Use F-A-B in your washing machine!

[classiccaprice]

Ladies and Gentilman,

Years ago, I had a conversation with someone on this Fab ad with vintage machines in it from 1955. I recently found the DVD again, and figured I'd see if you guys had seen it. Forgive the smaller picture. I was also showing off my 1959 Zenith. Probably my favorite laundry detergent ad of all time. Hope you enjoy!

P.S. Robert- I put this in Imperial because of the vintage machines, but if you feel it's better in Super I could see that.

 

[frigilux]

Awesome, Will!  It was fab to watch the ad on a vintage TV.

 

[washman]

Love how she mentioned

all those brands. Especially Speed Queen.

 

[danemodsandy]

A Source for FAB Ads:

If you love vintage ads, I highly recommend finding DVDs of The Colgate Comedy Hour, with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.

Colgate never bothered to copyright the shows, because what you see on DVD is kinescopes (images filmed off a TV screen), taken for legal reasons having to do with billing C-P for these productions. They were never intended to be seen by the public again.

Anyway, a lot of Comedy Hour eps are floating around on DVD intact, with their original C-P commercials uncut. FAB, Palmolive Soap, Ajax Cleanser, Rapid Shave, Cashmere Bouquet and Halo Shampoo are some of the main products advertised. Some commercials are live, some filmed. All of them are wonderful - a direct peek into the past.

The Comedy Hour used a rotating cast of headliners; Martin and Lewis were the most popular. Eddie Cantor and Donald O'Connor were two of the others. Those eps are harder to find, because those stars don't retain much popularity today, the way Martin and Lewis do.

Remember - Get FAB! Now with MORE ACTIVE DIRT-REMOVER!

 

[classiccaprice]

Thank you! Just be careful buying the Colgate Comedy Hour. Often Dvds have their commercials removed. I bought a bunch from the dollar store and it's hit and miss. Still a good show either way, but I prefer the commercials.

 

[classiccaprice]

Don't forget Abbot and Costello! I have some Colgates with them staring too!

 

[danemodsandy]

Will:

I have several sets, and you're right - it's hit or miss. But often you find a set with the commercials intact, and those are great.

One of my favorites is a 1952 commercial done live, with singer Helen O'Connell singing the Halo Shampoo jingle - accompanied by a tuxedo-ed Mike Wallace, years before he got all serious on 60 Minutes.

The shows are great, too, featuring some people just before they got really famous. Bob Fosse is on several eps I own. And one 1954 ep has Vera Miles - later as serious an actress as there was - doing sketch comedy with Dean and Jerry.

Can you tutor me on how to get public-domain stuff off a DVD and uploaded to YouTube? I have a 1958 Ajax Cleanser commercial from The Jack Benny Show that has to be seen - and heard - to be believed; it's that weird. The jingle goes, "Ajax gets/your sink so white/you need no extra bleach!" And a soprano sings, "Shiny whi-i-i-i-i-t-e!" at random intervals just for the Hell of it. Really strange.

 

[classiccaprice]

I wish I knew Sandy. I haven't figured that one out yet, but I haven't really tried either. As you can see from my youtube account I don't use it but so much. Though I am starting to more... At the moment, I just took a video of the DVD playing on tv with my iPad and uploaded it... A modern day kinescope, if you will.

 

[alr2903]

Classiccaprice Thank You!    I enjoyed watching the FAB commercial on your 1959 Zenith. ALR

 

[classiccaprice]

Trivia:

Other than store brands (Kenmore, Signature, Penncrest, Wizard, etc.), What did she leave out that was on the market in 1955? You can be sure, there is at least one or two.[this post was last edited: 8/10/2014-10:13]

 

[launderess]

Somewhere buried in my vintage laundry product stash

Have a box of that "FAB" detergent. IIRC it is gold box with white and red lettering.

 

[supersuds]

One brand left out of the roll call is GE! ABC is not mentioned, although Kelvinator is.

 

The frontloading brands Westinghouse and Bendix are not there, although Fab specified it could be used in "tumbler type automatics."

 

Fab came in both gold and blue boxes. Not sure about the dates, though guessing blue came first.

 

 

 

[hilovane]

FAB boxes...

FAB was originally a soap powder when introduced a century or so, ago; it was re-formulated into a detergent sometime after WWII. It went from the blue to gold box by 1959.

 

[supersuds]

Thanks

The gold box does look a little later; plus the blue one says "Colgate-Palmolive-Peet." They stopped doing that sometime in the early Fifties, I think.

 

[danemodsandy]

"Peet" Was Dropped:

In 1953. I have a lot of early Colgate Comedy Hour episodes that have the full name, including "Peet." Later, 1954 episodes just say "The Colgate-Palmolive Company." The Colgate Comedy Hour went off the air on Christmas Day in '55, at least partly due to the impending breakup of the Dean Martin/Jerry Lewis comedy team; those were the episodes that had always averaged the highest ratings. The breakup became official in June of '56. Without Dean and Jerry, the other headliners didn't draw viewers strongly enough to justify keeping such an expensive show on the air.

"Peet" stood for the Peet Brothers, Kansas City soap makers who merged with the Palmolive Soap Company to form Palmolive-Peet. Then Palmolive-Peet bought Colgate in 1928 to form Colgate-Palmolive-Peet. I have no idea how Palmolive-Peet took a back seat to Colgate when the new company was named, and less than no idea why "Peet" was dropped when the Peet Brothers were the ones who bought the other two companies involved.

I am looking to start a collection of Colgate-Palmolive-Peet packaging from the early '50s. If anyone knows where I might be likely to find ephemera of this kind, please let me know (yes, I know all about eBay; I'm looking for other sources). I'm especially interested in finding a Halo Shampoo bottle and a Cashmere Bouquet hand lotion bottle. I will only be looking for Colgate-Palmolive-Peet stuff, not later Colgate-Palmolive items. [this post was last edited: 8/14/2014-19:39]

 

[hilovane]

Ahh, yes…from my childhood, all those products from Colgate-Palmolive back in the day (apologies for omissions)…

COLGATE (toothpaste)
PALMOLIVE (bath/beauty soap)
HALO (shampoo)
CASHMERE BOUQUET (beauty soap)
RAPID SHAVE (shaving cream)
AJAX (cleanser)
VEL (dishwashing powder & liquid)
FAB (detergent)
AD ("low suds" detergent)
DYNAMO (liquid laundry detergent)
FLORIENT (air freshener)

…and of course, SOAKY (bubble bath for us kids, packaged in "statues" of our favorite cartoon characters)

 

[danemodsandy]

Colgate-Palmolive....

Still uses some of these brand names, but has sold off or abandoned others.

Colgate Toothpaste, Palmolive Soap, Cashmere Bouquet Soap and Ajax Cleanser are still made, though distribution is spotty on the soaps. There are certain Ajax products that are made by other companies; C-P has evidently sold off the rights piecemeal.

The Halo brand has been sold off to a company that, last I heard, uses it on a limited-distribution line of hair care products.

The Vel trademark was used for a long time on a "hard-water bar soap" (actually a detergent bar) that is no longer made, to the dismay of many long-time customers who live in hard-water areas.

Rapid Shave isn't sold Stateside, but it's available in Australia.

Dynamo is a big bargain-store brand, but it's not C-P any more in the States. It is still a C-P product in Australia, I understand.

Florient ("FLowers of the ORIENT") is also long gone. I remember the commercials with Bess Myerson, but we never used the product; Mom loved Air-Wick, which smelled about like Pine-Sol at the time.

FAB has been sold off, and is available in powder and liquid form. The powder is pretty good stuff, if you can find the non-stinky "Spring Fresh" scent and not the bubble-gum tropical one.

AD is long gone. The name stood for "Advanced Detergent." A photo is below, for nostalgia's sake:[this post was last edited: 8/15/2014-20:02]

 

[supersuds]

Thanks for the dates on Colgate-Palmolive-Peet, Sandy. I'll keep an eye out for items with their logo for you.

About the ascendency of Colgates over Peets, this book says that the stock market crash ended the ascendency of the Johnsons (Palmolive) and the Peets. Bayard Colgate became president of the company in 1933 and the headquarters were moved from Chicago to Jersey City, Colgate's home base.

Sold on Radio

How was it that America would fund its nascent national radio services? Government control and a subscription-like model were both considered! Soon an advertising system emerged, leading radio into its golden age from the 1920s to the early 1960s. This work, divided into two parts, studies the...

books.google.com

 

[danemodsandy]

Thanks....

....For that link, Suds! I really appreciate knowing what happened to the Peets.

One thing the writer does not touch on, though - C-P was an early leader in "downsizing," the practice of creating a smaller package size (usually not readily detectable at point-of-purchase), and still charging the same as for the previous size.

I like C-P products very much, but I absolutely detest their tendency to downsize. If business conditions compel you to charge more, then charge more. But don't sell me a package that looks and costs the same as the old, but which contains a hidden price increase in the form of a lesser amount of product.

P.S.: Palmolive is my choice for a bath soap; I've used it all my life. Cashmere Bouquet is my choice for hand soap, when guests aren't present. I personally prefer bar soaps, but for guests, I put out the pump soap most everyone else prefers nowadays. And paper towels - you can't get anyone to use your terry hand towels any more. If you don't put out paper towels, they'll surreptitiously use the backs of your bath towels, LOL. [this post was last edited: 8/17/2014-06:07]