While many shoppers buy things on sale (such as meat) and put'em on ice, I'm not a fan of the concept. Oh, I keep a tray of ice cubes in my freezer, as well as some homemade soup, but that's about it. Whenever I do freeze something (such as ground round), it's the same as abandoning it in a snowy wasteland. It's soon ice-covered and forgotten – only there's no spring thaw to finally reveal it. I usually end up tossing it a year later. The same goes with TV dinners.
Nevertheless, many people utilize their freezers so they can save money, and Kroger was counting on that when the above ad ran in the Journal back on July 8, 1963. The main focus of the ad is the sale of Banquet frozen dinners and cream pies.
There's a lot going on in the ad, graphically. To emphasize the whole 'frozen' theme, there's a penguin, an ice-covered pole (not sure if it's the North or South Pole), a polar bear and an Eskimo. The polar bear is rendered in the same style as some of the other members of the early 1960s Kroger menagerie (which I wrote about here).
While the Eskimo clip art is nicely rendered, on the layout his kayak is positioned right next to the California Oranges, which is a little odd.
Anyway, here's a nice collection of Banquet boxes similar to those in the ad. All of the images are fresh from eBay.
3 comments:
IF there are polar bears it's a north pole.
IF there are penguins, it's a south pole.
Never the twain shall meet! Except in a zoo.
And, apparently, Kroger ads from the 1960s.
When tv dinners came out back in the "50s,it would still take about 25-35 minutes to cook it in your oven as microwaves weren't on the market yet.So they really weren't any more convenient than a can of soup or a instantly sliced piece of ham or beef from the refrigerator.Were tv dinners really all that popular?
I don't think I ever ate a TV dinner until microwaves came along. As a kid I saw the TV ads for them but there was no way the old man would've put up with one of those for a meal. Besides, we always sat at a table as a family. Eating from tray tables in front of the idiot box, that wasn't going to happen. I still don't like them much. They always taste like they have a bunch of chemicals in them. Soup and a sandwich are a better meal.
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