Sale into the 90s--a 1980s/1990s history Tumblr

83. Cappio (1992-1996)

We take iced coffee for granted these days, its everywhere you go. However, in the early 1990s, iced coffee was a weird novelty. I don’t even remember seeing iced coffee in bottles until I went to Anchorage to visit family the Summer of 1996, and I saw the Starbucks bottled Frappuchino drinks for the first time. 

(See, I brought the bottle back to Virginia with me, I had mocha and coffee too, but I don’t know where they are right now.) 

It wasn’t until YouTube did I know that there was a bottled iced coffee way before the bottled Frappucnino drinks. In the fall of 1992, Maxwell House bottled an iced coffee named Cappio ^1. 

(commercial) (2) (3)

The flavors were coffee, cinnamon, and mocha. The product was aimed at younger college aged coffee drinkers. Check out the low low prices on ‘dat Cappio:

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I love the Andy Rooney-esque title for that article, “Doesn’t Anybody Drink Coffee Black Anymore?”

“Maxwell House introduces Cappio iced cappuchino.”Hudson Valley News, June 24, 1992. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=jehFAAAAIBAJ&sjid=tR0NAAAAIBAJ&dq=maxwell house cappio&pg=5230,2615667 (accessed June 4, 2013).

Maxwell House created Cappio as an easier way to drink cappuccino, without the expensive maker, and also as a response to people who were tired of drinking the same boring cup of coffee every day: 

Coffee has the potential to be a small luxury in a time when bigger luxuries aren’t affordable, said Margery Schelling, senior product manager for Maxwell House, the industry leader in coffee innovations for the supermarket shelf.

She added, “People still are drinking coffee. But today, it can be in many different forms and flavors.”

Her own daily regimen includes regular coffee in the morning, a bottle of Cappio (the company’s new flavored cappuccino that’s meant to be served chilled or over ice) at lunch time or in the afternoon and a cup of Maxwell House Cappuccino (a new, instant beverage that comes in the same flavors as Cappio — coffee, mocha and cinnamon) sometime in the evening. 

Although Schelling conceded that freshly brewed espresso and cappuccino are the ideals, she said, “Our studies have shown that less than 10 percent of American households have a $200 or more machine to turn out these specialty beverages. We’re providing alternatives.

“Cappio can be poured over ice or chilled and drunk straight from the bottle. All a person has to do to our Maxwell House Cappuccino is pour the contents of the envelope into a cup, add hot water and stir to get good flavor and the familiar cap of froth that’s expected from cappuccino.” ³

(source [Flickr member “Pete’s Old Food”])

Cappio was at least around long enough to enjoy a brief moment at the White House:

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y., March 19 /PRNewswire/ — According to the March 22 edition U.S. News and World Report, officials at the White House have “maxed out” on the coffee budget due to working late hours on the economic plan. Everyone is obliged to operate under the BYOC budget rule: “Bring Your Own Coffee.” Maxwell House Coffee Company, a division of Kraft General Foods, Inc., is coming to the rescue and sending Clinton officials 20 cases of Maxwell House coffee, just in time for more long hours of work on the nation’s pressing issues. “At Maxwell House, we have found that behind every great idea, there’s a cup of coffee,” said Chuck Phillips, president of Maxwell House. “We hope that this coffee will help spark the imaginations of Clinton and his staff, and spark the American economy, at the same time.” The coffee, which includes Maxwell House Colombian Supreme coffee, Sanka decaffeinated coffee and Cappio iced cappuccino, is due to arrive at the White House next week. Maxwell House, Cappio and Sanka are registered trademarks of Kraft General Foods, Inc. -0- 3/19/93

Kraft Foods discontinued Cappio in early 1996, citing that the product only made $11 million the few years it was on the market. ³ 

Related links:

Cappio t-shirt

Maxwell House Ready to Drink Brewed Coffee  - a product that constantly comes up on “what were they thinking?” lists. Back in 1990 when this was introduced, people didn’t really phantom drinking this straight from the carton, it was only to be heated up in the microwave (but you couldn’t heat the carton up in the microwave!), which was a total time waster, when you could just make a cup of coffee. 

“Starbucks Does Not Live By Coffee Alone” 1996 Businessweek article about the launch of the Frappuchino drinks. 

82. The little red car that flew off the top of the Bay Bridge after the 1989 San Francisco Earthquake (October 17, 1989)

I don’t remember how many years ago it was, but we’ve all been there. You’re on the internet late at night, and one google search, and one wikipedia search leads to another, and you’re watching news clips from the 1980s until 3am. One clip from all the San Francisco earthquake coverage I watched that morning that still resonates with me today is of the little red car that drove off the broken opening of the Bay Bridge. 

Due to a misunderstanding with the way the cars were being turned around on the bridge, a red car drove off of the opening of the bridge, and crashed into the lower level of the bridge.

There’s raw news footage of the red car being pulled up from the bottom of the bridge.

At around :30, you can hear a rescuer get smart with the news reporter if she asked if they were taken out of the car:  ”UH YEAH, THEY’RE STILL IN THERE.”

Hearing the screetch of the car being dragged up by its rims back onto the flat road, and then hearing the tiny “pop” sound the door made when it was pried open is almost heartbreaking.

It’s upsetting though to see this reporter prim to get ready to shoot a report in front of the mangled car. 

The driver of the car, Anamafi Moala, died, and the passenger, Lesisita Halangahu was extremely injured:

The fatal bridge accident occurred about half an hour after the massive quake, which registered magnitude 7.1, struck at 5:04 p.m. on Oct. 17, 1989, causing a 50-foot opening in a section of the top deck of the bridge.

Moala and her brother, headed for Oakland on the lower deck of the bridge, were among the hundreds of motorists who were stopped and rerouted by state personnel to the top deck at Treasure Island so they could return safely to San Francisco.

But Moala and some other motorists proceeded back toward Oakland, unaware of the danger that lay in going in that direction. While other cars managed to avoid the collapsed section, Moala’s auto plunged into the opening, resulting in the only fatality from the bridge’s collapse. Meanwhile, across the bay in Oakland, 42 people died in the collapse of a one-mile section of the freeway.

Baum said California Highway Patrol officers and Caltrans employees at the scene “failed to properly control traffic” on the bridge, resulting in cars driven by Moala and others to be sent toward the collapsed section. 1

…

The day death came knocking, Lesisita had just flown into San Francisco International Airport from Australia, where he had gone for a funeral. Anamafi, a nurse’s aide just off from her shift, picked him up and they were on the lower deck of the Bay Bridge at 5:04 p.m.

Anamafi followed the near-panicked herd of cars onto the top deck of the bridge, where everyone thought they would be safe, and then an emergency worker waved her toward Oakland. About 50 cars rolled east nearly at once — none of them knowing a section of the top deck had collapsed just ahead of them, creating a yawning, 50-foot gap in the road.

Everyone else managed to stop just in time, including a tourist couple who started videotaping the hole. Their camera was still rolling — capturing images broadcast worldwide in the days to come — when Anamafi’s car hit the breach at 40 mph, bounced off the fallen section of roadway and slammed into the opposite side of the hole, hanging there by its front end.

It took emergency crews a half-hour to drag the car back up to the road. The paramedics knew just by looking at Anamafi that the bridge had claimed what turned out to be its only fatality. 2

//edit May, 24//

I found the background information about the tourists who videotaped that moment:

Ryckman, Larry. “What Some Californians, Visitors Were Doing at 5:04p.m. Tuesday.” Schenectady Gazette, October 19, 1989. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=PnkhAAAAIBAJ&sjid=0IkFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4602,4727174 (accessed May 24, 2013).

Related Links:

THE FREEWAY DEAD: Portraits From Oakland - A special report.; 11 WHOSE LIVES ENDED AS QUAKE CRUSHED I-880 - New York Times profile of some of the people who died in the Nimitz Freeway collapse that killed 39 people that same day. 

81. Ice Cube’s documentary on the Los Angeles Raiders, “Straight Outta L.A.”

link

Nobody other than Ice Cube could put together such an eloquent tribute about the Oakland Raiders’ short lived ten year move to Los Angeles. The move also intertwines with his emerging rap career, and the impact the Raiders had on hiphop music and culture in the late 1980s and early 1990s. 

80. When Gina got her head stuck in the headboard (1995)

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Never forget. 

79. “National Nothing Day” at Memphis McDonalds (January 16, 1989)

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A McDonald’s franchise published a calendar for managers to remind them of sales promotions. On January 16, a copywriter put “National Nothing Day” as a “holiday intended to mock all others”. This calendar was distributed in Memphis. The town where  Martin Luther King was assassinated. January 16th is Martin Luther King’s birthday. 

^1. “McDonald’s calendar ignites blacks’ anger.” Eugene Register-Guard , January 15, 1989.

^2. Matthew Dennis, Red, White, And Blue Letter Days: An American Calendar, (Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2005), 278.

78. Bryant Gumbel’s memo (1988)

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The recent New York article about the decline in ratings over at the Today show due to Matt Lauer reminds me of another Today scandal. Bryant Gumbel’s memo.

The memo (that was supposed to stay confidential) that Gumbel wrote to his producer, Marty Ryan was about “issues” he had with the show—and I use the airquotes on the word “issues”, because they just seem like ranty complaints, and not constructive criticism. 

Highlights of the two page memo:

Bryant tears legendary weather man/national treasure/the first Ronald McDonald/ he was even in a Diet Coke commercial, Willard Scott a new butthole in the memo:

Bryant wasn’t in a Diet Coke commercial.  Jealous, Mr. Gumbel?

In closing (keep in mind, he’s saying this to his producer): 

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The only person to not be reprimanded in Gumbel’s memo was his co-anchor, Jane Pauley. Yeah, smoke that cigar in celebration, Jane. Bryant likes you. 

In late February of 1989, the memo was leaked to the press via Newsday. Gumbel stupidly kept the memo as a file on his computer, and it was stolen by a NBC employee, and given to Newsday. Gumbel was on vacation the week the memo was leaked. How convenient. ³

I love this quote from New York Times Walter Goodman about the fiasco:

 Owing to the cozy format, Mr. Gumbel and Mr. Scott are often found cheek by jowl, as the weatherman, who has raised boosterism to the grotesque, burbles on about his hats and his T-shirts and delivers his plugs (”I’ve got to tell you they love us in Columbus, Ohio”) and rhapsodizing over photographs of 100-year-olds: ”There are plenty of good-looking women out there. Go get them.” The anchor becomes, so to speak, a second banana. Is it only this viewer’s imagination that at moments Mr. Gumbel is considering jumping into his coffee cup? ⁴

^1.NBC Today Show 1987: 7/6/87 Willard Scott Microphone Blooper   

^2.89-JANE PAULEY’S LAST DAY on “TODAY” 3of4   

^3.Jay Sharbutt, “The Gumbel Rumble: His Memo Irks Cast, Crew of ‘Today’ Show,” Los Angeles Times, March 1, 1989, http://articles.latimes.com/1989-03-01/entertainment/ca-730_1_gumbel-memo. 

^4. Walter Goodman, “TV VIEW; ‘Today,’ After That Infamous Memo,” The New York Times, April 2, 1989, http://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/02/arts/tv-view-today-after-that-infamous-memo.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm. 

77. Horrors from Seventeen Magazines from 1982

I only have a few Seventeen issues from 1982, from the big collection I got from the thrift store that I brought up earlier. 

There are two categories I want to put these pages in:

What?

Exactly what age is their target demographic

Who has time for that?

What?

(September 1982)

(September, 1982)

What’s up with those giant makeup applicators (#5)? Were you supposed to throw them at your face, theatrically like giant powder puffs? :

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(September, 1982)

When I was reading ‘Teen and Seventeen in the mid 90s, I never saw ads for diets for teens, instead, there were always articles about the dangers of eating disorders.  I didn’t see any of those articles in the 1982 issues, just this diet ad.

//edit, March 22//

I just finished flipping through the September, 1984 issue, and this ad was still running.

i

(September 1982)

Tampons and gold…they go together like wood and soup. 2

(May 1982)

This is the most stick up your butt party I’ve ever seen. 

(November, 1982)
I know it was the early 1980s, but … Chevy Chase being a teenage girls heartthrob? 

Exactly what age was their target demographic?

(September 1982)

I can’t believe that Seventeen was still publishing a wedding guide in 1982. For the discerning woman who gets engaged right out of high school.

(May, 1982)

My, how much we’ve advanced.

(September, 1982)

You can pick our your silverware pattern while also picking our your homecoming dress.

(May 1982)

(September 1982)

(October 1982)

October, 1982

(November, 1982)

When I was reading Seventeen in the mid 1990s, I don’t remember seeing any underwear ads. Also, what’s the deal with matronly ads being in teenage girl magazine ads, as seen in this JCPenney ad:

(December, 1982)

(December 1982)

Along with ads for engagement rings, lingerie, and an a on how to cook a pork roast, there was also an ad for a Ziggy Christmas special? I guess for all the little sisters out there who sneaky read their older sister’s Seventeen magazines. 

(September, 1982)

This was on the back cover. Can’t see that flying today in a teen magazine.

(November 1982) 

Hi, mom. 

Who has time for that?

(May, 1982)

(October, 1982)

I guess in the early 1980s, our private parts were not bothered by colored toilet paper, and we could waste toilet paper higgely piggedly.

(September 1982)

I highly doubt that even in 1982, relatives had the time to do a “how are you doing?” questionnaire. 

(December 1982)

Who has two toothpaste caps sitting around?

76. Whitney Houston in Seventeen Magazine (December 1982)

Last year, at the Village Thrift store in Hampton, Virginia, I bought a huge set of 1980s Seventeen Magazines. It’s beeen over a year, and I’m still going through them. I was scanning the December 1982 issue tonight, when I thought I saw someone familiar: 

75. Look how amazing Taco Bell food looked back then:

I mean: 

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74. Laurie Dann (May 20, 1988)

Probably one of the most interesting female criminals to come out the 1980s is Laurie Dann. A mentally disturbed woman who grew up in the affluent neighborhood of Glencoe, transferred to the University of Arizona as a young adult, a sorority girl, with aspirations of becoming a teacher, and married a wealthy insurance executive.  

However, her marriage to Russell Dann was a storm of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, possession, and odd behavior. Laurie didn’t need to work due to Dann’s salary, which was appropriate, considering Laurie lied on her resumes, stating that she was a graduate of Arizona State, despite never finishing. Laurie spent her days sleeping all day, wearing old “bag lady” clothes, even if her father gave her new clothes,  and her car was hoarded with junk. By 1986, Laurie agreed to divorce, but she warned Russel that she hoped to drag out the proceedings for two to three years.  Laurie’s obsession with Russell leaving her was a snowball of constant false accusations of abuse for several years afterward.  In September of 1986, she broke into Russell’s apartment, and stabbed him with an ice pick, then the annoying phone calls at all hours to Russell and his family began and stretched into 1987, even following the final divorce proceedings. 

A year before Laurie’s day of violence, she lived in an apartment at the Kellogg Learning Center at Northwestern University. She made others who lived in the building lives a living hell:

• She stole items from people
• She left rotting meat in couch cushions
• She would ride the elevator in the building for hours, at all hours

Around this time, Laruie decided to become a babysitter. Yeah … she also made some of her clients lives a living hell too:

• Stole frozen steaks from clients’ freezers
• Defaced property
• She stunk
• Used pots and pans, then put them away, unwashed. 

Some families though, said that Laurie was an excellent babysitter despite these faults.  

When Laurie was kicked out of her university apartment, workers found urine stains on the carpet, and rotting meat on the kitchen counters. At night, she did not sleep in her apartment, but down the street in her car. 

In the Spring of 1988, Laurie moved to yet another off campus apartment building popular with Northwestern students. Laurie continued her harassing phone calls to former family members, and former babysitting clients. On March 12th, someone spotted Laurie in a University of Wisconsin Hospital lab—-three days later, arsenic was found missing (I still don’t know how she was able to get into the lab). Two days later, she was arrested at a JC Penney for shoplifting wigs. On May 15th, when most students were gone for the summer, maintenance workers found Laurie … wrapped up in a garbage bag in a maintenance room, sweating buckets. 

On May 20th, Laurie took off in her Toyota with packages to give to people — packages of Rice Krispies Treats and juice boxes…with t hat arsenic she stole mixed in. She snail mailed two packages of juice and treats — one to Russell and one to her psychiatrist. Now, who would even take treats from someone who was as dirty as Laurie? Laurie was so stupid, so messed up, that she couldn’t even make the treats look harmless, it was reported that the juice boxes were leaking. 

Laurie drove her car to a babysitting client’s home, the Rushes, who had told Laurie a few days prior that the family was moving away. The kids mother let Laurie take them on an outing. Laurie took the kids on a tour of arson and poison. Laurie tried catching a school on fire, and left poison at a Jewish day care center — mistakenly thinking that her former sister-in-law’s kids attended these schools. After their trip, Laurie brought the kids back home, locked them and their mother in the basement, and caught the home on fire. ² 

Laurie sped to Hubbard Woods School in Winnetka, Illinois, barged in a classroom, and shot at six students, killing one, 8 year old Nicholas Corwin.  After her school shooting, she abandoned her car, ran through the woods, and went to a complete strangers house, and knocked on their door, claiming that she was raped. While one of the residents of the house was gathering some clothing for Laurie to change into, the adult son of the home quietly took one of Laurie’s guns. After a long altercation, the mother and father left the home after Laurie wouldn’t give up her other gun (still under the belief that Laurie shot her rapist in self defense), and alerted the police.³ Laurie kept the adult son under hostage, and when she saw the police car lights in the distance, she shot him in the chest (he escaped through the back door and survived), and locked herself up in an upstairs bedroom. By that evening, an assault team had broke into the house to get Laurie. However, Laurie was found dead in a bedroom, from a self inflected gun wound. 

Related Links:

Eric Zorn, “Laurie Dann Video Is A Haunting Look At A Tragic Story,” Chicago Tribune, February 24, 1989,  http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1989-02-24/news/8903080254_1_hubbard-woods-elementary-school-video-abuse#sthash.ELsUoCDz.dpuf.

Eric Zorn,  ”Chapter 2: The Selling Of Laurie Dann,” Chicago Tribune, June 26, 1988, http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1988-06-26/news/8801100583_1_story-rights-producer. 

Eric Zorn,”Case Is Closing On Laurie Dann,” Chicago Tribune, May 21, 1991, http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1991-05-21/news/9102150460_1_mental-hospital-hubbard-woods-elementary-school-safe-deposit-box.

Other Chicago Tribune collection on articles about Dann.

1988 - Commercial - People Magazine - Laurie Dann.

“Mad Enough to Kill,” People, June 6, 1988, http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0„20099121,00.html. 

Day of Fury: The Story of the Tragic Shootings That Forever Changed the Village of Winnetka by Joyce Egginton

Murder of Innocence: The Tragic Life and Final Rampage of Laurie Dann by Joel Kaplan