Category: 1980s

Where’s The Beef?

After successful early growth of the [Wendy’s] chain, sales flattened as the company struggled to achieve brand differentiation in the highly competitive fast-food market. This situation would turn around in the mid-1980s. Starting on January 9, 1984, elderly actress Clara Peller was featured in the successful “Where’s the Beef?” North American commercial campaign for Wendy’s. Her famous line quickly entered the American pop culture (it was even used by Walter Mondale in a debate with Gary Hart in the Democratic primary election) and served to promote Wendy’s hamburgers. Peller, age 84, was dropped from the campaign in 1985 because she performed in a commercial for Prego spaghetti sauce, saying she “finally found” the beef. Peller was soon after replaced by Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas himself.

Hungarian Sausage Fest

A sausage consists of ground meat, animal fat, herbs and spices, and sometimes other ingredients, usually packed in a casing (historically the intestines of the animal, though now generally synthetic), and sometimes preserved in some way, often by curing or smoking. Sausage making is a very old food preservation technique.

Kolbász is the Hungarian word for sausage and generally refers to a type consisting of: ground pork, salt, garlic, black pepper, and paprika. Kolbász may be served fresh or smoked; “hot” (for varying degree) or “mild”.

Canada Dry doesn’t have to be sweet to be good

Canada Dry is a brand of soft drinks marketed by Dr Pepper/Seven Up, a unit of Cadbury-Schweppes. Canada Dry is best known for its ginger ale, but also manufactures a number of other soft drinks and mixers. Although Canada Dry originated in its namesake country, Canada, it is now produced in many countries around the globe, and is very popular in the United States.

[Ron] Hextall was known for his aggressive play, something which made him a fan-favorite in Philadelphia. He holds the record for most penalty minutes by a goaltender in one season with 113 in 1988-1989. In the closing minutes of Game 6 of the Stanley Cup playoff series against the Montreal Canadiens that season, Hextall, his team already down 3 games to 2 and trailing 4-2 on the scoreboard, whacked his stick and blocker pad at Canadien defenseman Chris Chelios, apparently in retaliation for Chelios’ illegal, yet unpenalized, hit that left the Flyers’ Brian Propp with a concussion in Game 1. Hextall received a five-minute major and a match penalty for the incident, and was suspended for the first 12 games of the 1989-90 season.

McDLT or Whopper?

The McDLT (McDonald’s Lettuce and Tomato) was a hamburger product based on a novel form of packaging. The meat portion was prepared separately from the other toppings, such as lettuce and tomato, and then both were packaged into a specially designed two-sided container. The consumer was then expected to finalize preparation of the sandwich by combining the hot and cool sides just prior to eating. The company discontinued the sandwich in 1990 due to the move away from the environmentally unsound styrofoam packaging which was integral to the McDLT “experience”.

The Original Whopper sandwich is a hamburger, consisting of a quarter-pound fire-grilled beef patty, sesame seed bun, mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato, pickles, ketchup, and sliced onion. Optional ingredients such as American cheese, bacon, mustard or jalapeño peppers may be added upon request. Regional and international condiments include BBQ sauce, Salsa and Guacamole. BK will also add any condiment it sells, including Tartar sauce, honey mustard, Steak sauce and hot sauce.

Although some people diagnosed with schizophrenia may hear voices and may experience the voices as distinct personalities, schizophrenia does not involve a person changing among distinct multiple personalities. The confusion perhaps arises in part due to the meaning of [Eugene] Bleuler’s term ‘schizophrenia’ (literally ‘split’ or ‘shattered mind’).

Grey Poupon is One of Life’s Finer Pleasures

Grey Poupon is a Dijon mustard made by Kraft Foods. Currently the best-selling Dijon-style mustard in the United States, it gained some notoriety from a late-80’s commercial in which a Rolls Royce pulls up alongside another Rolls Royce, and a passenger in one (played by Ian Richardson) asks a passenger in the other (Paul Eddington), “Pardon me, would you have any Grey Poupon?” The commercial has been satirized in the popular 1992 movie Wayne’s World and in the popular sitcom Married… with Children.