Another one bites the dust

modom said:

From today's NY Times:

"Gerry Thomas, who designed clever packaging for a frozen meal and
called it the TV dinner, died on Monday in Phoenix, Ariz. He was 83.

The cause was cancer, his wife, Susan Mills Thomas, said.

<gasp!> So much sorrow... bad news comes in threes, so who is the
next pseudo celebraty to die??? Moan, groan, gush about what a great
person, what he's done for us, how much he'll be missed - blah, blah,
blah.

sf said:

modom said:

From today's NY Times:

"Gerry Thomas, who designed clever packaging for a frozen meal and
called it the TV dinner, died on Monday in Phoenix, Ariz. He was 83.

The cause was cancer, his wife, Susan Mills Thomas, said.

<gasp!> So much sorrow... bad news comes in threes, so who is the
next pseudo celebraty to die??? Moan, groan, gush about what a great
person, what he's done for us, how much he'll be missed - blah, blah,
blah.

Yabut, this guy had a huge cultural effect. Not necessarily a
beneficial, aesthetically pleasing, or generally positive effect, but
an effect all the same.

And after he retired from Swanson, he ran an art gallery in New York.
I'm still trying to figure out what that means. TV dinners and art
and...?

modom

Only superficial people don't judge by appearances.
-- Oscar Wilde

In article <[email hidden]>,

modom said:

From today's NY Times:

"Gerry Thomas, who designed clever packaging for a frozen meal and
called it the TV dinner, died on Monday in Phoenix, Ariz. He was 83.

The cause was cancer, his wife, Susan Mills Thomas, said.

In the early 1950's, Mr. Thomas was a salesman for C. A. Swanson &
Sons, a frozen food company in Omaha. The company found itself one
year with an oversupply of turkeys, so many that they were piled
aboard refrigerated railroad cars and were being shuttled around to
keep them cool.

Mr. Thomas happened to have visited the food kitchen of Pan American
Airways. He noticed the aluminum trays used for the airline meals and
asked for a sample. During his flight home, he tinkered with the
sample, designing a three-compartment tray.

"I spent five years in the service, so I knew what a mess kit was," he
said in a 1999 Associated Press interview. "You could never tell what
you were eating because it was all mixed together."

First sold in 1954, just as television was becoming the dominant
family pastime, the Swanson TV Dinner was packaged in a box designed
to look like a TV screen. Swanson's first TV dinner consisted of
turkey, cornbread dressing and gravy, buttered peas and sweet
potatoes."

Swanson TV Dinners put New Jersey's Camden County on the map! I live a
few miles from the Campbell's World HQ. Campbell's was the company that
invented the Swanson TV dinners, in addition to its more famous line of
canned soups and its all based in my humble community. When Campbell's
and Pinnacle Foods (who bought out the TV dinner line a few years ago)
celebrated the Swanson TV dinner's 50th anniversary three years ago,
news about it was all over the local newspapers. As a result, I learned
a lot more about the history of this humble consumer product than I ever
bargained for!

I remember when I was a kid in the '60's when my mom would sometimes
make me a Swanson TV dinner when I came home from school for lunch. At
that time, the large TV dinners came with Campbell's vegetable soup in
one of the compartments. Removing the hot aluminum TV dinner tray from
the oven without spilling the soup was always a challenge for my mom or
me.

As I recall, the original turkey TV dinner is the still the most popular
variety, but I like the meat loaf and fried chicken TV dinners better. I
haven't eaten a TV dinner in quite some time, but I am tempted to buy
one tonight for dinner in honor of Gerry Thomas' passing. In fact, the
meat loaf TV dinner gave rise to my preference to eat chocolate brownies
with Heinz ketchup. The thin tomato sauce from the meat loaf would
almost always boil over into the compartment that held the brownie. I
would eat the brownie anyway and it was good with that thin tomato sauce
on it. This gave me the idea to try eating that brownie with ketchup,
and the rest was history.

Stan Horwitz <[email hidden]> wrote in news:stan-C0FEB9.17085021072005
@news.giganews.com:

Quoted message said:

Swanson TV Dinners put New Jersey's Camden County on the map!

<good stuff snipped>

ZZ Top - Tv Dinners

Tv dinners, there's nothin' else to eat.
Tv dinners, they really can't be beat.
I like 'em frozen but you understand
I throw 'em in and wave 'em and I'm a brand new man, oh yeah.

Tv dinners, they're goin' to my head.
Tv dinners, my skin is turnin' red.
Twenty year old turkey in a thirty year old tin.
I can't wait 'til tomorrow and thaw one out again, oh yeah.

Tv dinners, I'm feelin' kinda rough.
Tv dinners, this one's kinda tough.
I like the enchiladas and the teriaki too,
I even like the chicken if the sauce is not too blue.

and they're mine, all mine, oh yeah

and they sure are fine.

gotta have 'em,

gimme somethin' now.

😉

Andy

"Stan Horwitz" <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

that time, the large TV dinners came with Campbell's vegetable soup in
one of the compartments. Removing the hot aluminum TV dinner tray from
the oven without spilling the soup was always a challenge for my mom or
me.

That's hilarious, I could just see the lawyers salivating over that little
accident waiting to happen.

Quoted message said:

As I recall, the original turkey TV dinner is the still the most popular
variety, but I like the meat loaf and fried chicken TV dinners better. I
haven't eaten a TV dinner in quite some time, but I am tempted to buy
one tonight for dinner in honor of Gerry Thomas' passing. In fact, the
meat loaf TV dinner gave rise to my preference to eat chocolate brownies
with Heinz ketchup. The thin tomato sauce from the meat loaf would
almost always boil over into the compartment that held the brownie. I
would eat the brownie anyway and it was good with that thin tomato sauce
on it. This gave me the idea to try eating that brownie with ketchup,
and the rest was history.

Thanks for the story, that was cute. I'll grab a couple next shopping,
just for a joke. Last time I had one was when they had ... what ...
the TV dinner's 50th anniversary?

nancy

Stan Horwitz wrote:

<snippage>

Quoted message said:

As I recall, the original turkey TV dinner is the still the most popular
variety, but I like the meat loaf and fried chicken TV dinners better. I
haven't eaten a TV dinner in quite some time, but I am tempted to buy
one tonight for dinner in honor of Gerry Thomas' passing. In fact, the
meat loaf TV dinner gave rise to my preference to eat chocolate brownies
with Heinz ketchup. The thin tomato sauce from the meat loaf would
almost always boil over into the compartment that held the brownie. I
would eat the brownie anyway and it was good with that thin tomato sauce
on it. This gave me the idea to try eating that brownie with ketchup,
and the rest was history.

Amen. I was always fond of the corn that would find its way into the
dessert, myself.

sf said:

<gasp!> So much sorrow... bad news comes in threes, so who is the
next pseudo celebraty to die??? Moan, groan, gush about what a great
person, what he's done for us, how much he'll be missed - blah, blah,
blah.

Actually, he enabled great change. Maybe you didn't like (or claim to not
like) TV dinners, but you can't deny that they immediately and irreversibly
altered the way we shopped, ate and lived.

BTW, who was the first "pseudo celebraty" to die??

<moan, groan, etc... you gotta problem wi' dat?>

"pennyaline" <[email hidden]> wrote
in message news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

sf said:

<gasp!> So much sorrow... bad news comes in threes, so who is the
next pseudo celebraty to die??? Moan, groan, gush about what a great
person, what he's done for us, how much he'll be missed - blah, blah,
blah.

Actually, he enabled great change. Maybe you didn't like (or claim to not
like) TV dinners, but you can't deny that they immediately and

irreversibly

Quoted message said:

altered the way we shopped, ate and lived.

BTW, who was the first "pseudo celebraty" to die??

Adam. Got first mention in a fairly popular book, and all
he really did was eat some fruit and had a couple of kids.
Sheesh....

Bob M.

pennyaline said:

[snip]
Maybe you didn't like (or claim to not
like) TV dinners, but you can't deny that they immediately and irreversibly
altered the way we shopped, ate and lived.

I can deny that. In my case they immediately altered the way I ate
because my time-deprived mother began feeding them to me over and over
and over again. But this was not an irreversible condition: I haven't
eaten one since I left home. 😉 -aem

Bob Myers said:

I said:

BTW, who was the first "pseudo celebraty" to die??

Adam. Got first mention in a fairly popular book, and all
he really did was eat some fruit and had a couple of kids.
Sheesh....

Feh! How it got to be a best seller, I'll never know! Took too long to get
to the action.

<ya tell 'em and tell 'em, you gotta hook your reader on the first page!>

pennyaline said:

Bob Myers said:

I said:

BTW, who was the first "pseudo celebraty" to die??

Adam. Got first mention in a fairly popular book, and all
he really did was eat some fruit and had a couple of kids.
Sheesh....

Feh! How it got to be a best seller, I'll never know! Took too long to get
to the action.

<ya tell 'em and tell 'em, you gotta hook your reader on the first page!>

considering the fact that the only way that humans could have been
propagated according to the bible, that adam and eve's children must
have had sex with either each other or their parents, seems to me that
would make a novel that sold. I mean, hey, it worked for 'flowers in the
attic'
🙂

--

saerah

"It's not a gimmick, it's an incentive."- asterbark, afca

aware of the manifold possibilities of the future

"I think there's a clause in the Shaman's and Jujumen's Local #57 Union
contract that they have to have reciprocity for each other's shop rules."
-König Prüß

In article <[email hidden]>,

Quoted message said:

considering the fact that the only way that humans could have been
propagated according to the bible, that adam and eve's children must
have had sex with either each other or their parents, seems to me that
would make a novel that sold. I mean, hey, it worked for 'flowers in the
attic'

Feh! One reason why the Bible has such large circulation is because the
Giddians keep leaving them in hotel rooms for free!