1965 Ads: Hot Dogs for Memorial Day!

Have you ever heard about that research study claiming that eating a hot dog can shave about a half hour from your life expectancy? It basically states that hot dogs are about the worse thing that you can hungrily shove into your gaping maw.

I don't really believe that. As Mom always preached, "Everything in moderation." Just don't eat them all the time.

The hot dog study (probably commissioned by the Hamburger Association of America) certainly hasn't kept me from ordering the occasional delicious coney dog at Dog 'N Suds this spring. (BTW, Dog 'N Suds will be the subject of a major post next month.)

Anyway, it seems that hot dogs have had a strong connection with Memorial Day cookouts for a long time; well, at least since 1965.

Above is a Lawsons ad that ran in the Lorain Journal back on May 28, 1965. Wieners are definitely top dog in the ad. I like the illustration of a chef-hatted dad ringing a Western dinner triangle, like he was Wishbone on Rawhide.

And below are two ads that ran in the Journal on the same day: May 26, 1965. One is for Sugardale Coneys and the other is for Superior's Frankies - the Keener Wiener. (Both companies have been featured on this blog before.) The Sugardale Coneys package has its great Hamlet the pig mascot; the Superior's Frankies has our old pal Frankie.

If these 1965 ads give you a hankering for a frankfurter, just exercise some moderation. 

Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that Frankie is still employed as spokeswiener for Superior's. In fact, it doesn't even look like the company even makes hot dogs any more.

Sugardale still makes its tube steaks, but it doesn't look like Hamlet is featured on the package these days. 

The porcine mascot probably retired to some Ohio, er, hamlet –  where he can live in peace, far from big city butchers and meat processors.

Cities Service & Frankies Ads – July 1964

 

To finish out the week, here is a pair of big ads for companies that have been featured here before. The ads appeared in the Journal on July 1, 1964 and are both of a seasonal nature.

Cities Service – today's CITGO – had a special summertime promotion involving root beer (another favorite topic on this blog). The purchase of ten gallons of gasoline entitled you to a free quart of Dad's Root Beer.

Despite the appealing name (not unlike Mother's Oats), I don't remember drinking too much Dad's Root Beer. There were just too many brands, and Mom seemed to favor Frostie for a long time, with some Hires Root Beer here and there.

What's interesting to me is the friendly beaver mascot for Cities. I don't recall seeing him before, and he seems like he'd be right at home in the Great White North, where appropriately there are a lot of companies with beaver mascots.

From the CITGO website, here's a nice color graphic of the 'Eager Beaver.'

The little buck-toothed mascot was also featured in his own little activity book.

And speaking of mascots, Superior's Frankies always utilized their friendly frankfurter well. In the above ad, he's directing Journal readers to enter a contest to win a trip to the 1964 World's Fair and be his guest. What's a little odd is that the ad notes that "June is Frankies Month."

Anyway, here's a 10-second commercial featuring Frankie himself.

Buy Frankies, Win a Renault Dauphine – June 1963

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.

Frankies Ad Featuring Li'l Abner – May 23, 1962

Cartoonist Al Capp was the master when it came to merchandising his beloved comic strip Li'l Abner. 

Capp allowed his popular hillbilly characters to be used to sell everything from Cream of Wheat to laundry detergent. (Fearless Fosdick, Capp's parody of Dick Tracy and Li'l Abner's "ideel," also was featured in a series of ads for Wildroot Cream-Oil Hair Tonic.)

And here's yet another advertising campaign using the denizens of Dogpartch – this time for Superior's Frankies, the "Keener Wiener." The ad above appeared in the Lorain Journal back on May 23, 1962 – sixty years ago this month.

The ad campaign was fairly late in the strip's life, past its prime of the 40s and 50s. But apparently the folks at Superior's Frankies were still confident that Li'l Abner and his family could dee-liver the goods.

It's an entertaining ad, with Li'l Abner lying in a hammock, squirting a condiment on his Frankie using one of the very dispensers being promoted in the ad. Li'l Abner's son, "Honest Abe" Yokum is handling one as well, while curvaceous wife Daisy Mae holds a whole tray of dee-licious Frankies. 

Here are a couple of the Frankies mustard and ketchup dispensers (which I mentioned back here on this post).

Li'l Abner (my favorite comic strip) has popped up on this blog several times. Tomorrow, we'll look at another ad that appeared in the Journal in the early 1970s, using a lovable, well-known beagle to sell bread.

Frankie the Keener Wiener Ad – June 25, 1969

Did you cook out over the weekend? I seem to eat a lot of hot dogs these days. (I’m hoping all the preservatives in them help me live longer.)

Vintage wrapper

I’m not too picky when it comes to which brand I buy. I have Sugardale (a favorite topic on this blog) Hot Dogs in the fridge right now. I also buy Oscar Mayer or Ball Park Franks.

One brand that I never see (although it's still around) is Superior’s. I’m not sure why I don’t run across them, because they are Ohio-based. If I ever see them, I’ll have to try them.

Anyway, above is an almost full-page ad for Superior’s Frankies featuring its well-known mascot, Frankie the Keener Wiener. It ran in the Journal on June 25, 1969. Although the ad is great, I’m not so keen on the 7-Up promotion, as that particular pop was what we drank as kids when we were sick.

The Superior’s website has a nice history page, with a graphic showing the evolution of Frankie, the winking hot dog mascot.

Frankie was so popular that some promotional items were produced in his likeness, including these condiment containers.

I vaguely remembered a bit of music with the tagline “Frankie the Keener... Weiner!’ And here it is, courtesy of YouTube.