Columbia House Record and Tape Club, January 1983

The early '80s were a time of many greats...great movies, great TV shows, and of course great music. For the music collector, keeping up with all the new releases was an ambitious goal. Getting 11 (or more) albums for just one penny seemed to be an optimal way to fill in holes in the collection and sample the music of new artists, and that's precisely what Columbia House Record and Tape Club promised to deliver.

Columbia House had its beginnings in the 1950s as the Columbia Record Club, the first of several such clubs to sell record albums by mail order directly to the public. As other formats such as 8-track and cassette became more popular, the club was rebranded as Columbia House in the early 1970s and exponentially expanded its membership base throughout that decade. 

Much of the reason for this growth was the enticing ads such as the one pictured here. For just one cent, plus shipping and handling fees, a member could receive 11 albums (or 12 if he/she remembered to fill in the bonus gold box). In return, the member was expected to purchase 9 more albums at regular Club prices, plus shipping and handling, over a 3-year period. As an incentive, every few weeks the Club mailed out its music magazine which contained a description of the "Selection of the Month" for the music category the member was interested in. Usually this was a newer release by a fairly well known, although not necessarily A-list, artist. The Club would automatically mail the Selection of the Month unless the member returned a card declining it.

All in all, the Club was not a terrible deal, although the terms seemed a bit less appealing after the initial shipment was received than they had in the beginning. For one, the regular Club prices for the 9 additional purchases required ranged from $7.98 to $9.98, which was a bit on the high side for most music releases in 1983. Additionally, there was a shipping charge assessed for each album, which at the time was approximately $2. This made the additional purchases about $10 per album. Finally, there was the matter of regularly having to remember to mail in the card declining the Selection of the Month, or else getting stuck with an album the member didn't necessarily want (and at a somewhat premium price at that)!

From personal experience, I can say that the Club operated reasonably fairly, and while in actuality there wasn't such a thing as "free" albums once the shipping and other costs were factored in, it was not necessarily a rip-off either. When the costs for the initial "free" albums, the 9 purchases at regular price and the shipping fees were averaged out, the result was close to what the albums would have cost at retail.

So, while there wasn't an immense saving in the long-term, it was admittedly fun to open that first shipment and see all the newly acquired titles. Now and Forever, anyone?

Frigidaire Refrigerators, General Motors, December 1962

This ad depicted the typical fashionable American family of the early 1960s...Dad in dark suit and horn-rimmed glasses; Mom in a classic red dress with a coordinating headband over her flipped hairdo; Son in jacket and short pants with knee socks and Daughter in short smocked dress with ankle socks and Mary Janes. The real fashion plate of the family, however, at least as implied by the ad, was the 1963 Frigidaire refrigerator in the center.

By 1962, most households had traded in their ice boxes for refrigerators of various makes and models, and of those, Frigidaire was one of the best known and highly regarded. That wasn't too surprising, as it had been Frigidaire who had manufactured the first electric self-contained refrigerator in 1918 and who had been at the forefront of developments in the industry since that time. This 1963 model contained quite a few advanced features such as the built-in ice cube bin (a contrast to the metal trays with handles commonly used at the time) and the Frost-Proof mode which did away with the messy and time-consuming process of manual defrosting. The model pictured here had the freezer section on the bottom, a design which is not commonly seen today but which in some ways is actually more practical than the more widely utilized freezer-on-top models. The 1963 Frigidaire came in several decorator colors, including the mint-green shade depicted in this ad.

While it may have been a bit over-the-top in retrospect to describe the Frigidaire as "fashion-fresh," there's nothing wrong with wanting to design an appliance that is nice-looking as well as functional. And, it appears, the 1963 Frigidaire succeeded well on both counts.

Miracle White Super Cleaner, Drackett Products Company, June 1977

Striking a correct balance between product effectiveness and environmental protection has long been a challenge for manufacturers of certain types of items. This was particularly true in the case of laundry detergents. The detergents of the 1950s and 1960s had generally contained high amounts of trisodium phosphate, a water softener which enabled the detergent to clean more effectively. Unfortunately, studies performed in the early '70s showed that phosphate additives in city wastewater had increased exponentially and were having adverse effects on plants and aquatic animals. As a result, detergent manufacturers began reducing the amount of phosphates used in their formulas, but this often resulted in dingy laundry due to the lowered effectiveness of the cleaning agents. A solution was needed to boost the lower-phosphate detergents' performance, and it came in the form of products like Miracle White Super Cleaner.

Miracle White had been developed in the late 1950s, so it was not a new product. However, after Drackett Products acquired Miracle White from previous manufacturer Beatrice in early 1977, they seized upon the trend toward lower phosphates in detergents as a ripe opportunity to reintroduce the product to the public. And, how better to promote a household cleaning agent than by utilizing the image of one of the most beloved television housekeepers, Ann B. Davis?

When this ad was published in the late spring of 1977, Ann had just wrapped up a handful of appearances on The Brady Bunch Hour as Alice, the housekeeper character she had portrayed on The Brady Bunch from 1969-74. Interestingly, this ad (and other Miracle White ads from the period) does not mention her role as Alice, but rather depicts her as Schultzie, the owner of a fictitious laundromat. Schultzy (slightly different spelling) had been the nickname of Ann's character on an earlier TV series, The Bob Cummings Show, although Schultzy's occupation was that of a secretary rather than a housekeeper. Perhaps licensing issues prevented more direct and accurate references to Ann's previous TV roles, but there seems to be no doubt that Miracle White wanted to connect its product with Ann in the eyes of the consumer public, however indirectly. 

Ann was not the only Brady Bunch cast member to be closely associated with a product during the mid-to-late 1970s. But that's a blog for another day. ;-) 

Pick-A-Mix, Brach's, May 1987

For many youngsters (and for many adults, for that matter), going to the grocery store was not exactly the most interesting of experiences. After all, it's hard to get enthusiastic over aisles of canned beans, frozen vegetables, and bathroom cleaners. But there was one section of the supermarket that many people, young and old, viewed more enthusiastically, and that was the Brach's Pick-A-Mix display.

Brach's introduced its Pick-A-Mix in 1958, borrowing the concept from the penny candy sections of drugstores and the candy barrels of the general stores of old. Customers could select their own mix of candies and bag them, and the price would be based on the weight of the bag, not the individual candies. Brach's had quite a few varieties to choose from, including Jelly Nougats, Starlight Mints, Butterscotch Disks, Starlight Mints, Neapolitan Coconut Squares, Royals in various flavors like Orange, Vanilla and Maple, Perkys (jelly candy squares covered in colored sugar), and Caramel Creams (sometimes called "Bulls-eyes" or "Bullies" for short). With Pick-A-Mix, each family member could select the varieties of candy they liked best, whether it be an entire bag of one kind of candy, evenly split among all the varieties available, or something in between.

As a child, my favorites were the Neapolitan Squares and the Royals, with the Caramel Creams not far behind. For some reason, I did not like the Jelly Nougats, although they did grow on me more with time.

Brach's Pick-A-Mix displays can still be found in some supermarkets. Some of the varieties of candy in them are the same ones offered many years ago, while others are new additions. It's interesting that a concept launched almost 60 years ago is still going strong today. But then again, most everyone loves candy!

Swanson TV Dinners, Campbell's Soup Company, March 1966

Up until the early 1950s, dinners were almost exclusively served in the kitchen or at the dining room table. The growing popularity of television began to change all that as families looked for a way to enjoy dinner while viewing their favorite programs. The TV dinner, first produced by Swanson in 1953, seemed to be the ideal solution. Rather than slaving over a hot stove, the family cook could remove the dinners from the freezer, pop them into the oven, and approximately 30 minutes they would be piping hot and ready to eat. The foil trays were perfect for serving, especially in front of the TV, and afterward there would be very few dirty dishes to clean up.

At first, TV dinners came in limited varieties, such as turkey and dressing, Salisbury steak, and fried chicken as pictured in this ad. This would later expand to more choices such as meatloaf and beef & gravy with a variety of sides and even desserts. Lest there be any doubts about the quality of the meat used in the frozen dinners, Swanson sought to assure consumers that its chicken and other meats were only of the finest grade, the same quality that the family cook would choose for a home-cooked meal.

As someone who grew up primarily in the '70s, I always loved Swanson TV dinners. Even though my mother is and was an excellent cook, there was something oddly fun about eating dinner from the foil tray in front of the TV. Of course, TV dinners, or frozen microwave meals as they are now known, are still readily available, and in more varieties than would have been imagined in 1966 and even quite a few years beyond that. But those were simpler times, when something as ordinary as a frozen dinner could make for a special occasion.

SuperCab Pickup Trucks, Ford Motor Company, July 1974

Pickup trucks are extremely popular vehicle style today, and that was true in the 1970s as well. One drawback with the pickups of the day, however, was the limited seating and interior storage capacity of traditional cab models. Some families found a workaround by allowing the children to ride in the truck's bed, but that was somewhat unsafe and quite impractical in cold and/or rainy weather conditions. The solution seemed to be to design a pickup that would be able to comfortably seat an entire family in the cab, and the Ford Motor Company did just that with its new SuperCab model.

The SuperCab had front and rear bench seats which accommodated up to six people, and offered several interesting options, including a folding foam rear seat and two jump seats on either side of the rear cab. These options gave the owner almost as much interior passenger and cargo space as a traditional sedan. For some reason, though, the SuperCab and other extended-cab pickup truck models were a relatively uncommon sight on the roads during the 1970s, especially compared to traditional cabs. Perhaps the design just needed a few more years to resonate with the public, as the extended cabs became much more common during the 1980s and beyond.

This ad is so quintessentially '70s...the mop-headed boy in the Cincinnati Bengals jacket (NFL jackets were extremely popular among grade school-aged youth back then), the avocado and burnt orange hard-sided luggage, the sunny gold color of the truck itself. Yet the design concept seems years ahead of its time, and just as useful today as it was back then.

Tab, The Coca-Cola Company, November 1985

For quite a few years after its introduction in 1963, Tab had been one of the top sellers in the diet soda market. That started to change in the early 1980s when several other diet colas, including Coca-Cola's own Diet Coke, began to outpace the sales of Tab. Part of this may have been due to the fact that Tab contained only saccharin, which unfortunately had something of a chemical aftertaste, while Diet Coke was sweetened with a blend of saccharin and the newer aspartame, which was said to more closely resemble the taste of sugar. In any event, Coca-Cola ran several campaigns to rekindle interest in Tab, and gave the product a catchy new slogan, "Tab's got sass."

The '80s were all about sass, which fit well with the slogan, and they were also all about activewear, thanks to the popularity of the fitness movement as well as films such as Flashdance which prominently featured the female lead in a sweatshirt. So, a promotion offering sweatshirts, t-shirts and sweatpants seemed like a natural fit. Consumers could send in a receipt noting the purchase of Tab, plus funds to cover the cost of the items, and they would receive colorful activewear at a reasonable cost. In turn, Coca-Cola would receive the proceeds from the soda purchase required for the offer, as well as some willing free advertising from wearers of the shirts with "Tab's got sass" boldly emblazoned across the front.

It all sounded like a win-win situation, and perhaps it was, but I must say that I don't recall ever seeing anyone wearing any of the Tab-featured clothing items, or come across them in secondhand stores. And, unfortunately for Coca-Cola, sales of Tab continued to decline during the 1980s and beyond as more diet sodas with newer sweeteners became available. Still, you have to give Coca-Cola credit for trying to update the image of Tab in a way that would give consumers a little lasting style.