November 1956: Hypnotist Arthur Ellen urged President Eisenhower to put his Thanksgiving turkey in a trance before executing it, promising him that a hypnotized turkey "tastes better due to the absence of adrenalin in the bloodstream and plucks easier because the muscles holding the feathers are relaxed."
Port Angeles Evening News - Nov 19, 1956
It's not recorded whether Eisenhower took the advice of the hypnotist. However, Wikipedia notes that, "The Eisenhower Presidential Library says documents in their collection reveal that President Dwight Eisenhower ate the birds presented to him during his two terms."
The tradition of Presidential turkey pardons only officially began with Reagan, although both Kennedy and Nixon spared some birds.
Below: Eisenhower in 1954 feeds a cranberry to a soon-to-be-eaten Thanksgiving turkey.
1959: Elmer "Jet" Simrell, an early crusader for men's rights, vowed to "fast until death" to publicize his views on the "menace of modern womanhood." He declared he wouldn't eat until newspapers published his manifesto on the "ruination emancipated women are bringing the world."
Simrell was in jail on account of having written hoax death threats to 10 judges, angry at the California judicial system because it had awarded his wife custody of their two daughters during their 1956 divorce.
In an earlier stunt (done, he said, to publicize "America's headlong rush to destruction via the divorce courts"), he had written to newspapers declaring that he had killed "a mother and three kids." Police immediately investigated and discovered he had killed a pregnant mother goat and two baby goats.
Simrell started his "fast until death" on Thanksgiving Day (Nov 26), 1959. It lasted until Dec 1, when he broke down and had some beef, soup, salad, coffee, and bread. So, all of five days. No papers ever published his manifesto.
Simrell (center) being taken into custody following his goat-killing stunt. via USC Digital Library.
Introduced in 1955: Jonathon Law's Tandem Smoker, aka the "sure-fire lonesomeness ender."
"The inventor envisions each lonely man packing a Tandem Smoker. All he has to do is light up, offer a passerby a mouthpiece, and the device will do the rest."
Here's an ad campaign over the course of a decade or so that shows the Mad Men flailing around blindly. Whom do we appeal to? Kings, Indian Chiefs, housewives, nursery-rhyme characters, despotic sea captains, or cartoon animals? Or, in the end, the anti-hippie conservatives embodied by Andy Griffith and his fancy-neckwear disparagement?
With no trace of modern irony, Plasticville USA was once deemed a grand name for an imaginary town. Somehow I can hear a beatnik of the era saying, "Plasticville, man, that's for squares!"
This is one of those rare instances where I can learn nothing on the internet about an old-time product. I suspect it was simply a forerunner of such drinks as Metrecal. If anyone can discover the secret ingredients of this drink, or even more press about it, they will be a master sleuth!
Paul Di Filippo
Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.