Twinkies were invented by
James Dewar who worked as a baker for the Continental Baking Co (later to be
renamed Hostess). Dewar noticed the machines that made strawberry filled cakes
were dormant during the berry off season, he used the lady-finger shaped
machines to create a snack cake filled with banana cream. During WWII, bananas were rationed and the
company switched to vanilla cream, which became so popular the banana filling
was not re-introduced. Bananas were in short supply, not because of a crop failure but because transportation priority was given to the war effort and space on ships and railroad cars was limited. Twinkees became part of pop culture in movies and TV
shows.Archie Bunker, for example, never
left for work without a Twinkie in his lunchbox! .
The first episode of
“All in the Family” airs on CBS. The
show is considered ground breaking as
it brought to the airwaves topics that were normally considered “unsuitable”
for television, such as menopause, the Vietnam War, rape, homosexuality and
others. It also lays claim to the first audible toilet flush
ever heard on prime time TV!
Creator Norman Lear wanted to film it in black and
white but CBS demanded it be in color.Lear made the set as bland and colorless as possible, going for sepia tones
because he wanted viewers to feel like they were looking at an old family
album.
It was the first show to be videotaped in front of a live audience,
giving it that ‘stage’ look, similar to “The Honeymooners”, a show it is
frequently compared to.
The show is only one of three shows to be #1 in the Nielsen ratings for five consectutive years. (The record was overtaken in the 80s by "The Cosby Show" and later by "American Idol".)
It holds the record for the most number of spin-offs. Five shows were born from All in the Family, and two of those were spin-offs of spin-offs. "Good Times", a show about maid Florida Evans, was a spin off of "Maude". Checking In", a show about housekeeper Florence Johnston, was a spin off of "The Jeffersons".
Archie and Edith’s chairs, purchased at a Goodwill
store, are on display at the Smithsonian Nat’l Museum of American History.
The show added to America's pop culture by adding to our vocabulary words such as "dingbat" and "stifle". This video clip is a segment that had all of us touching our head to a wall and trying to pick up a chair!
