Friday, September 18, 2009

Sell sell sell

Slashfood links to its picks for the weirdest food commercials featuring celebrities.

I've always loved George Costanza hawking the McDLT and its landfill-clogging box, but really, if you're going to pick a Florence Henderson Wesson ad, you need the one where she fries an entire loaf of bread in Wesson. Or did I make that up? Can anyone find it? Maybe Florence isn't in it, but I swear it exists.

9 comments:

Richard Hadley said...

I also remember the Wesson Oil commercial where they fried an entire loaf of bread. I couldn't find a video of it, but I did find an article from the St. Petersburg Times from 1972 where they challenged the claims of the commercial:
http://tinyurl.com/lz64vv

Seeing that it was 1972, I'm pretty sure this was before Florence Henderson signed on as spokesperson. (Wasn't the Brady Bunch still in production in 1972?)

Shannon said...

You are NOT misremembering that commercial because I remember it too. And found written proof for you:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=888&dat=19720822&id=7QUNAAAAIBAJ&sjid=W2EDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5296,1131008

It doesn't say whether Ma Brady was in it, though.

Kim said...

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=888&dat=19720822&id=7QUNAAAAIBAJ&sjid=W2EDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5296,1131008

Not the ad but a story about it. And I remember it being Florence Henderson too.

Dimestore Lipstick said...

You didn't make it up--I remember that ad well. And here's an article about if from 1972:
http://bit.ly/P4Ip1

Laurie said...

I remember that too, Gael. Florence cuts the crust off an entire loaf of bread, takes her tongs and dips it in the Wesson, and it comes out golden brown and crunchy looking (though the inside is probably like a Wesson-soaked sponge!) I can't find it anywhere either, but definitely remember it, along with her singing to us that "the chicken's got a certain Wessonality!" You could never have made that up! :)

Anonymous said...

I'm looking for that version of the commercial too. So much a product of its time... who would consider a commercial that shows anything being deep-fried nowadays? Unfortunately all I can find is later versions, all of which lack that certain ... Wessonality :)

Anonymous said...

Many years ago my father found a book at the thrift shop called "Omnivores" (no longer have the copy courtesy of Hurricane Katrina, but Google Books confirms its existence anyway: http://books.google.com/books/about/Omnivores.html?id=UXXgAAAAMAAJ ) and they had a chapter in which they deep fried a loaf of bread in the manner of the Wesson commercial. I seem to recall they said it smelled wonderful and so finally ate the thing and that it tasted wonderful. That commercial was just slightly before my time, I remember my mother explaining it to me and my sister after we started repeatedly watching "Kentucky Fried Movie" again sometime in the 80s ("She's frying the cat in pure Nesson Oil...").

Anonymous said...

I can tell you that the commercial for sure exists - as I was the little girl in the commercial asking if we were really going to have bread for dinner?

Anonymous said...

The girl was Renee Cobb and she was a summer romance for me