Variations on a Thanksgiving Theme

Norman Rockwell's iconic "Thanksgiving Painting" titled Freedom from Want appeared in The Saturday Evening Post on March 6, 1943. This was Rockwell's third installment of his famous Four Freedoms series.

Now with that bit of history out of the way, what was the first Freedom from Want parody?

I have no idea, maybe you can tell me, but there sure are a lot of them. When I saw someone post one of these parodies earlier today I thought I might try my hand at compiling a list of as many of these parodies I could find.

Although I quickly learned compiling a list of Rockwell parodies is nothing new. Other bloggers have beaten me to the punch, here on November 27, 2008, and here on November 24, 2008. So now here in 2010, I'm not only a copy-cat, but also rather late. Well imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and hopefully I can at least bring a little something new to the party.

MAD Magazine is famous for their parodies so we might as well start with them...


It looks like The Simpsons invited Barny to their Thanksgiving dinner, and told Selma to stay home. I'd guess this picture comes from one of the Simpsons calenders.


A DC Comic superhero Thanksgiving was depicted on the #54 issue of JSA.


Marvel Comics gets in on the act too with the Fantastic Four's Thanksgiving Christmas dinner.


This might be a good time to show something from talented comic book artist Joe Phillips. When he's not working for DC Comics Joe likes to draw hot young men who enjoy hanging out with other hot young men. Joe gets extra bonus points for adding ham and wine to the dinner table. Also I'm a Frank Lloyd Wright fan so I can appreciate the dining room remodeling as well...


From Disney it's the happiest Thanksgiving dinner table on earth. Although who the heck invited Br'er Bear? Isn't he sorta a villain? Oh well it's the holidays, and he's not truly evil...


And since the Muppets are a part of the Disney Company here's their Turkey Day dinner, but that ain't no turkey. It looks way under done, and probably tastes like felt and foam rubber.


I didn't want to include any non-professional or home-made works in this list (there are a lot of people out there who've done their own family photo recreations), but these next two are very good.

This next one I assume was published somewhere, but who knows. This seems like a excellent illustration for a article about non-traditional family holidays. Also is that bacon on that turkey?


Now here's someone who has Photoshoped Freedom from Want to depict a redneck Thanksgiving. It's pretty genius work even if granny's cleavage looks a little wonky. Well I guess she's not a spring chicken any longer.


Lastly here's a picture I had in mind when I decided to do this post in the first place. I hadn't seen it since I was a kid, but I thought I remembered a punk rock Rockwell parody on the cover of the National Lampoon. Luckily I was able to find that cover, but it's not really a parody of Freedom from Want. Still it's a funny and extremely well done illustration.


Happy Thanksgiving!

The Koogle Conundrum

And so another small piece of the great Koogle puzzle falls into place with this post.

What the heck is Koogle you might ask?

Koogle was a flavored peanut butter manufactured in the 1970's by Kraft Foods. Let's take a look at the commercial...



In researching this post I couldn't find anyone on Internet who actually liked this stuff. It seems this was the type of product you begged your mother to buy, and then once you tried it you didn't want it ever again.

Koogle was featured in the fun book Krazy Kids' Food co-authored by personal Internet acquaintance Dan Goodsell.

Buy the Book!

On page 158 is a picture of a vacuum formed store display of the Kooglenut monster and page 159 is a jar of the chocolate flavored Koogle.

There's a lost commercial featuring the Kooglenut monster that would be sure swell to see. Hopefully a resourceful YouTuber will upload it one day.

Anyways here's my addition to the Koogle Internet Archives - a scan from the lid of a jar of Vanilla Koogle.

Check out those ingredients

Partially hardened vegetable oils must be 1970's speak for partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. Sugar and dextrose is technically the same thing - so this is like Sugar². This stuff must have tasted sickeningly sweet.

Sandwich Bodybag

Most of my posts are usually about some old crap stuff I've happened to stumble cross, but this post is different. This is about something currently in stores now.

Recently I wanted sandwich bags at a good value, and so what better choice than Value Choice Sandwich Bags. At $1.09 for a box of 150 bags that's less than a penny per bag. What a great deal!

At that price who cares about package designs, but as an added bonus I got this unique "sandwich man" cartoon printed on the box.


I'm sure "sandwich man" is perfectly happy wrapped in plastic. He's just relaxing and keeping fresh until it's time to be eaten. "Sandwich man" probably feels a lot like how another once popular cartoon mascot felt about being consumed by humans...



I never understood why Charlie the Tuna was so determined to be caught and taken to the cannery where he'd be gutted, butchered, cooked, chopped-up and packed into cans of Star-Kist Tuna. Maybe the ocean is a depressing place to live. I guess Sebastian the Crab was lying when he sang about how great it was to be "Under the Sea."

Anyway if you look at the bottom of the box you can learn about many other uses for these fine sandwich bags, and the company who manufactures these bags...


The Nash Finch Company are the makers of this and may other quality products sold at independent grocery stores across this country.

It looks like this package was designed in 2002. Who knows how long this package design will last, but for any future redesigns I hope they keep "sandwich man" alive. Or something like that.

Hardee's Ghostbusters II Poster

Although this post is titled "Hardee's Ghostbusters II Poster," I'm technically not going to show the actual poster.

Say what? That's crazy talk.

Seriously, the poster is nothing special. It's simply the Ghosterbusters II logo. What might be more interesting, or quasi-interesting, is the other stuff printed on the poster.

In 1989 Hardee's was the "Official Ghostbusters Headquarters" as you can see from the "cover" of their collector poster below...


Probably the most memorable part of Hardee's Ghostbusters II promotion was the recall of the "Ghostblasters" electronic noisemaker due to the fact some children were swallowing the batteries. I have a couple of those noisemakers tucked away somewhere, and after all these years have somehow managed to keep from swallowing the delicious batteries myself.

Anyways, when you open the collector poster you a vague - make that a very, very vague description of Ghostbusters II with a list of the returning stars...



... the "back" has virtually nothing on it.

This poster was given away for free, and had three different food coupons at the bottom.

Only 39¢ for a cone? That's a deal! Today, these old coupons might be the most interesting thing about this poster.

UNCANNY COINCIDENCE UPDATE: Just as I published this post, "Quint" over at Ain't It Cool News conveniently posted a behind the scenes photo from Ghostbusters II. Click here to check it out. This happily makes this lame-ish post a little less lame.

Star Wars Funmeal

Here are two Burger Chef Star Wars Funmeal packages from 1978 for your viewing pleasure. The Funmeals didn't come with a toy, but the packages are printed with punch-out vehicles that you could put together.

First is Luke's Landspeeder...

... and don't forget the parts on the bottom of the package.


Next is next the X-Wing Fighter...

... and the bottom.

Burger Chef's mascots were the Burger Chef and his young protege Jeff. On the vintage tray liner below Burger Chef explains to Jeff how the salad was invented...

Gee, who knew primitive cave people were dumber than rabbits. How did the human race ever survive?

To close this post here's a Burger Chef commercial featuring Burger Chef and Jeff and their new "Works" and salad bar.