Wednesday, July 22, 2015

"How many licks..."

People have been quoting these lines for closing in on fifty years now.



From Wikipedia:
Tootsie Pops are known for the catch phrase "How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?". The phrase was first introduced in an animated commercial which debuted on U.S. television in 1969.[3] In the original television ad, a questioning boy poses the question to a cow, a fox, a turtle and an owl. Each one of the first three animals tells the boy to ask someone else, explaining that they'd bite a Tootsie Pop every time they lick one. Eventually, he asks the owl, who starts licking it, but bites into the lollipop after only three licks, much to the chagrin of the boy, who gets the empty stick back. The commercial ends the same way, with various flavored Tootsie Pops unwrapped and being "licked away" until being crunched in the center.[4]

While the original commercial is 60 seconds long, an edited 30-second version and 15-second version of this commercial are the ones that have aired innumerable times over the years. The dialogue to the 60-second version is as follows:

Questioning Boy (Buddy Foster): Mr. Cow...
Mr. Cow (Frank Nelson): Yeeeeesss!!?
Questioning Boy: How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?!
Mr. Cow: I don't know, I always end up biting. Ask Mr. Fox, for he's much cleverer than I.
Questioning Boy: Mr. Fox, how many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?!!
Mr. Fox (Paul Frees): Why don't you ask Mr. Turtle, for he's been around a lot longer than I! Me, heheh, I bite!
Questioning Boy: Mr. Turtle, how many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?
Mr. Turtle (Ralph James): I've never even made it without biting. Ask Mr. Owl, for he is the wisest of us all.
Questioning Boy: Mr. Owl, how many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop!?
Mr. Owl (Paul Winchell): A good question. Let's find out. (He takes the Tootsie pop and starts licking) A One... A two-HOO... A tha-three..
(crunch sound effect)
Mr. Owl: A Three!
Questioning Boy: If there's anything I can't stand, it's a smart owl.
Narrator (Herschel Bernardi): How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?
(crunch sound effect)
Narrator: The world may never know.


Monday, July 20, 2015

"R.C." and Quickie in "RACE WITH DEATH!"

Lots of cereals, candies and sodas used mini-adventure strips as ads, often with proprietary superheroes (Captain Tootsie, Volto from Mars). "R.C." and Quickie didn't have superpowers or flashy costumes but John Wayne drank their cola and that had to count for something.
























Friday, July 17, 2015

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

WPA Milk Posters

Classic posters from the Library of Congress.



Title: Milk - for health, good teeth, vitality, endurance, strong bones
Related Names:
   Federal Art Project , sponsor
Date Created/Published: Ohio : WPA Art Program, [19]40.
Medium: 1 print on board (poster) : silkscreen, color.
Summary: Poster for Cleveland Division of Health promoting milk, showing a large bottle of milk next to couples smiling, playing golf, tennis, and two babies.










Title: Milk - for summer thirst
Date Created/Published: [Ohio : Federal Art Project, 19]40.
Medium: 1 print on board (poster) : silkscreen, color.
Summary: Poster for Cleveland Division of Health promoting milk, showing a young man holding a glass of milk with the sun shining in the background.








Title: Milk - for warmth Energy food.
Related Names:
   Federal Art Project , sponsor
Date Created/Published: Ohio : WPA Art Program, [19]41.
Medium: 1 print on board (poster) : silkscreen, color.
Summary: Poster for Cleveland Division of Health promoting milk, showing a woman wearing winter clothing holding a glass of milk.







Title: A good lunch - one hot dish, meat, vegetables - sandwich - fruit - milk WPA school lunch.
Related Names:
   Federal Art Project , sponsor
Date Created/Published: Oklahoma : WPA Oklahoma Art Project, [between 1936 and 1941]
Medium: 1 print on board (poster) : silkscreen, color.
Summary: Poster promoting good eating habits in school.










Title: Eat these every day
Related Names:
   Federal Art Project , sponsor
Date Created/Published: NYC : NYC WPA War Services, [between 1941 and 1943]
Medium: 1 print on board (poster) : silkscreen, color.
Summary: Poster promoting consumption of healthy foods, showing dairy products (milk, cheese), eggs, fruit, vegetables, bread and cereal, and meat.









Title: Give to the needy Join the mayor's welfare milk fund : Monster vaudeville show at the Laurel Theatre.
Date Created/Published: [New York City] : WPA Federal Art Project, Dis. 4, [between 1936 and 1939]
Medium: 1 print on board (poster) : silkscreen, color.
Summary: Poster announcing vaudeville show to raise funds for the needy through New York City Mayor Edwards' milk fund, showing a large bottle of milk.






Title: Milk truckers do not! pick up milk at farms where there are cases of diphtheria, scarlet fever, infantile paralysis, spinal meningitis, smallpox, typhoid Report all cases on your route to .... Food and Drug Administration [sic].
Related Names:
   Federal Art Project , sponsor
Date Created/Published: Ohio : WPA Art Program, [between 1936 and 1940]
Medium: 1 print on board (poster) : silkscreen, color.
Summary: Poster encouraging truck drivers to report to proper authorities cases of communicable diseases encountered on their routes.


Thursday, July 2, 2015

Repost -- Evolution and the breakfast landscape

From TUESDAY, JUNE 11, 2013

Here's a question about evolutionary psychology. Not a rhetorical question or a snarky question (even though I have been a bit snarky on the subject in the past). Everyone knows why we evolved to seek out salt, sugar and fat in our diet, but why did we evolve to favor an extremely rugged yet malleable culinary landscape?

Take breakfast, for example. Sometimes (though not often) I'll hit a diner and say what-the-hell and get coffee, juice, eggs, bacon, hash browns, and biscuits. With the exception of the juice and the bacon (which are already optimized), I will add the right level of flavorings to each dish to get it to its landscape maxima (sugar for the coffee, salt and pepper for the eggs, hot sauce and ketchup for the hash browns, jam or maybe even sausage gravy for the biscuits).

The optimization is done on a dish-by-dish basis and is, for the most part, independent. If only eggs are available, I'll have a sugar-free breakfast. If all I have around the house is coffee and fruit, I'll have a low-sodium breakfast. Though there's an evolutionary imperative that makes me crave sugar and salt, it is somehow dependent on the other coordinates of the landscape. I want sugar but not salt with my coffee, salt but not sugar with my eggs and both salt and (caramelized) sugar in my hot chocolate.

Small children complain loudly and adults mumble grumpily when certain foods mix on a plate even though, as parents often remind us, it all goes to the same place.

How did our places get so context-sensitive?