Fisher Foods Ad Featuring Nellybelle Promo – July 22, 1954

That's Pat Brady to the left of Roy and Dale

Are you old enough to remember watching The Roy Rogers Show on TV? 

The Western TV series featuring the clean cut cowboy ran on NBC (according to this Wiki entry) from December 1951 to June 1957. CBS aired reruns of the show on Saturday morning from January 1961 to September 1964 (which is where my siblings and first I saw it).

Besides Roy Rogers and his real wife Dale Evans, the show also starred Pat Brady (no relation) as comedy relief. But while Roy rode his horse Trigger, Pat Brady drove a jeep called Nellybelle.

Here's Pat Brady explaining in a comical song why he drove Nellybelle instead of riding a horse.

Nellybelle apparently had a mind of her own, sometimes speeding off – driverless – without Pat. As a result, the jeep became very popular with the kids.

Which is a roundabout way of explaining why this Fisher Foods ad that ran in the Lorain Journal on July 22, 1954 included a special promotion in which kids could win their very own Nelly Belle Jeep [sic].

The ad notes that the Nellybelle jeep was a pedal-pusher model. Here's a section of a page from a 1954 Sears catalogue with what is likely the type of car that the kids could win.

The catalogue describes Nellybelle as blue-gray with a baked-on enamel finish, with white and red trim. Would you believe that there are several of them for sale online? This one (from classicautomall.com) appears to have its original paint job.

Somewhere in the dark, cobweb-filled recesses of (what's left of) my mind, is probably a dim, forgotten memory of seeing Nellybelle on The Roy Rogers Show. How else can I explain why I always wanted a jeep?

Maybe I wanted to be just like Cousin Pat.

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Roy, Dale and Pat were the subject of several other blog posts – when they appeared at the Lorain County Fair in 1968.