Local Funeral Home makes Jay Leno’s ‘Headlines’ Segment

Sandberg Funeral and Cremation Services in North St. Paul got national attention on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno for an advertisement it ran in the Review newspapers and the Pioneer Press.

The ad encouraged residents to stop by the funeral home on Dec. 10 and “take in the aroma of the Holiday season.”

“It smells like grandma,” host Jay Leno said in the Dec. 19 headlines segment, which pokes fun at things printed in newspapers.

The funeral home was advertising a special event that day, which included making potpourri jars, said funeral director Mary Kaye Sandberg.

But they didn’t mind the joke.

“We thought it was fabulous,” Sandberg said. “I thought it was done in really good taste … it was good, clean fun.”

Funeral home staff members’ phones started ringing at 11 o’clock the night it aired, because the ad was featured in a preview of the segment, Sandberg said, and the calls and text messages continued the next day.

“I was amazed at how many people were up that late,” she said. Right after the ad aired, the funeral home’s website got 300 hits, she said.

Since the ad was featured on the show after their event took place, they didn’t get any extra traffic out of it, she said. Still, more than 100 people stopped in to make potpourri jars and lines were long for horse and carriage rides they helped sponsor that day.

“Now,” she said, “we’ve got big ideas for next year.”

You can watch the segment on Hulu. The funeral home ad is featured at about 14:10. The ad also appears on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno website.