Twin Cities station brings back popular jingle for morning news promo

KMSP in the Twin Cities market didn’t have to look any farther than its own archives to find inspiration for its latest morning news promo.

The station has brought back its “fan-favorite jingle” titled “Wake Up with Fox 9.”

Originally performed by Twin Cities quartet The Blenders, the song was re-recorded by Megatrax with modified lyrics.

The jingle last aired back in 2007. 

Tom Butler, Alix Kendall and Keith Marler, who appeared in the previous version, still appear on the station’s morning show and are featured in the new spot along with some new names.

Butler, Kendall and Marler were mentioned by name in the previous version of the song and are in the new one as well.

On the video side, the 2023 promo includes clips from the 2007 version and was also shot aboard the market’s Metro light rail line, as was the previous iteration. 

The promo begins with a shot of the original version playing on a mobile phone, before panning up to reveal the present-day scene unfolding in the background.

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The biggest change is that neither The Blenders or the new vocalists appear on-screen singing along with the song, as they did in the previous version. That version was centered around the concept of the group singing on the train while the talent and other commuters danced along.

Instead, this version appears to be meant to depict a stylistic version of the team’s morning commute to work — some are seen entering the train at certain points — and near the end a sleeping Marler is woken up so he doesn’t miss his stop.

The team is also shown taking a selfie using a modern mobile phone, but they don’t directly interact with any other travelers, such as helpfully giving up a seat to a pregnant woman as was shown in the previous version. In that iteration, Marler’s iteration was also reversed — he woke up a sleepy commuter. 

Of course, technology has evolved quite a bit in the eight years since the last version aired. 

Back in the 2007 version, a portable media player that appears to be a “classic” iPod is shown briefly playing a video clip of the “Fox 9 Morning News” team. Apple stopped making that line in 2014. 

Instead, the promo shows more modern mobile devices, including ones that have the ability to stream video, something that was not widely available back in 2007.

The updated promo clearly isn’t meant to replicate the original one shot-for-shot, but still incorporates some of the same themes, such as showcasing talent on a billboard.