Episode 24: Everything About The Pumpkin Spice Effect

Pumpkin Spice

2014_10_pumpkinspice2.pngPhoto Courtesy: The Chicagoist Pumpkin Spice

Washington Post Pumpkin Spice

 

one of the first references to “pumpkin spice” appears to be a 1936 recipe that ran in The Washington Post.

“Pumpkin spice cake is a desirable dessert for a family dinner, and a healthful pick-me-up for children after school,” read a recipe that was eyebrow-raisingly outdated, referring to pumpkin as a food of the “Italian peasantry.” We could find no earlier reference to “pumpkin spice” in a search of historical newspapers.

TasteofHome.com pumpkin pie spice recipe:

Ingredients
  1. 4 teaspoons ground cinnamon.
  2. 2 teaspoons ground ginger.
  3. 1 teaspoon ground cloves.
  4. 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg.

The pumpkin spice lifestyle is not just about the flavor  “Pumpkin spice is my favorite season,” or “I like pumpkin spice a latte,” or the simple “Leggings, boots & pumpkin spice.”

Nielsen and 1010data, have found that interest in pumpkin spice-flavored products is not growing as quickly in 2017 as in previous years. According to Nielsen, dollar sales of pumpkin-flavored items reached a new high in 2017 at $414 million. But growth over the previous year has been much slower — 6 percent, compared with 20 percent in 2013. Most pumpkin spice latte drinkers buy only one per season.

According to 1010data, the number of pumpkin spice products for sale online had surged nearly 50 percent over last year, while sales themselves are up just 21 percent.

http://chicagoist.com/2014/10/31/pumpkin_spice_rise_and_fall_of_an_a.php

 

First Pumpkin Spice Season: 2003. Starbucks was looking for a companion holiday drink for fall to complement the winter seasonal drinks.

Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte roll out 2018: August 28

  • https://www.eater.com/2017/9/26/16330438/pumpkin-spice-food-pop-tarts-kit-kats-milanos-jello
  • Pumpkin Spice Protein Powder
  • Instant Pumpkin Spice Latte for Dogs
  • Pumpkin Spice Sparkling Cider
  • Kombucha
  • Margarine Spread
  • Pumpkin Spice Chips
  • Pet treats
  • Peeps!
  • Jello shots
  • Pumpkin spice salsa
  • https://offbeat.topix.com/slideshow/13905/slide1
  • Extra gum
  • Pumpkin spice roasted garbanzos
  • Pumpkin Spice Fettucini
  • Pumpkin Spice Pringles
  • Whipped pumpkin spice peanut butter
  • Pumpkin Spice Deodorant
  • Pumpkin Spice Goat Cheese.
  • Organic spray-on pumpkin spice. It’s in a can, like hair spray, and you can drench any inadequately pumpkin-spiced item with the flavor.

Washington Post Pumpkin Spice Deodorant Article

 

Cabbage Patch Craze

Timeline.com Cabbage Patch Kid Craze

Image Courtesy Democrat and Chronicle Cabbage Patch Article

Image result for cabbage patch kids 1983

Once upon a time there really was a dude named Xavier Roberts selling dolls modeled after 70’s folk art at craft fairs in the 70’s.

He called them Little People and eventually Mr. Roberts set up shop in a converted medical clinic he called Babyland General Hospital.

Employees dressed in nurses outfits, and went around interacting with dolls in incubators and cribs.

Each doll came with a birth certificate, adoption papers, and a name taken from the 1938 Georgia birth records.

Roberts licensed the doll to Coleco in 1982 and changed the name to Cabbage Patch Kids. based on the childhood fable that new babies were plucked from cabbage gardens.

“Xavier Roberts was a ten-year-old boy who discovered the Cabbage Patch Kids by following a BunnyBee behind a waterfall into a magical Cabbage Patch, where he found the Cabbage Patch babies being born. To help them find good homes he built BabyLand General in Cleveland, Georgia where the Cabbage Patch Kids could live and play until they were adopted.”

Each doll different-no two the same. Names randomly chosen by computer now, but strategy remained the same.

Advertising campaign 1983: Dolls packaged with arms outstretched ready to hug, adoption papers ready to be signed.
Testimonials from child psychologists about the dolls releasing a nurturing chemical.

Kick off event June 1983 Boston. Local schoolchildren attended and performed a mass adoption ceremony in front of the media cameras. Each kid got to take home a free doll.

Sent to major media outlets including Jane Pauley, who was pregnant at the time.

With early Christmas shoppers buying an average three dolls each, stores had massively under-ordered. By October 6, Coleco said all 2 million dolls it had manufactured were gone.

Scalpers were reselling the $25 dolls for $150.

Continued using a withholding strategy, continued demand. Introduced accessories.

inspired the 1996 movie Jingle All the Way, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

 

Time.com toy crazes

The craze may have peaked in 1995, but the game has been around since the 1920s, when Hawaiian workers at Maui’s Haleakala Dairy flipped milk caps during lunch breaks. In the early ’90s, a Hawaiian schoolteacher revived the activity by creating cardboard disks he dubbed POGs — an acronym for Haleakala Dairy’s popular passionfruit, orange and guava drink. For a generation reared on TV and Nintendo, POGs had a uniquely nostalgic appeal, like tiddledywinks 2.0. Before long, the chips were being traded as collectibles and emblazoned with designs such as DARE slogans and depictions of Pope John Paul II. The World POG Federation, which purchased the rights to the POG name in 1993, earned $140 million before kids turned their short-lived attention to trendier toys.

 

Going WAAAAY Back Tape and the CD subscriptions

Columbia Record Club Advert, 1970s

image: Joe Wolf, Flickr

  • Huge when I was in high school and college.
    • Columbia House
    • lots of other companies
      • get 11 tapes for 1 cent BUT then you were on the hook.
      • Every month a new selection would come and if you didn’t mail it back in time, you’d bought it.

Cinnamon Toothpicks. Welcome to the obsession of the 80s!

 

Pinterest:

Launched in March 2010. 200 million monthly active users as of Sept. 2017.

Brain Junk and all our PINS

Kendama and Fidget Spinners: (NOT SPONSORS)

Fidget Spinners…yeah. they spin.

Kendama and fidget Spinners

  • Love em or hate em, if you worked in a elementary school in the past five years you know what we’re talking about.
  • Kendama:
    • Japanese skill toy
    • usually wood with three cups on a main post you hold. Attached to it is a ball on a string. Your goal is to catch the ball in one of the cups or land the ball on a spike on one end.
  • Fidget Spinner:
  • Toy with a ball bearing in the center of a multi lobed shape designed to spin on the axis with little to no resistance. Super popular in 2017.

Cupcakes. Frosted Heaven

  • First documented in Amelia Simmons, American Cookery in 1796.
  • early 2000s Sex and the City is where the big cupcake craze began in earnest.
    • Cupcake atm
      • According to Google, there are 3 in the US
        • Sprinkles in Beverly Hill, Ca & Las Vegas
        • Cupcake ATM in Chicago, Il
        • And Sprinkles in Houston, TX
        • Cupcake ATM in New York
        • Cupcake ATM - Sprinkles Las Vegas Strip
        • image: Tony Webster: Flickr
    • cupcakes killed by the recession in 2009
    • There was even Cupcake Wars a Food network show that aired for 9 seasons.

McRib:

BBQ-flavored pork sandwich periodically sold by McDonalds. Introduced in 1981. taken off the menu in 1985.

Okay, you made it to the bottom of the notes. Enjoy CollegeHumor and Defender of the Basic. Not PG. Not at all.