Why the Super Bowl Halftime Show Wasn’t Cool Until 1993 The turning point was 1993. For the 26 Super Bowls preceding, the halftime show had been little more than a glorified station break: 20 minutes to run to the bathroom, fetch a beer and stir the onion dip. While the occasional fading star made an
Shiny Aluminum Luggage Is Popular Now, but Zero Halliburton Pioneered It On a recent winter afternoon, Tom Nelson looks over the display of luggage at Zero Halliburton's flagship store in Manhattan. There's nothing flashy about the place or its cases, which rest atop spindly black-metal stands below the trained gaze of spotlights. But the one
Mark Cross, the 175-year-old ‘American Hermès,’ Regains Its Luxury Status Well into the second half of Rear Window, Paramount's 1954 classic directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Lisa Fremont (played by Grace Kelly) and photographer L.B. Jefferies (Jimmy Stewart) are mulling through the evidence that their neighbor Lars Thorwald has murdered his wife. A key indicator: Mrs.
How the Revolutionary ‘Cheese Food’ Velveeta Became a Super Bowl Staple Exactly six years ago, as football fans were gearing up for Super Bowl XLVIII, a minor crisis erupted in the shopping aisles of America. It began as a rumor, a suspected hoax, until Kraft Foods took to Facebook to confirm the worst in a
The Happy Meal Ranks Among the Most Successful—and Copied—Ideas If the annals of branding prove one maxim over and over, it's this: The best ideas often hit when you least expect. Case in point: the kitchen of a Kansas City, Mo., adman named Bob Bernstein. It was sometime in 1975. His agency, Bernstein-Rein, was sitting
You Don’t Have to Tickle Him if You Don’t Want To Two decades ago, toy inventor Ron Dubren heard giggles coming from a playground. It was a bunch of kids tickling one other. Inspired, Dubren created Tickles the Chimp. Tickles didn't make it very far, but after Tyco Preschool combined Dubren's invention with a Sesame
Family-owned Smarties Keeps the Nostalgia Brand Rolling Ghosts and goblins don't scare the leaders of the Smarties Candy Co. In fact, the trio of execs who run the family-owned business embrace all things Halloween--a holiday they spend at least nine months prepping for and during which they sell millions of the iconic pill-sized, fruit-flavored candies.
The ‘Magic’ Behind Drawing and Erasing on Etch A Sketch An admitted beginner in Etch A Sketch artwork until a few years ago, Arlene Biran created a respectable-looking Labrador retriever on the iconic drawing toy during a recent phone interview. "If you practice, you will get better," she said. "And it makes you feel proud
A Grocery Exec’s Hunting Trip Inspired the Name for a Still-Famous Kentucky Bourbon American distillers are known for protecting secret recipes and ingredients, but few guardians match the commitment of one Jimmy Russell. The Wild Turkey distillery in Lawrenceburg, Ky., where Russell has overseen the stills for 65 years, has used the same yeast strain
How Heinz Created America’s (and Ed Sheeran’s) Favorite Condiment The internet, as most of us know by now, tends to blow up over ridiculous things. This is why, in March 2017, the web was abuzz not with actual news like the impeachment of South Korean president Park Geun-hye or the landslide in Addis Ababa, but
