Anytime a new product or service is introduced, the people doing the introducing hope it's going to hang around for awhile. Some do; some don't. But over the years quite a number have stuck around long enough to rack up some impressive numbers. Everything from overalls to ice cream, cartoons to comic strips on on this year's list of long-lived, all-American products and institutions. Here's a look at major milestones that have crossed the desk:
COMIC STRIPS: The newspaper comic strip, an indigenous American art from enjoyed daily by an estimated 113 million Americans, turns 100 this year. William Randolph Hearst is the one who is credited with recognizing early on the potential of comics and is now considered the person most responsible for their enduring popularity. Hearst's legendary custody battle with Joseph Pulitzer over the Yellow Kid and its creator, cartoonist Richard Fenton Outcault, is said to have spawned the term "yellow journalism" used to describe the tabloid-style tactics practiced by many early newspapers that also carried comics to attract readers.Ron Patel, president of the Newspaper Features Council, notes that many people take the "funnies" very seriously. The comics generally draw more readers - and more reader mail - than any other part of the paper, he says.
OSHKOSH B'GOSH: What's more American than apple pie? Maybe bib overalls. And the company that sells more bib overalls than anyone else in the world is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. And yes, that is the official name and has been ever since 1937 when company president William Pollack was inspired by a vaudeville skit that used the phrase.
The company had actually stared out as Grove Manufacturing Co. and later named the Oshkosh Clothing Manufacturing Co.
Today, the triple-stitched, hickory-striped denim workwear overalls that the company started out with are still one of the most popular products, but it also makes sportswear, casual pants for men and boys, and has a large line of children's wear.
As part of its centennial celebration, OshKosh launched a search for the oldest pair of bib overalls it could find. "The search touched a sentimental chord with many people," notes Heidi Hansen, researcher with the Oshkosh Public Museum. "Some have sent letters sharing fond memories of husbands and fathers, other describe cherished childhood days on the farm - we've ever received a few poems."
BARNUM'S ANIMAL: These slightly sweet crackers in their colorful circus-cage boxes have been around since 1902, when they were introduced as a Christmas treat that was so popular the company decided to produce them year-round.
During the years, the lineup of animals has changed somewhat. Today, each package contains 22 crackers, including: tiger, cougar, camel, rhinoceros, kangaroo, hippopotamus, bison, lion, hyena, zebra, elephant, sheep, bear, gorilla, monkey, seal and giraffe. The boxes come in three varieties - red, blue and yellow, with a different variety of animals in each.
But this year - in recognition of the fact that while Barnum's certainly is endangered, many species of animals out there are, the company has introduced a green box with a jungle setting and filled with 16 endangered animals: Asian Elephant, Bactrian Camel, Black Rhinoceros, Blue Whale, Chinese Alligator, Giant Panda, Hawaiian Monk Seal, Hawksbill Sea Turtle, Jaguar, Komodo Dragon, Mountain Zebra, Northern Swift Fox, Peregrine Falcon, Orangutan, Siberian Tiger and Tasmanian Forester Kangaroo. Barnum's will donate five cents to the World Wildlife Federation for each box sold.
ARTHUR MURRAY DANCE STUDIOS: Dance crazes come and go, but the folks that can teach you the latest steps have been around for quite awhile. Arthur Murray studios are celebrating 80 years of twisting, trotting, turning and teaching. And the most popular dances today are the very ones Murray first taught in the '20 and '30s. Latin dances are enjoying a revival. Swing is also more popular than ever. Ballroom dancing's big. And in recent years - every since the Achy-Breaky country dance burst on the scene a while back - country line dances have been the rage.
There are currently 190 Arthur Murray Dance Studios dispersed throughout the U.S., Canada, Australia, Germany, South Africa and Puerto Rico.
GOOD HUMOR: Three quarters of a century ago a man named Harry Burt invented his Good Humor "ice cream on a stick" - an experiment that took ice cream for dessert in a bowl to a treat for just about anytime. Burt called his creation the Good Humor Bar - to capitalize on the notion that the "humor" or outlook of the mind is related to the "humor" of the palate. And then he took it on the road. He sent out a fleet of 12 trucks, decorated with his son's sleigh bells and driven by uniformed chauffeurs to sell his product to his friends and neighbors in Youngstown, Ohio. It wasn't long before Good Humor trucks became fixtures throughout cities across America.
Good Humor became part of Americana. From Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower to Chico Marx, fans cropped up everywhere. Films, articles and TV shows, and even Broadway, made Good Humor a part of popular culture. In 1950, a movie titles "The Good Humor Man" debuted.
Good Humor trucks retired in the '70s, but the ice cream novelties are still around, from the original Good Humor Bar to Chocolate Eclair and Strawberry Shortcake Bars.
ROCKY ROAD: And speaking of ice cream, it was in the autumn of 1929 that William Dreyer and Joseph Edy created the world's first batch of Rocky Road ice cream. While making a batch of chocolate ice cream at the Oakland, Calif., factory they had opened a year earlier, they came up with the idea of adding nuts and marshmallows to the ice cream mix. Originally experimenting with walnuts, they soon turned to almonds. And since miniature marshmallows did not yet exist, Dreyer and Edy used their wives' sewing scissors to cut the regular marshmallows into bite-size pieces.
They chose the name Rocky Road not only because it described the flavor, but because they felt it was a comment on the time - after all the stock market had just crashed.
Prior to 1929, ice cream came only in basic flavors such as vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. But things would never be the same. Rocky Road was followed by Toasted Almond and Peppermint. The introduction of Cookies 'N Cream in 1983 and Cookie Dough ice cream in 1992 show that new flavors are limited only by the imagination.
SUCRETS: Throat lozenges have been a soothing remedy for quite some time. But many consumers of Sucrets have been have been as enamored with the tin the lozenges came in as with the product itself. When SmithKline Beecham, current producer of Sucrets, announced that the tin was retiring last year at the age of 62, thousands of consumers wrote to describe their creative uses of the tin. "It has been the final resting place for goldfish and turtles, a velvet-lined case for a prize-shooter marble and a tooth fairy repository," says Paul Lindsay, Sucrets brand manager. They have held buttons, Barbie shoes, arrowheads and oboe reeds.
The tin retired to the Smithsonian Institution, to join other artifacts of American business. Sucrets are now available in a sturdy plastic container with a clear window on the lid. And it will be interesting to see what uses it finds in the next 60 years. By the way, the lozenges themselves have not changed.
LOONEY TUNES: Sufferin' Succotash! Two favorite Looney Tunes characters turn 50 this year: Sylvester has been persistently pursuing the most elusive of meals - Tweety - for half a century; and the "roughest, toughest, hombre ever to cross the Rio Grande," Yosemite Sam has been rootin' and tootin' for that same period.
Both are products of Warner Brothers imagination - along with Bugs Bunny, the Road Runner, the Tasmanian Devil and Speedy Gonzalez.
WORD POWER: Reader's Digest magazine has been churning out "It Pays to Increase Your Word Power" columns for 50 years. During that time, it has featured more than 12,000 words. Readers consistently rate it among the magazine's most popular features, prompting thousands of letters over the years. "Word Power" lists are computerized to avoid duplication of words. Only "abdicate" has been used four times. The average score on "Word Power" is 12 correct out of 20. The column is written by Peter Funk, son of Wilfred Funk who first proposed the monthly quiz and grandson of Isaac Kaufman Funk of Funk & Wagnalls dictionary fame.
"To be truly free, and truly to appreciate its freedom, a society must be literate," wrote political commentator William F. Buckley, in praise of the column. And, he noted, it has been "gloriously useful in promoting knowledge of the words that adorn our language."