I Pitched It ... You Bought It! Quiz

Answer: wine coolers

A rage in the 1990s, flavored wine coolers found a definite market. Two of the most recognizable spokespersons were Rufkahr and Maugg, who posed as the folksy team of Frank Bartles and Ed Jaymes.

"Bartles and Jaymes" wine coolers, a product of E & J Gallo Wineries, was introduced in 1981. Wine coolers came in a variety of flavors including Strawberry Daiquiri, Tropical Mango, Green Apple, and Fuzzy Navel, just to name a few.

In commercials, Bartles and Jaymes, two elderly gentlemen, were seen sitting on their front porch, speaking directly to the audience about a new wine cooler flavor or some aspect about their product. Each commercial ended with Frank Bartles' tagline to the viewers, "and thank you for your support".

Answer: Comet cleanser

"Comet" is a popular powdered cleaning product, first introduced in 1956 by Procter & Gamble. The product is primarily used with water as a scrubbing cleanser for sinks, bathtubs, and tiled counters.
The Comet label was sold by Proctor & Gamble to Prestige Brands in 2001

Movie and television actress Jane Withers portrayed "Josephine the Plumber" in television commercials and in print advertisement for over two decades.
Withers, an accomplished performer, has added over 70 movie and television roles to her credits since her first acting job in 1932.

The tagline used by Josephine was, "nothing can hold a can to Comet!".

Answer: General Mills

General Mills, a fortune 500 Company, is one of the largest food companies on the world. The company manufactures over 100 of the worlds most familiar brand name products, including Betty Crocker, Green Giant, Pillsbury, Cherrios, Old El Paso, and Haagen Daz.
The company was founded in 1866, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, by Cadwallander C. Washburn and John Crosby.

The company trademark and spokesperson for General Mills, Betty Crocker, is an image not based on any one actual person. According to General Mills, the image of the fictional character Betty Crocker, is actually a composite of 75 real-life women, and does not represent any one single person.
Executives for the company selected the name Betty Crocker. They felt that the image of a woman named "Betty" would reflect a happy, all-American homemaker, while the last name "Crocker" was selected to honor William Crocker, a former director on the board of Washburn Cosby Company, the founders of General Mills.

In 1924, Agnes White provided the voice for the fictional character on radio, first on a local Minneapolis radio station, and later on an NBC nationally broadcast cooking program called "The Betty Crocker Cooking School of the Air".
Agnes White portrayed the character for the next two decades both on radio and at cooking schools.

In 1949, actress Adelaide Hawley Cumming portrayed Betty Crocker both as a guest on popular television shows and as host of her own TV cooking show,
in the character of Betty Crocker. Cummings, as Betty Crocker, prepared "mystery fruit cake" in the first ever color commercial on the CBS Network.

Answer: Good & Plenty

"Good & Plenty" is a capsule shaped licorice candy, covered with a hard candy shell. The capsules come in bright pink and white, and are packaged in a box.

During the 1950s and 1962s, the spokesperson for the candy was an animated small boy name Charlie, who sat at the throttle of a train. Charlie, known as "Choo-Choo Charlie" wore an oversized railroad engineer hat and carried a box of Good & Plenty candy. By moving the box in a circular motion, the sound made by the loose candy in the box simulated the sound of the locomotive of the imaginary train he was driving. The theme song to the commercial to which Charlie was singing to was in the tune of "The Ballad of Casey Jones".

"Good & Plenty", the oldest brand name candy product in the United States, was first produced in 1893, by the Quaker City Confectionery Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Answer: Isuzu

David Leisure portrayed the always smiling pitchman, Joe Isuzu, for the Japanese company, Isuzu Motor, Ltd., from 1986 through 2000.

Joe Isuzu would flash his cynical smile as he pitched his implausible claims to the audience. Examples of Joe's claims were: "I'm Joe Isuzu, and I used my Isuzu pickup truck to carry a 2,000 pound cheeseburger", or (speaking on the seating capacity of an Isuzu vehicle), "it has more seats than the Astrodome".

Joe often ended his sales pitch with the statements, "you have my word on it" or "If I'm lying, may lightning hit my mother". As he spoke, the words appeared at the bottom of the TV screen "Good luck, Mom".
In one of his classic commercials, Joe Isuzu is seen standing in front of a screen and states, "The Isuzu Impulse: Faster than a speeding ... (just then, he is seen catching a bullet fired from off screen in his teeth) well, you know".

Joe Isuzu was the creation of advertising agency, Della Femina Traviscano & Partners.

Answer: retail and automotive repairs and parts

In 1921, Rosenfeld, Strauss, and Jackson, along with a fourth friend, Moe Radavicz, pooled their money and with 800.00, opened an automotive parts store. They named their store "Pep Automotive Supplies".

The Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area where the store was located was patrolled by a police officer named Leonardo Mayi. He often encountered and stopped motorist at night who drove without having an "oil wick" burning to illminate their path. He would often recommend that the drivers should "see the "boys at Pep" for a replacement.
The advice resulted in the company being renamed "Pep Boys".

In 1923, Strauss took a trip to California and noticed that a number of successful business used the first names of the owners in their titles. Of particular note to him was a dress shop he saw called "Minnie, Maude, and Mable's. This sparked a new idea that he shared with his two partners upon his return. A year earlier, Radavitz sold his interest in the company to his partners. Strauss recommended the use of their "nicknames" for a unique store logo.

Emanuel "Manny" Rosenfeld, Maurice "Moe" Strauss, and Graham "Jack" Jackson, adopted the personas of "Manny, Moe, and Jack", The Pep Boys.

They soon commissioned an artist to draw a caricature of the three to serve as the logo for their company.

Answer: RCA

"Nipper" was the dog seen sitting in front of a gramophone, intently listening to what was reported as his owner's voice on a phonograph record. Throughout the twentieth century, the image was used by number companies as a logo, but it was most associated with the brand RCA. In later years, the image of Nipper was replaced by a puppy named Chipper.

The trademark picture was based on the painting by Francis James Barraud, of a terrier, seated in front of an Edison-Bell cylinder phonograph, looking quizzed as he heard his master's voice coming from the machine.

In addition to the RCA Company, the image has been used as a logo for other music industry companies including Victor Talking Machine Company (American recording company), HMV (British entertainment retailing company in the U.K.), EMI (Japanese multinational (Japanese international consumer and professional electronics corporation), Deutsche Grammophon (German classical record label) to name a few.

"Nipper's Tale"
Nipper was born in 1884,in Bristol, England. Nipper was a Terrier, but sources differ as to what breed of Terrier he was. Some sources site him as a Jack Russell Terrier while others refer to his as a Fox Terrier.
Nipper lived with his owner, Mark Henry Barraud, who was employed in a theater as a scenery manager.
Nipper picked up his name because of his habit of biting the backs of the legs of visitors. When Barraud died in 1897, his two brothers, Philip and Francis, cared for Nipper.
Nipper died in 1895, and was buried in a small park in Kingston-upon-the-Thames in England
At the time of his brother's death, Francis inherited an old wind-up Edison-Bell cylinder phonograph, and a number of audio recording made by his late brother. He recalled that when he played the records, Nipper would sit obediently in front of the phonograph, looking bewildered as he listened to his master's voice.
Three years after Nipper's death, Francis painted the picture that would make Nipper a famous icon.

Answer: beverages

Wendy Kaufman was known to millions of television viewers as "The Snapple Lady" in commercials during the 1990s.

Kaufman started working in the shipping and billing department for Snapple Beverage Corporation in 1991.

Recounting from her teen years when she was devastated when a fan letter she wrote to her favorite celebrity went unanswered, and noting the growing number of fan letters and inquiries sent to Snapple, she took it upon herself to personally answer the letters in her free time.
When company executives discovered what Wendy was doing, a decision was made to develop an advertisement campaign around her.

In commercials, Wendy would read a question about Snapple submitted by a product consumer, and respond with a witty, humorous reply in her very distinctive thick New York accent.
Wendy's commercials were well received by viewers, especially the so called "generation X" audience, which elevated her to near "cult" status.

Wendy, who had no previous acting experience, was partly credited with the meteoric rise in product sales in 1995. During that year, sales went from approximately 23 million to 750 million.
Wendy Kaufman was featured in Snapple commercial from 1993 until 1997.

Snapple was the largest manufacturer if unadulterated food products, specializing in bottled iced teas, fruit juices, lemonades, and water. Snapple produced over 50 different flavored beverages.

Answer: Palmolive dish detergent

"Madge the manicurist" worked at the Salon East Beauty Parlor, and was known for soaking the fingernails of her clients in Palmolive dishwashing detergent.
Her pitch to customers was "Palmolive softens hands while you do dishes". Most clients were startled after learning that their hands were soaking is dishwashing liquid, but were immediately reassured by the kind, comforting, confident words of Madge.

Jan Miner was an accomplished New York stage actress, radio voice artist, and movie actress during her 45 year career in entertainment. Jan enjoyed an impressive career in the entertainment industry, but will probably be best remembered for her role as "Madge the manicurist", a role she played in advertisement for over 27 years. Commercials featuring Madge were seen in countries throughout the world including France, Germany, Switzerland, Finland, Italy, and Australia.

Miner's association with Palmolive ranks among the longest ongoing product endorsements in television history.

Answer: canned pasta products

"Chef Boyardee", also known in early years as "Chef Boy-Ar-Dee", became the largest supplier of canned pizza products in the years immediately following World War II.

Ettori Boiardi was born in Piacenza, Italy on October 22, 1897. His family relocated to the United States in 1914.
Boiardi started honing his skills as a chef at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, where he worked his way up to Head Chef, and later, working in the kitchen of Greenbrier Hotel in Greenbrier, West Virginia. It was while at the Greenbrier Hotel, he was assigned to supervise the dinner for President Woodrow Wilson's wedding reception in 1915.
Boiardi was later asked to supervise a homecoming dinner at The White House, to honor over 2,000 veterans of World War I.

In 1926, Boiardi opened his own restaurant, "Il Giardino d'Italia" in Cleveland, Ohio.
Many of his customers would ask for his recipes, or samples of his spaghetti sauce. Boiardi would accommodate them by filling empty clean milk bottles with his sauce. By 1929, Boiardi began using a factory to manufacture his sauce to keep pace with the request from his customers. This would lead to the idea of selling his product on an international basis. Boiardi sold his product under the name "Chef Boy-Ar-Dee", a simplified version of his name that he felt would make it easier for American customers to pronounce.

The "Chef Boy-Ar-Dee" brand was selected by both the U.S. Government and the Russian Government to provide food rations for the Allied Troops in World War II.
After the war, "Chef Boy-Ar-Dee" soon became the leading and one of the most recognizable canned food brand names in the U.S. market.

From 1940-1960, Ettori Boiardi, dresses in his white chef's uniform, topped by a white chef's hat with "Chef Boy-Ar-Dee" imprinted on it, became the television and print advertisement symbol for his products.

Canned products produced by the "Chef Boyardee" brand included spaghetti sauce, spaghetti with meatballs, lasagna, beef ravioli, and Beefaroni (beef and macaroni in sauce).