Brand New Taste In Beer) 1956
F&S #6 (Sealed Ageing – Flavor & Goodness) 1956
F&S #7 (Sealed Ageing – New Taste) 1956
F&S #8 (Sealed Ageing – Try And You’ll Cheer) 1956
F&S #9 (Sealed Ageing – Taste For Yourself) 1956
F&S #10 (Sealed Ageing – If You Haven’t Tasted) 1956
F&S #11 (Sealed Ageing – More And More People) 1956
F&S #43 (Sealed Ageing – Summer Months) 1956
F&S #44 (Sealed Ageing – With Dinner) 1956
F&S #45 (Sealed Ageing – Buy Your Husband A Case) 1956
F&S #46 (Sealed Ageing – When Friends Drop In) 1956
Presented here is a jingle created for Shamokin Equipment dated 1951. We recently stumbled across this acetate disc at an antique store in Lewisburg, PA. This is a great example of the early early sound of local radio at WISL. This jingle would have been used to set up a live announcer reading the advertised specials at Shamokin Equipment for the day. Before the wide use of tape machines, most radio stations would “cut” items such as jingles and promotional spots to acetate discs. These discs would then be used for future playback. This particular disc was most likely a “proof” that would have been sent to the advertiser for approval before the advertising campaign began. You can also tell that this was an “in-house” production, most likely with local talent as the musicians and singer.
Unfortunately, we have no other information about this jingle.
