Brought to You By: Postwar Television Advertising and the American Dream

1. The Precocious Prodigy, 1946-1952

Chapter One The Precocious Prodigy, – Why don’t you pick me up and smoke me sometime? Muriel the talking cigar,  This is the storyof the birth of the most powerful advertising medium in history ,astorythathasneverbeenfullytold.Inthesevenorsoyearsfollowingthe end of World War II, the fledgling upstart medium of television advertising would irrevocably alter the social, economic, and political landscape of the United States. Over the course of the latter s and early s, television advertising emerged as a lightning rod of passion and conflict, electrifying politics,thelegalsystem,andofcourse,everydaylifeinAmerica.Likethebeginnings of most new technologies, the first era of commercial television was a wild and wooly period fueled by an entrepreneurial spirit, gold rush mentality , and corporate interests. Its frontier orientation recast the trajectory of advertising,broadcasting,andmarketing,andthecareersofthoseworkingin those fields.Within this relatively short period of time, a new, original culture would form and be canonized in literature, film, and television itself. Most important, television advertising emerged as a loud, and I believe the loudest , voice of the American Dream, promoting thevalues of consumption and leisure grounded in a domestic, family-oriented lifestyle. After the Depression and the war, television advertising took on the important responsibility ofassuringAmericansthatitwasacceptable,evenbeneficialtobeconsumers. A vigorous consumerculture, largely suspended for the previous decade and a half, was about to be primed by the biggest thing to hit advertising since the commercialization of radio in the s. As in the case of many key sites of twentieth-century American social history , the creation of television advertising was dependent upon a series of technological advances and regulatory decisions. Commercial television began in earnest in the mid-s when RCA, Philco, Allen B. Du Mont, and othersstartedtestingthemedium.NBCandCBSbeganbroadcastingin,  with RCA offering sets for –.Television made its grand debut at the World’sFair,andbyMay,twenty-threestationshadbeguntelecasting in the United States. As America shifted to a wartime economy, however, the FCC soon put limits on commercial operations, which slowed growth of the new medium and made new sets impossible to find in the marketplace . No sets were allowed to be manufactured or stations to be licensed during World War II, postponing commercial television despite technological readiness.1 Months before America’s entry into the war, however, a handful of brave advertisers gained their first experiencewith the medium.The first television commercial was for Bulova watches, aired during a July , , broadcast of a Brooklyn Dodgers versus Philadelphia Phillies baseball game.The historymaking event was inauspicious at best, made possible when the FCC authorized WNBT, the New York City NBC affiliate later called WNBC, to allow its broadcasts to be sponsored by advertisers. At precisely :: .., a Bulova clock showing the time replaced a test pattern, while an announcer told baseball fans it was three o’clock. Bulova paid a total of  for the twentysecond spot— for the time and  for ‘‘facilities and handling.’’ Later that same day, Sunoco Oil, Lever Brothers, and Procter and Gamble sponsored broadcasts on the station, each paying  to reach what was estimated as , viewers.WNBT’s rate card (the price list given to advertising agencies andsponsors)was,fromtoday’sstandards,ridiculouslybasic,offeringmedia buyers the simple choice of ‘‘night’’ or ‘‘day’’ rates.2 Despitethewartimemoratoriumonnewstations,someexistingoneswere permitted to test the waters of commercial television. In March , for example ,WABD,theNewYorktelevisionstationownedbyDuMontLaboratories ,offeredfreetimetoadvertisingagenciestoexperimentwiththemedium. Ruthrauff & Ryan was the first agency to take Du Mont up on its offer, producing a weekly half-hour show calledWednesdays at Nine Is Lever Brothers Time.ThevarietyshowwasavehicletopromotethreeLeverbrands—Rinso detergent, Spry baking ingredients, and Lifebuoy soap and shaving cream. Lever’s commercials were surprisingly sophisticated, using dissolves, superimposed images, and even identical twins to create special effects. Most impressive ,however,werecommercialsthatwereintegratedwithintheprogram itself. In one skit, for example, the master of ceremonies led a game of charades , with the correct answer one of the sponsor’s slogans, ‘‘A daily bath with Lifebuoy stops B.O.’’ In another show, a lost puppet character is found in a giant Rinso box, and told he will win over a girl puppet by offering her  [ H    S     H    A  commercial for Chesterfield cigarettes on the Du Mont network not surprisingly depicted a military scene. (NMAH Archives Center, Smithsonian Institution) ‘‘a life free of household drudgery’’ by using Rinso.These earlycommercials laid the groundwork for advertisers’ use of television to sell products under theguiseofentertainment,astrategyadvertisershadusedsincetheearlydays of radio and before in newspapers and magazines.3 Radio Days Indeed, much of the unapologetic commercialism of early television was predicated...