Canned Laughter: Campbell’s Soup On the Air

That’s right! Run! RUN!!!

May 15 was the birthday of Joseph A. Campbell (1817-1900), founder of the Campbell Soup Company (est. 1869). We take the product for granted now, especially since it has been overtaken by better canned soups, and then by an increasingly sophisticated consumer base dissatisfied with food that comes from factories. But in its day it was regarded as something of a miracle and a godsend. No doubt it still has its uses. I would imagine it’s a very good thing to stock in a survivalist pantry, for example. For one, I’ve always appreciated that, like Coca Cola, they continue to employ their original antique branding.

Campbell’s chubby-cheeked, cherubic mascots The Campbell’s Kids were devised by children’s book illustrator and comic strip artist Grace Drayton in 1904. They’ve always struck me as a sweeter version of The Katzenjammer Kids, probably because a couple of them, a boy and a girl, are identified as “Dutch”. For a time, such was their popularity that there was even a line of dolls marketed to children. In light of their pop culture prominence it surprises me a little that, unlike Buster Brown for example, they never starred in a comic strip or were ever given their own starring movies or radio or tv programs. They reached the public entirely through advertising. It seems to me that, in an age where we now make movies starring Barbie Dolls and Pop Tarts there is a niche there. The Campbell’s Kids have starred in radio and tv commercials, though, in addition to print ads, billboards and the like.

In 1938, Campbell’s Soup and the Mercury Theatre became strange bedfellows when company executives were impressed by Orson Welles‘ famous War of the Worlds hoax and its impact on listeners. Basically the show was just a branded version of The Mercury Theatre On the Air, with guest stars joining Welles and his company in adaptations of classics and recent stage hits. Welles left in 1940 to go to Hollywood and the show limped along for an additional year without him.

From 1943 to 1947 Campbell’s sponsored The Jack Carson Show, sometimes billed as The Campbell’s Soup Show or The Campbell’s Soup Program. Carson modelled his show on Jack Benny’s, positing it midway between a variety show and a sit com. After Campbell’s pulled out, the show remained on the air through 1956 with a variety of other sponsors.

Frpm 1952 through 1954, Campbell’s sponsored a dramatic anthology series for television, originally called Campbell Playhouse, and then Campbell Soundstage and finally Campbell Summer Soundstage. The show appears to have had little to distinguish it from the many other similar dramatic programs then on the air; it didn’t even have a regular celebrity host.

In 1962, Andy Warhol caused a firestorm in the art world with his series of pop art paintings of Campbell’s soup cans, inspiring a debate about the purpose and nature of art that persists to this day. There would appear to be a Barnumesque element to the stunt, making it ripe for satire by comedians like Mel Brooks, who referenced the vogue in The Producers (1967) by having Dick Shawn wear a can around his neck like a pendant:

“Mm, mm, good, baby!”

For more on show biz history,consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, And please stay tuned for my upcomingElectric Vaudeville: A Century of Radio and TV Variety.