Superior's Frankies, the "Keener Wiener," offered some pretty keen prizes in its "June is FRANKIES Month Sweepstakes." Above is the ad which ran in the
Journal back on June 12, 1963, boasting more than $15,000 in valuable prizes.
First prize was a new Renault Dauphine, "the 40 mile to the gallon classic that's more durable than ever... appreciated by more than 1/4-million owners since 1956."
Here's a look at a 1963 Renault Dauphine, described as a 'barn find.' You can read its story on the Barn Finds website, which notes that the car was only in production until 1967. (And if you like to read that sort of thing, here's the story of another one that was 'squirreled away in a shed' for more than thirty years.)
Other goodies listed as prizes include: 8 Viking Zig Zag sewing machines, 20 Bushnell 7 x 35 Banner Binoculars, 20 In-Sink-erator Garbage Disposals, four Westinghouse Portable Dishwashers (I'm sure Reddy Kilowatt would have approved), 35 Channel Master 6-Transistor Radios – and – 175 Westinghouse Hot Dog Cookers known as "Dog-O-Matics."
If you feel bad that you missed out on that last prize, you can pick one up
on eBay right now for the 'red hot' price of $49.
And if you are outfitting your domicile in 1963 furnishings, you might be interested in knowing that the Channel Master 6-Transistor Radio Model 6506 is
on eBay as well.
4 comments:
How do you clean that "Dog-o-Matic"? Almost as gross as those rotating hot dog cookers that lunch stands used to have.
40 miles per gallon.
That still doggone good mileage.
Dad's twin brother, my Uncle Bert, had one of those hot-dog cooking things. He called it a "wiener 'lectrocutor." You'd jam each end of the wiener onto a sharp probe on either side and plug it into the wall -- I don't remember a switch.
Sort of scary and nasty, watching it electrocute wieners. They'd swell up and start sweating wiener grease that would collect in the bin, below. If you left them on too long, they'd split open, fall off the holders and land in the grease beneath.
It also gave the cooked wieners a permanent bend so they didn't fit into a bun. 'Lectric Peyronie's Disease, I suppose. Courtesy of Reddy Kilowatt!
I was *horrified* to find out they did the same thing to people. Even when Dad explained that the used much more power and the person died within seconds it didn't really help all that much. And that scene in the "Green Mile" where the execution goes wrong, and the stories I read of similar mishaps... None of that surprised me at all. I'd seen it all myself, decades before, at my Uncle Bert's.
Thanks to edema in my feet, no more weenies. :(
I never did like hot dogs.I never liked that weird aftertaste.Plus the processed meat scrap ingredients aren't good for you.That's where the weird taste comes from.Hot dogs are like the plywood of food.
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