Ear: TV dinner

Did you know that the 1952 Thanksgiving season was the impetus behind the invention of the turkey TV dinner?

In early 1953, C.A. Swanson and Sons had a problem. Lower than expected Thanksgiving bird sales the previous November caused a surplus of turkeys, History.com said. What to do with 260 tons of leftover frozen birds?

While they were pondering what to do, the birds had to be kept frozen, so they were loaded into 10 refrigerated railroad cars. Since the cars can only refrigerate while moving, the well-traveled turkeys did a loop from Nebraska to the East Coast and back until a solution was found.

One version of the story says that Gerry Thomas, a Swanson salesman, who had seen aluminum food trays in Pittsburgh, drew a picture of the three-compartment aluminum tray designed specifically to hold a turkey dinner. The bosses loved the idea, and he said he got $1,000 and a promotion.

Another version, confirmed by a company bacteriologist, Betty Cronin, says that brothers Gilbert and Clark Swanson, and their marketing and advertising teams, came up with the three-part tray and name “Swanson TV Dinner.”

No matter who invented it, when the TV dinner went into the grocery stores on Sept. 10, 1953, it was an immediate hit.

Of note: History.com says Cronin’s job was to find a way for frozen meals to heat evenly and, of course, to taste good, so a lot of taste-testing was involved. In 1989, she told the Chicago Tribune, “I’ve never had a TV dinner in my home.” (Photo: Library of Congress)