1940's Television: Rare 1948 "Live" Swift Meat commercial (Real and Funny!!)

[AbduCola]

Everyone in this commercial is dead

[Wavedude21101]

lol ATOMIC BOMBS!!

[thenighthowler1]

are you sure this is the 1940s? seems like 1950s. atomic wasnt used until 50s.

[MattTheSaiyan]

@thenighthowler1 Yes, this is 1940s. There are various references during the broadcast to the US election of the year.

[dynamovolition33]

@thenighthowler1 bro, the first atomic bomb (hiroshima bomb) was dropped on august 6th, 1945

[MrFBCBSALES]

Totally awesome! Thanks for posting!!!!

[tomitstube]

clever. great stuff. the one guy ("good bacon") reminds me of steve allen.

henry morgan around this time had some of the best satirical commercials. he would challenge his sponsors integrity on live radio. it would get him into trouble too. he was also blacklisted by the mccarthy communist witch hunts for a while.

[UTubeVideoBuzz]

How Far We have Come !!! Now Look at the Junk on TODAYS Television !

[samspace81]

well that was entertaining :) Thanks for posting!

[BobWXXI]

LOL!

This was right around the time Philly was preparing to host the political conventions in '48, so it had relevance to the local audience seeing it produced live. Don McNeill should have insisted on daily telecasts earlier--he'd have caught on the way Arthur Godfrey did if he'd found his way on to the ABC television schedule like Godfrey eased into CBS-TV. ABC had a Chicago O&O on the air by late '48 (WENR-TV Channel 7, now WLS-TV, still an ABC O&O) so it could have happened easily...

[GaryW48]

@BobWXXI I wonder if ABC had enough leased telco land lines for feeds at that time? Coast to coast transmission was barely possible in 1948.

[rolko52]

And you thought Mike Myers with his Austin Powers jump cut gags was the first to think of this?

[fromthesidelines]

This was part of a "one-time only" simulcast of "THE BREAKFAST CLUB" on Wednesday, May 12, 1948, originating from Philadelphia, and carried on five stations along the East Coast [WPTZ/WFIL, Philadelphia, WABD, New York (there was no ABC "flagship" station in the city at that time until WJZ-TV signed on that August), WMAL-TV, Washington, and WMAR, Baltimore] while it was heard nationally on the ABC radio network.

[guildsadventures]

In order to start your day with a BANG EAT SEVERAL ATOMIC BOMBS

I liked that part

[guildsadventures]

No wonder the politician lost (IF they did'nt hear the beginning)

[jiahkong]

i remember seeing this commerial when i was 3 years old

[CassconeyyyX]

@jiahkong How old are you?

[jiahkong]

@CassconeyyyX 61 yrs old y?

[Bleach18Angel]

haha

[fromthesidelines]

This is from a special "test" broadcast of "THE BREAKFAST CLUB", as it wasn't regularly seen on TV until February 1954. ABC wanted to see how the radio show would "look" on TV, and arranged a one-time only "simulcast" with DuMont. The irony was, when it finally DID appear as a daily TV series, ABC couldn't sell ad time for it- and it remained a "sustaining" program during the entire year it was on TV, through February 1955. Swift & Company had their own weekly TV show at that time, on NBC.

[xistn]

def funny... very corky and i think we had more creativity as americans then vs. now! with all the technology and all... keep'em coming! =)

[yaachb]

not really so "rare" is it?

[gary7999]

More like Clinton,Bush politics.

[murielsartre]

Bwaahahahaha!

[pedrock1952]

Don McNeill's Breakfast Club. This "campaign" is mentioned in the book "Don McNeill And His Breakfast Club".

[eazyefan1122]

asiff people could even watch this back then badd quaility

[MrUnidyne]

This was a kinescope of a radio show. The fact that the commercial works with and without visuals shows how well written it was.

[MattTheSaiyan]

Yep, and the odd thing is, it was an ABC Radio show, yet it was televised on a DuMont afiliate. Why, I have no idea.

[actionsub]

In the early days, there was a lot more crossing network lines than there is now. ABC and DuMont both had a harder time fielding a full schedule of programming early on, so many affiliates would run both ABC and DuMont programming.

[DocWyoming]

@MattTheSaiyan Because DuMont affiliate's didn't have to purchase/play only DuMont programming. Some only played the highest rated shows (well, after they had ratings, that is).

[BobWXXI]

ABC didn't get its New York flagship station built and on the air until August of 1948, a few months after this aired. They used WABD, the DuMont flagship (now known as WNYW, the current Fox network flagship), to air those few programs they were producing for the network in the NYC market, and Philly station WFIL-TV, a charter affiliate, as the production center for the network until Channel 7 in New York was built and ready to go. WFIL handled this production, WABD carried it.

[elc1960]

@MattTheSaiyan Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't DuMont actually become ABC-TV?

[MattTheSaiyan]

@elc1960 Nope, but the FOX network is sometimes considered to be the grandchild of the DuMont Network.

[MrUnidyne]

@MattTheSaiyan Many of DuMont's stations later became part of Metromedia, which was later bought out by Fox.

[MrUnidyne]

@elc1960 When DuMont folded, the stations became MetroMedia Television, which itself was bought up by Fox.

[theluisanator]

LOL tasteful and funny

[jcice3]

Heh heh...That was pretty clever.

[ratmaaan]

Brilliant.

I sincerely hope that  sales of Swift's tripled

[saphopoem]

very interesting!