Monday, March 31, 2008

A Stopette History Lesson From "What's My Line?"

I keep meaning to bring up another little history lesson that came from watching the B&W games shows on the Game Show Network.

When you watch the beginning episodes, you can tell they're still proving themselves to sponors. But along about 1953, just before the panel finalized, the set suddenly got slicked up and transformed with its permanent new motif:

Stopette Modern.

Splashed across the panel table is a huge white, round, tipped squeeze bottle with lines of simulated spray streaked across the words "Stopette."

Also, on the flip cards, the dollar amounts are now adorned with a squeeze bottle and action spray of "Stopette."

After seeing this week after week last year, Jim and I decided to do a little web search and see if we could find out anything about Stopette.

Well! Here's a quote from a nostalgia website called Old Time.

Stopette was the modern product of its time. Before the days of the modern deodorant products we are familiar today, deodorant was made in either cream or liquid. Stopette was a liquid deodorant, but it was known as “The Original Spray Deodorant.” Why it was called a spray and not a liquid was due to the packaging the deodorant came in. It was packaging no one had ever seen before--- the flexi-plastic squeeze bottle.


Oddly, there's no mention of "Stopette" or Dr. Martinier on Wikipedia even though I swear I had seen them on there before.

2 comments:

Jackie said...

Deodorant! OK,that's what it is. Good grief.
I'm just glad I'm not the only one who enjoys watching the old black and white game shows. It looks so funny seeing them smoking during the show. And the prize money was so pitiful. Those were the days.

buff said...

Howdy Jim and Steve.

This past week I discovered the same fascination with my partner about "what's my line" and Stopette.

We just started recording them on TiVO on GSN and these shows seem to be in their early year cycle, 1952.

We both tend to agree that sometimes simplier is better.

Really glad I came upon your great blog site, guys.

Big hairy muscle hugs to both of you. A new fan