Old Products

[mleach]

And about Kool-Aid, there are some TV commercials on YouTube from 1969 that feature The Monkees and Bugs Bunny. These commercials are awesome especially the one with the Monkees in the desert.

Though in that episode, Bugs' role was very brief, in which he merely asked if The Monkeys were thirsty.

By that time, though, The Monkees, then in Saturday morning reruns, were running out of gas.

Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck were used to advertise Tang in the early 60s.

Kool-Aid..I haven't seentheir ads lately but a few years back they tried to take on the sodas saying how much more nutrition they had over them plus cheaper too. Somewhat true and somewhat misleading The powders still coast less than sodas though many still refer Kool-Aid as nothing but sugar water. However the Kool_Aid that is already done and packaged in those plastic bottles ( Kool-Burst? ), a 12 pack of soda on sale at the local supermarket is priced less than Kool-Aid in that form.

 

[firepoint525]

Mr. Pibb

I have seen Pibb, and Pibb Xtra (mentioned by someone else on here) available as fountain drinks at fast food restaurants, but no longer available in bottles or cans on the grocery store shelves! And I am not sure what is the difference between Pibb and Pibb X-tra.

 

[firepoint525]

Burger Chef was acquired by Hardee's in the early 80's. There was a lawsuit over the deal and one remaining Burger Chef remained opened in Tennessee until the lawsuit was settled about ten years ago. Hardee's, now owned by Carl's Jr, will occasionally bring back the "Big Chef" as a promotion.

Druther's was acquired by Dairy Queen about twenty years ago. But to my surprise I found a Burger Queen co-located in a Shell Station just south of Tazwell, Tennessee circa 2001.

Interesting! New Tazewell is my dad's hometown, but I haven't been there myself since 2000. I wonder if he would know anything about this?

And Hardee's still exists here in the Nashville area.

 

[firepoint525]

And remember Proctor and Gamble products with the moon and stars logo on the side? Didn't Amway try to use that to prove that P&G was involved in the occult?

I'm not sure, but that rumor first surfaced in 1982, around the time I graduated from high school. Supposedly, you could hold that logo up to a mirror and see "666" in the man in the moon's beard! :

This rumor went away for a while, then it came back again a few years later, then it went away again, then it came back again, and this continued until P&G finally gave up and dropped the logo altogether. I don't know the history of the logo. It wouldn't surprise me if Amway were behind the rumor. I think P&G sued them over that rumor.

Supposedly the rumor went that the CEO (or president, or some other higher-up) of P&G went on Phil Donahue's TV talk show, and claimed to be a satanist. Every time the rumor resurfaced, the talk show it was tied to had to change, as these various talk shows were canceled and replaced by others. I heard it linked to Sally Jessy Raphael's talk show, too! :

Only problem was that those who were spreading the rumors could never produce any evidence to back it up! : Hmmmmm...

 

[Tom Wells]

Re: Old Products .... P &g and Amway

back when the man in the moon flap was still going, I remember seeing a published review of the various incarnations of the logo.
If I recall correctly, the original was used on boxes of candles, way back when the shipping crates were hand-marked, and
the moon-and-stars was deemed a unique and easy-to-produce logo for the people who did this.
Wish I could remember the year it began, but it had gone through a few variations before the final logo as we knew it was canned.
I heard it was a vicious rumor started by unidentified fundamentalist Christians. I never heard about the Amway connection.

Once I worked on an ancient printing press at the Amway plant in Ada, Michigan. They printed everything in-house.
In the mens restroom, spanking-new bars of soap rested in holders at each sink. It looked like they were changed daily, or at least as soon as the Amway logo was marred. Every spring, they took their cleaning products to task on the press, and apparently with little brushes,
cleaned every square inch of the machine back to like-new appearance. It was shocking to see compared to normal press conditions.

A signal ground connection somewhere had corroded away after 25 years, and made bar graph levels on the ancient CONRAC
black-and-white TV monitors ( this was before LED bargraphs) flutter up and down with hum pickup. The wire-wrap connections in the card cage ( the pins were gold, the wires silver-plated) were a sight to see. The gold pins were shiny-bright, but the wires wrapped around them
had all grown a layer of fuzzy whiskers! They asked what they were doing wrong that this problem had occured!

I told them they were doing everything right, and it was not their fault in any way. Out of the hundreds of connections, I told them
I'd never be able to find the particular poor connection, and too much "looking" might cause further impairment, but I could easily
add another wire to provide proper ground reference for signals.
They were very happy, and I wonder just how much longer that press from the late '60s ran.

 

[anotherguyTN]

I still buy Close Up Toothpaste regularly because I love the cinnamon flavor. Pepsodent Toothpaste is still around. My wife has bought it occasionally and I hate the taste of it.

Imperial Margarine is still an easy item to find in grocery stores.

Little Caesar's has made a comeback in West TN as well. I've seen Godfather's Pizza available in convenience stores.

The Burger Queen that was in Jackson, TN had a change of gender. It's now a Burger King.

Hardee's is still in some parts of West TN, although in some places they've changed to Burger King.

Wonder Bread and Eskimo Pies are still around.

Dad's Root Beer and Frostie Root Beer are still being made, although I've mainly seen them in certain convenience stores.

Mr. Pibb is still around (Mainly in fountains as Pibb Xtra) in areas where Coke doesn't distribute Dr. Pepper. In Dyersburg, TN where Dr. Pepper is distributed by Pepsi, it's available, but 40 miles away in Jackson, TN where Dr. Pepper is distributed by Coke, it's harder to find. To my knowledge there is no real difference in Pibb Xtra.


Also, here's a link to a store that sells hard to find brands and has lists of what is no longer available: http://www.hometownfavorites.com/

 

[Tom Wells]

How could I have forgotten to list Moxie! Not a cola, not root beer, this brown soda is made from Gentian root and tastes like
a cross between a swamp and I-don't-know-what. It dates from the 1880's, was orignally from somewhere in Massachusetts.
I think you can only buy it in stores in Vermont, New Hampshire and Mass and Maine.
It is available on-line for shipment in bottles. I used to go way out east, buy a case, put in on Amtrak out there, then go pick it up myself
at union Station in Chicago, or have a cabbie friend of mine pick it up there.
I always said shipping it on a train improved the taste.

Definitely a love it or hate it product.

 

[ixnay]

Hardee's is still in some parts of West TN, although in some places they've changed to Burger King.

Wonder Bread and Eskimo Pies are still around.

There is or was a Hardee's in Centreville, Maryland (Eastern Shore). Don't know if it's still a Hardee's; I'm lucky if I go through Centreville twice a year anymore.

Wonder Bread? The Walgreens in Townsend, Delaware - southern New Castle County (actually a Walgreens subsidiary called Happy Harry's, a Delaware-based pharmacy chain bought by Walgreens in June 2006) recently switched to Wonder from Schmidt's, meaning goodbye to the Sunbeam Girl, at least at that store.

ixnay

 

[azumanga]

Wonder Bread? The Walgreens in Townsend, Delaware - southern New Castle County (actually a Walgreens subsidiary called Happy Harry's, a Delaware-based pharmacy chain bought by Walgreens in June 2006) recently switched to Wonder from Schmidt's, meaning goodbye to the Sunbeam Girl, at least at that store.

Sunbeam Bread and Wonder Bread are two different brands -- Wonder Bread is the one with the dots.

 

[johnnyu]

There are several Hardees here in south central Pennsylvania. Their "thickburgers" are great.

 

[MACK184]

Genesee Beer is still around but they don't advertise much anymore. They seem to push Genny Lite if anything. The brewery, in Rochester, mostly sub contracts out nowdays, making Honey Brown, and other non related products. Another popular beer, at one time, on the East Coast was Utica Club. Their Shultz & Dooley commercials (voiced by Jonathan Winters) were the best and are available on DVD. The Matt Brewery is still operating in Utica but their main product is Saranac Beer. They still make Utica Club on a lesser level -and you can still get a couple free beers at their brewery tour.

Back in the day...1970-74 I think, Utica Club/Matts marketed a beer called Maximus Super. It was billed as beer with great taste and TWICE the alcohol of other beers! At that time, the drinking age in New York was 18. Actually Maximus tasted like coal tar, but it would give you one hell of a buzz!! It became so controversial that it actually wound up being debated on the old 60 Minutes segment Point-Counter Point. They eventually pulled the beer after a lot of bad press.

 

[EricStein]

How about these brands:

Prell shampoo?

Quasar TV's (originally made by Motorola, but became a part of the electronics giant now known as Panasonic)?

Breck shampoo (the marketing geniuses that brought Gold Bond powder and Ovaltine back to life were supposed to give this brand the same treatment, but failed)?

Anacin and Bufferin pain relievers?

BVD underwear?

Jordache/Gitano/Chic (and other such brands) women's jeans?

Roper and Hotpoint appliances (apparently these brands live on as "discount" models for Whirlpool and GE, respectively)?

Norge appliances?

Tappan appliances?

Tegrin dandruff shampoo (supposedly taken off the market after the FDA cracked down on personal care products containing coal tar)?

 

[oldschooler1]

Hardee's -- only 2 ever in Syracuse, and one lasted no more than a few years in the early 70s.

I do remember Mama Cass Elliott singing their commercials.

For products advertised on TV and "where are they now"...How about:

Chiffon margarine...I'ts not nice to fool Mother Nature! (Who was that lady? She was some star, wasn't she?)

If you think it's butter, but it's not -- it's Chiffon.

Makes me think of afternoon programming on NBC in the mid 60s.

Imperial margarine -- and when you ate it, a crown would appear on your head, and the trumptes would blare da-da-da-DAH!

Colt 45, and the Redd Foxx ad -- "That's urban renewal for ya". yea, a classic. Was he doing his TV show at the time? I think that was just before that.

The Monkees/Bugs Bunny ad I have on a compilation tape put out by some classic TV company -- faded, many-generations-down color, but a cool rarity.

Funny Face--for years I have tried to remember this brand name! Because I remember flavors like "Chinese Charlie!" and "Injun Orange"! How could they even think about such marketing, especially during the civil rights era? Check out this:

http://theimaginaryworld.com/pac04.jpg

Quisp & Quake -- Quisp was just like Cap'n Crunch, same flavor, just different shape. The spots were cool cartoons, done by the same company that produced Hoppity Hooper, and Daws Butler did the voice of Quisp. I even had a Quisp battery-powered beanie, I mailed away for -- for something like a buck. There was also, for a short time, an orange-flavored cereal product based on Quake's orange kangaroo called "Quangaroo".

Quisp has his own website:

http://www.quisp.com/

And here's more on Quisp, Quake, and Quangaroo:

http://www.lavasurfer.com/cereal-quakeroats2.html

How about Duz clothes detergent? Still around? -- Someone mentioned detergents giving out glasses as premiums in their boxes. I bet some of those are still around. I also remember some brands giving out bath towels -- yes, bath towels -- as premiums in their boxes.

Is Tang still around? Do they still make grape-flavored Tang? The drink of the astronauts?

Speaking of astronauts, how about Space Food Sticks? Big during the Apollo missions.

Or: Shake-a-puddin'? Or this B & W ad I remember, shot a la "hard Day's Night", w/ a beach-music theme for Great Shakes ? Those were cool -- add milk, shake it up, and you have a-- milkshake!

Or local commercials for local products? Genesee beer had a great string of them -- "Boy, could I go for a Genny now!" "Our one brewery makes it best!" Somewhere on tape I have Kurt Gowdy doing a Genny ad.

Millbrook Bread (now long gone) used Peanuts characters in their ads.

Or, the only time I saw the cast of Saturday Night Live do a real, live commercial -- Jane Curtin and Dan Aykroyd, Spring 1976, did one for the Polaroid SX-70 Land Camera, when they were still new. I remember the audience laughed rather tentatively at the end -- not knowing wether they should or not.

OK, I should get back to work now.

 

[LKellerIII]

"Quisp & Quake -- Quisp was just like Cap'n Crunch, same flavor, just different shape. The spots were cool cartoons, done by the same company that produced Hoppity Hooper, and Daws Butler did the voice of Quisp. I even had a Quisp battery-powered beanie, I mailed away for -- for something like a buck. There was also, for a short time, an orange-flavored cereal product based on Quake's orange kangaroo called 'Quangaroo'.

These commercials were produced by Jay Ward Productions (Bullwinkle, George of the Jungles, etc.), and kept that animation studio going during lean times. My father worked for Jay Ward, and the cereal commercials kept the paychecks coming for a couple of years. It was Quaker oats attempt to cash in on the sugar sweetened cereal market that was so big in the late 60s and early 70s. The only real success was Cap'n Crunch - Quisp and Quake were ultimately failures.

Part of the problem was the bad publicity and congressional investigations that occurred around this time that caused a lot of bad publicity for sugar sweetened cereals. There was a lot of testimony about kids' teeth rotting out from all the sugar. Quaker Oats (relatively small in the cereal market) didn't stand a chance. Some of the big companies (General Mills, Kellogg's, etc.) dropped the name "Sugar" from a number of their brand names (Frosted Flakes, "Crisp." etc. because the word became so politically incorrect.

 

[Braves2005]

How about these brands:

Prell shampoo?

still made

Quasar TV's (originally made by Motorola, but became a part of the electronics giant now known as Panasonic)?

I haven't seen these sets in a long time, so I'm thinking no.

Breck shampoo (the marketing geniuses that brought Gold Bond powder and Ovaltine back to life were supposed to give this brand the same treatment, but failed)?

yes

Anacin and Bufferin pain relievers?

yes to both

BVD underwear?

yes

Jordache/Gitano/Chic (and other such brands) women's jeans?

yes to all 3

Roper and Hotpoint appliances (apparently these brands live on as "discount" models for Whirlpool and GE, respectively)?

yes

Norge appliances?

yes

Tappan appliances?

no

Tegrin dandruff shampoo (supposedly taken off the market after the FDA cracked down on personal care products containing coal tar)?

yes

 

[Tom Wells]

Genesee Beer is still around but they don't advertise much anymore. They seem to push Genny Lite if anything. The brewery, in Rochester, mostly sub contracts out nowdays, making Honey Brown, and other non related products. Another popular beer, at one time, on the East Coast was Utica Club. Their Shultz & Dooley commercials (voiced by Jonathan Winters) were the best and are available on DVD. The Matt Brewery is still operating in Utica but their main product is Saranac Beer. They still make Utica Club on a lesser level -and you can still get a couple free beers at their brewery tour.

Back in the day...1970-74 I think, Utica Club/Matts marketed a beer called Maximus Super. It was billed as beer with great taste and TWICE the alcohol of other beers! At that time, the drinking age in New York was 18. Actually Maximus tasted like coal tar, but it would give you one hell of a buzz!! It became so controversial that it actually wound up being debated on the old 60 Minutes segment Point-Counter Point. They eventually pulled the beer after a lot of bad press.

big voice(reverb)
"Utica Club. We drink all we can. The rest we sell." (1966)

 

[Corky Marlowe]

Breck shampoo (the marketing geniuses that brought Gold Bond powder and Ovaltine back to life were supposed to give this brand the same treatment, but failed)?
It didn't completely fail...Rush Limbaugh does refer to John Edwards as "The Breck Girl".

I loved Hardees, too, Especially the mushroom swiss burger and the Slammers.

Someone mentioned the politically incorrect Funny Face flavors "Chinese Cherry" and "Injun Orange". Those both went away about the same time as the Frito Bandito. "Chinese Cherry" was renamed "Choo-Choo Cherry"...Don't know about "Injun Orange". Apparently, the people who dreamed up that Sales Genie ad with the pandas don't remember back that far.

Anacin and Bufferin were brought up...What about Dristan and Contac?

On the subject of alcoholic treats that are no longer advertised, how about Boone's Farm Wine?

Breeze detergent was the one that included towels. Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton did the ads...
"But you cain't buy 'em, Porter!" ""That's right, Dolly, you can only get them in boxes of Breeze!"

 

[ixnay]

Wonder Bread? The Walgreens in Townsend, Delaware - southern New Castle County (actually a Walgreens subsidiary called Happy Harry's, a Delaware-based pharmacy chain bought by Walgreens in June 2006) recently switched to Wonder from Schmidt's, meaning goodbye to the Sunbeam Girl, at least at that store.

Sunbeam Bread and Wonder Bread are two different brands -- Wonder Bread is the one with the dots.

I know. Here in the MidAtlantic, Schmidt had the franchise for Sunbeam.

ixnay

 

[Tom Wells]

I still hold hope that my Frito Bandito (whoops maybe I'm PC incorrect here) pencil eraser-topper shows up in my stuff one day.
Grape Tang can be found in Indian Grocery stores here in Chicago. Yum.
I was amazed the Space Food sticks were still going strong in Australia (1989), but not by General Foods.
When I was back in 2000, I was there just in time for a last few but they were being discontinued.
They only came in chocolate there. I remember there being more flavors here.

Kool Aid!

Ohh YEAAAHH! Kool Aid's here, bringin ya fun, Kool-Aid's got thirst on run,
get a big wide happy ear-to-ear Kool-Aid Smi-iii-ile!

There's a jingle I'd like to hear.

 

[bk77]

Re: Jordache Jeans....

For a time they tried to sell their jeans to men as well. I am not sure how long that lasted though but I do remember when Jordache tried to get into tennis shoes. That failed big time !!!

Within two a span of only two years they went from being available at high priced chains like Macys and the like ( I think even Bloomingdales carried them )..to being availble for less than $10 a pair at places like Family Dollar.