As a reminder, now that we are ten days in, I’m trying an experiment this month with the blog. In each day’s writings, I carry one thing over into the next day and write about it. Like a soap opera. The story continues, albeit loosely related. I sort of called it “Page Turner” month. But there is probably a better name for this mess.
Anyway. It continues. So with that, in my writings yesterday, I took a look at the wasting of food. I mentioned that a large percentage of people throw away meat each week. It could be any meat, but it made me wonder what the most consumed meats were in the world.
As it turns out, the top five in the world are:
Pork
Chicken
Beef
Lamb Meat
Goat Meat
In America, they are:
Chicken
Beef
Pork
Turkey
Lamb
For me, the favorite is probably beef because of the hamburger factor. I love ham. Then chicken.
Anyway, if I had guessed before looking at these figures, I would have said beef. But its absence for the number one spot left me saying:
“Where’s the Beef?”
Oh, that iconic statement, “Where’s the Beef?”
This came from the notorious Wendy’s ad that first aired on January 10, 1984. To remind you, the Wendy’s commercial portrayed a fictional fast-food competitor named “Big Bun.” And there in that restaurant sat three elderly ladies. They were served up an enormous hamburger bun containing a teeny, weeny hamburger patty.
Two of the ladies commented on the size of the bun. But there she was. A woman named Clara Peller. Irascible. Irritated. Grumpy. She looked on at the situation and demanded to know:
“Where’s the beef?”
Well, her delivery was astounding. And as such, Peller’s “Where’s the beef?” line instantly became a catchphrase across the United States and Canada. Plain and simple, she rocked it. We all loved her. We all said the phrase. Even today, 39 years later, it still floats around.
But back then, at Wendy’s, sales jumped 31% to $945 million in 1985 worldwide. Her ad campaign through Wendy’s into soaring profits.
And Peller? Well. For those commercials, she took home actor-scale wages — $317.40 per day — for the initial Wendy’s TV commercial of the campaign in January 1984. But Wendy’s kicked in a little. They wouldn’t say how much. But Peller said in an interview with People magazine that she had earned $30,000 for the next two commercials plus “profits.” Whatever that turned out to be.
But here is where it gets dicey. Per her Screen Actors Guild union contract, Clara was free to participate in any commercials for products, goods, or services which did not directly compete with Wendy’s hamburgers.
So she got a job with good old Campbell’s Soup. I don’t remember the commercials, but she apparently appeared for Prego Pasta Plus spaghetti sauce. In the Prego ad, Peller examines the Prego sauce, and after wondering, “Where’s the beef?” in those Wendy’s spots, she now declares, “I found it! I really found it”.
Well, after that, Wendy’s management decided to terminate her contract. The Wendy’s people said the Prego commercial implied “that Clara found the beef at somewhere other than Wendy’s restaurants. Clara can find the beef only in one place, and that is Wendy’s.”
Clara Peller. What a gal. She was born in Imperial Russia, in 1902. But Clara spent most of her early life in Chicago.
She was never an actress in her early life. Instead, she worked for 35 years as a manicurist at a local Chicago beauty salon.
Somehow, at age 80, Peller was hired as a temporary manicurist for a television commercial. The talent agency was impressed and later asked her to sign a contract as an actress. Eventually, this led to the Wendy’s gig.
Despite the setback with Wendy’s, Peller became quite the star, appearing in a flurry of commercials, as well as making appearances on numerous talk shows, Saturday Night Live, and so much more.
Peller died on August 11, 1987, in Chicago, one week after her 85th birthday, from congestive heart failure. She is buried at Waldheim Jewish Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois. A grand old gal who could ask a hard question. Just where is that beef?
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“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” – Lemony Snicket
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“Honesty is the fastest way to prevent a mistake from turning into a failure.” – James Altucher
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“The truth is not for all men but only for those who seek it.” – Unknown
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You know it. We asked it. Where’s the beef?
