Tuesday, July 23, 2024

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.
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6 comments:

  1. -Alan D HopewellJuly 23, 2024 at 4:04 AM

    I remember the reruns of THE ROY ROGERS SHOW quite well, being one of those kids who started his Saturday mornings with it, along with SKY KING, RIN TIN TIN, and MIGHTY MOUSE.
    I dug Roy, Dale, Trigger, Bullet, and Buttermilk, but even as a kid I found Pat and Nellybelle annoying rather than funny. I never understood (still don't) the idea of shoehorning "comic relief" into what was a decent action/adventure program, whether it be ROY ROGERS, SUPERMAN, JONNY QUEST, or SCOOBY-DOO .
    Perhaps I was crochety before my time.

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  2. Don HiltonJuly 23, 2024 at 9:09 AM

    It may be sacrilege in Bradyville, but I've never enjoyed westerns.

    We played a ton of Cowboys and Indigenous Peoples (most often ending with cowboys massacred due to their lack of skill in navigating the terrain I mean, everyone knows that even superior firepower rarely gets you out of a blind canyon), but TV and movies, not so much.

    But I'm with Alan on the "comic relief." I've never liked it, either. Just get on with the damned show and leave out the clowns, willya?

    I know a local historian who has the Johnny Quest theme as the ringtone to her phone.

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  3. BusterJuly 23, 2024 at 12:37 PM

    I watched Roy Rodgers on his original run, and unlike the curmudgeonly Don and Alan was very fond of Pat Brady and particularly Nellybelle. I would have liked the child-sized Jeep and would have been the right age for it. But no, I was gifted with a pedal-powered tractor, which was hardly an adequate substitute.

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  4. Dennis ThompsonJuly 23, 2024 at 12:49 PM

    The odd bodywork on Nellybelle looks rather cumbersome. By the way, it sold on Christies auction for $116,000 in 2010.

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  5. AnonymousJuly 23, 2024 at 2:58 PM

    Did anyone see the sale on all the various meats at Fisher Foods?Those "Skinless Weiners" for .49¢ a pound sounds like a good name for our dear elderly president of the good old USA.

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