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Would YOU Have Purchased a Bottle of Aunt Martha's Old Fashioned Salad Dressing?

posted 5 years ago by gary4movies (174)
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In other words, I Love Lucy wasn't a TV show, and you didn't know who Lucy (Isabella Clump) or Ethel (Mary Margaret McMertz) were. You just saw their ad, sitting at home one day. People obviously did, as their bizarre commercial proved.

I confess I probably would have, as Lucy didn't know how to be subtle, and her eating the ENTIRE bowl of salad, then gulping the dressing straight from the jar would've piqued my interest.

That said, the ep is filled with holes. Lucy and Ethel never would've been able to market their dressing without a license. They also would've needed lawyers to meet with Charlie to protect the station from lawsuits should the product make anyone sick.

What about refrigeration? Surely those ingredients would need preservatives. Still, I personally would've sent in my 40 cents to try out a quart.

[–] [email protected] (6247) 5 years ago

"Send me two quarts of Aunt Martha's Old Fashioned Salad Dressing!"

I've purchased other items with less convincing advertising.

Holes? You could drive their new Pontiac through the holes in that episode! lol

Besides the ones you mentioned, the women didn't do anything like figuring out the cost of shipping or insurance as Ricky pointed out to them.

And the ending! Very funny visual comedy, but how did they get those shopping carts down the stairs while on roller skates? New York is a big city. They would've been returning to the brownstone and refilling their carts and skating around the five boroughs for days.
Also, since they lived in Manhattan, I would've liked to see the girls push those carts through one of the tunnels to get to Brooklyn or Jersey!

I think when Ricky and Fred saw their silly scheme, they would've just had all the jars shipped to the buyers.

[–] gary4movies (174) 5 years ago

And I've said before that while the ingredients were a LOT of oil and onions (the only ingredients mentioned), Lucy appears to be pouring/mixing/eating/gulping creamy ranch, bleu cheese, or possibly creamy Italian.

Despite its many holes, this remains a fun episode, as I love watching Lucy's thought process take hold.

Could it be that Lucy felt the need to disguise herself so her other friends wouldn't notice her?

[–] [email protected] (6247) 5 years ago

The whole thing about the ingredients is a head scratcher to me!

First, who puts onions in the dressing? You put onions ON a salad, that is, if you like them. Also, they were cooking the dressing? From my experience, and I've made my own dressing sometimes, salad dressing is not something that you cook. The ingredients are things like oil and vinegar. They aren't items that you have to cook.

Lucy's disguises? Lucy would never pass up an opportunity to get "theatrical" and play a role.

Her second character, the one who tries to unsell the dressing is even funnier to me.

"What's Aunt Martha trying to do? Poison me?" "Cancel, cancel!"

I don't think Lucy was using a disguise so her friends wouldn't know it was her. She had too big of an ego. I'm sure she called all of them and told them to watch her commercial.
And anyway, Ethel looked like her real self, so if they saw Ethel, they'd know her "co-star" was Lucy.

[–] gary4movies (174) 5 years ago

I would never attempt to make my own salad dressing. I love Italian dressing and bleu cheese is my all-time fave.

It doesn't look like Lucy and Ethel are necessarily cooking the ingredients - they may have placed those huge tubs on the stove due to lack of space. It could also be that the onions are poured out after the "dressing" soaks in them.

Any ideas?

[–] [email protected] (6247) 5 years ago

The onions in the dressing seem like a sight gag to me. Lucy and Ethel cry while peeling them. Ricky cries sitting next to them and figuring out the girls' "spenses".

I've seen "onion flavoring' on the label in salad dressing. But generally, you pour the dressing ON the onions in the salad.

Bleu cheese? My first summer job out of high school was in a restaurant that made its own bleu cheese dressing. It was the manager's favorite, so they made it on the premises.

I tried it and didn't care for it at first. It seemed to be an acquired taste. But, wow(!), did I acquire a taste for it. I ended up putting it on my salad whenever I had my dinner break. I wish I had asked for the recipe because I've never had bottled bleu cheese that was nearly as good.

[–] gary4movies (174) 5 years ago

The two best bottled bleu cheese dressings I've tasted are Marie's and Lighthouse. They're in Vons, Ralphs, and other stores, so I'd wager they'd sell them where you live (in the refrigerated section).

But the very best bottled bleu cheese dressing is sold at Trader Joe's.

Do you have Trader Joe's markets where you live?

[–] [email protected] (6247) 5 years ago

I've heard of Trader Joe's but there are none around here.

I have bought Marie's bleu cheese dressing. They sell it at a local store. It is good. But there was just something about that homemade dressing that made it the best. At least the best I ever had.

Another thing about Lucy and Ethel's scheme. They purchased how many bottles of a store brand and pasted their labels on the bottles? I think it was thousands.

Imagine how labor intensive that was! They had to have stores deliver crates of dressing to the brownstone. They didn't have a car and could hardly carry all those bottles home.

Then there was the chore of scraping off the labels and putting their new ones on.

I wonder about something else. It's entirely possible that some of their customers would already HAVE that dressing in their refrigerator. What if they compared them and wanted to sue Lucy and Ethel for fraud? lol

Of course it wouldn't be worth suing for a 40 cent bottle of dressing. But imagine if thousands of customers got together and started a Class Action Suit over "Aunt Martha" for perpetrating a fraud?

Maybe not back then, but people are "sue happy" today.

[–] gary4movies (174) 5 years ago

The easiest way out was to simply return the checks/money orders to the people who wrote in, explaining they were going out of business. It would make them look like fools, but they would've saved themselves a lot of work AND expense. But it IS a TV show, and the girls in skates and pushing shopping carts was the funniest ending.

So a quart of salad dressing was about 50 Cents in '54. I would've thought it would be cheaper.

I have no doubt you have a 99 cents store around you. Whatever you do, DON'T purchase their blue cheese dressing. It tastes like Elmer's glue!!!

[–] [email protected] (6247) 5 years ago

I never realized that there were so many holes in this episode.

The easiest thing would've been to return the money. But from the looks of their mail, no one actually sent in any money.

Lucy was reading postcards from people who placed orders. The customers didn't seem to actually send any checks to them.
I suppose Lucy and Ethel could've purchased thousands of penny postcards and written to all those people- sorry we're going out of business!

99 cents stores? I must live in an upscale area, we have DOLLAR stores. LOL There's Dollar General, Dollar Tree and a few others.

I've never bought salad dressing in those stores. Bleu cheese that tastes like Elmer's glue. Have you tasted Elmer's glue? ha ha

One time I DID (unfortunately) buy low calorie bleu cheese. It was so awful. Some foods are not meant to be lo-cal.

[–] gary4movies (174) 5 years ago

Oh, we have Dollar Tree, too. We also have Gelson's, so our area isn't ALL lower class. It's just L.A.!!

As kids, we used to taste Elmer's glue while doing macaroni art (!) in elementary school. It was labeled "non-toxic", so a few of us daredevils smeared some on our tongues!! We could've worn leather jackets and sat on our bikes, boasting we were " The Mild Ones!"

[–] [email protected] (6247) 5 years ago

Tasting Elmer's Glue? That's a coincidence since I just watched a comedian on youtube talking about tasting play-doh.

I watch youtube and there's a channel called Drybar with all clean comics. I like a clean (no cursing) comedy show now and then. I'm not a prude, but sometimes it's funnier without the cursing.
The comedian, Kevin Jordan, is billed as "the world's funniest police officer". He was an L.A. policeman. Maybe you know him? Maybe you ate glue together? lol

He was talking about all the fun toys we had in the "old days". He said that everyone over forty knows what play-doh tastes like.

I have to say I was a wimp in that area. Never tasted my toys. But I do admit to trying to use my Crayola Crayons as lipstick. I could never figure out why it didn't work. ha ha

[–] gary4movies (174) 5 years ago

What about the dumbheads who tried to EAT Crayons??? I never went there.

Funny you should mention Playdoh. As a kid, I was obsessed with the smell of the stuff, and used to enjoy SNIFFING it. Good thing I didn't progress to sniffing model airplane glue!!

I have never heard of that comic.

[–] [email protected] (6247) 5 years ago

Yeah, playdoh smelled great. I just never wanted to eat it.

You should check out that comic. He's hilarious. The whole line up on Drybar is very, very funny.