Tidbits Scoops Up the Facts About Jell-O • Vol 18: #7

After many decades of ad campaigns and TV and radio sponsorships, we all know “There’s always room for Jell-O!” This iconic dessert is so well loved that the entire week of February 13 – 19 has officially been set aside in its honor. So, grab a spoon and follow along as Tidbits dishes up the jiggly facts on Jell-O!

THE BEGINNING

• In 1845, a New York inventor and industrialist named Peter Cooper secured U.S. Patent 4084 for a gelatin powder, a tasteless, odorless substance found in collagen that he extracted by boiling cartilage and bones of cows and pigs. Rather than producing any type of food product, Cooper was only interested in producing a new kind of powdered glue and in developing a type of locomotive steam engine. He had no interest in marketing his gelatin product to the public.

Peter Cooper, inventor of gelatin powder.

• More than fifty years later in 1897, Pearle Bixby Wait and his wife May were running a small cough syrup and laxative tea business in upstate New York. May was aware that although gelatin was tasteless, she knew it also contained nutritional qualities. Out of curiosity, she decided to experiment with the substance to find a way to make it more palatable so people would want to eat it. She tried sweetening it with a little sugar and added different flavorings, which she stirred in until the mixture jelled. She tested it by having friends sample the results, and everyone liked the novel treat.

• Encouraged by her approval test, she worked on ways to improve the gelatin, including food coloring to match the different fruit flavors. After much experimenting, she came up with a jiggly product she thought would be a perfect side dish or fruity dessert serving, and gave it the name Jell-O. The couple trade-marked the name and introduced four flavors, strawberry, raspberry, orange, and lemon.

• Struggling to keep their cough syrup company up and going, the Waits didn’t have the experience, or the capital needed to effectively market their new product. Two years after their invention, they sold both the company and the product name to an interested local businessman, O. Frank Woodward.

MARKETING DEVELOPMENT

• Woodward was a high school dropout who at age 20 was already a smart entrepreneur and owned his own business. In 1899, his Genesee Pure Food Company was a successful business that produced Grain-O, a roasted cereal substitute for coffee and tea. Woodward also invented and sold his own medicines, including Sherman’s Headache Remedy and Raccoon Corn Plasters. He nabbed the Jell-O business for a mere $450, about $12,000 in today’s dollars. One year later, Jell-O gelatin was for sale to the public. Dressing his salesmen in fancy suits, he sent them door-to-door with samples of the new confection.

• Woodward launched an advertising campaign by placing a three-inch ad in the “Ladies Home Journal” magazine at the cost of $336. By 1902, sales of Jell-O were $250,000 (about $8 million today). By 1906, that number topped $1 million ($30.7 million today). In 1904, the company began distributing recipe books, printing 15 million copies with illustrations by such famous artists as Norman Rockwell. Jell-O had become a household word and well-known as “America’s Most Famous Dessert.” An angelic four-year-old named Elizabeth King became the face of the 1904 ads. Elizabeth, the daughter of one of Woodward’s ad artists, was featured holding a tea kettle in one hand and a box of Jell-O in the other, affirming that, “You can’t be a kid without it.”

Norman Rockwell illustrated many iconic Jell-O advertisements.

• Unfortunately, Woodward didn’t live long enough to enjoy his prosperity. After suffering a slight stroke, his health quickly declined, and he died in January 1906, at 49 years of age. His son stepped in to manage the business. In 1923, Genesee Pure Food Company became the Jell-O Company, and two years later merged with the Postum Cereal Company, the company founded by Charles Post, who brought us Grape Nuts in 1897.

• In the early 1900s, thousands of immigrants coming to the United States through Ellis Island were welcomed with a snack of Jell-O, along with a metal gelatin mold.

PRODUCT GROWTH

• In 1934, a catchy little jingle was created by a prestigious ad agency, Young & Rubicam, and the ad was first featured on a brand-new radio show. “The Jell-O Program” aired on Sunday nights starring comedian Jack Benny, who was the first to sing the little ditty, “J-E-L-L-O,” touting the dessert as “Delicate, Delightful, and Dainty.” The company sponsored Benny’s program until 1942.

Comedian Jack Benny, in front of an NBC radio microphone.

• Lime-flavored Jell-O was added in 1930 and by 1938, with the addition of cherry, there were then six flavors available.

• When you think of a Jell-O salad, what probably comes to mind is a fruit flavor with added fruit, marshmallows or whipped cream. But in the 1960s, the company introduced savory flavors for use in salads. During that decade, a woman hosting her bridge club might serve celery-flavored Jell-O, stirring in canned tuna, hard-boiled eggs, sliced olives and peppers, diced tomato, and some Italian salad dressing. The Italian Salad flavor or Seasoned Tomato Jell-O recipe might call for the addition of cabbage, green pepper, or cooked pasta to be dished up at a neighbor’s cocktail party. The Mixed Vegetable variety was often prepared in a fancy mold, combining the mix with asparagus, spinach, celery, and pimientos. How about the Bologna Ring molded salad? It called for Jell-O, stuffed green olives, beef bologna, chopped cucumber, chopped hard-boiled eggs, and tomato wedges.

• Although you can pick from many varieties, including melon, pineapple, mango, cranberry, peach, tropical fusion, and blueberry pomegranate, the two favorites seem to be lime and strawberry.

• Without sugar, Jell-O would be colorless, odorless, and flavorless powdered gelatin. So how much of this dessert is sugar? It’s nearly 90% sugar! In 1925, Jell-O received a patent for a sugarless gelatin dessert they called D-Zerta. That was replaced by the present Nutra-Sweet Sugar-Free Jell-O in 1984. About 40% of all Jell-O sold these days is the sugar-free variety.

• There have been dozens of Jell-O flavors introduced and discontinued over the years. Cotton candy, bubble gum, maple sugar, and cola were some that didn’t last long. Way back in 1918, Jell-O tried out a coffee flavor that was short-lived. The Imitation Apple variety’s time was also quite brief.

JELL-O IN HOLLYWOOD

• Jell-O went to the movies in 1923, when it was used in the making of legendary director Cecil B. DeMille’s epic silent film “The Ten Commandments.” Jell-O was used to create the special effect of keeping the Red Sea parted as the Israelites escaped Egypt. The studio used a large slab of Jell-O that was sliced in two and filmed close up as it jiggled, creating the illusion of a vertical wall of water.

• In the beloved 1939 classic, “The Wizard of Oz,” Jell-O was used to produce the changing colors of the “Horse of a Different Color” in the Land of Oz scenes. When animal rights’ groups objected to the Oz horse being actually painted, the crew made a paste of Jell-O and spread it on the horse’s coat to create six different colors – green, blue, orange, red, yellow, and violet.

Because it was so time-consuming to keep changing the colors on a single horse, four separate horses were used. The only problem was that the horses loved the flavor of the gelatin and continual re-touches were needed as the animals kept licking it off themselves! □

Tidbits Fun! HOCUS FOCUS:

Find the differences between the two panels.

Test your grammar skills: