70 Years Of TV Dinners (Naked City)

You might have wondered just why Channel Nine recently chose to acknowledge 70 years of television in Australia as a particular milestone. I can’t remember the 60th year celebration and I am not hanging out for the 80th and another decade of ‘Spicks & Specks’.

Regardless of Nine’s motivation it was an interesting flashback to the early days of broadcasting and the decades of both good, bad and downright awful that followed, when it came to popular programming.

There’s no doubt it was a sensation when TV was introduced in 1956, coinciding with the Melbourne Olympics. At the time it’s estimated there were less than 4,000 TV sets in NSW homes although the number soon rapidly increased. Black and white TVs were not cheap at the time and many families purchased them on the dreaded ‘never never’. Big, bulky TV sets with cathode ray tubes were initially not the most reliable pieces of technology and often went on the blink, giving rise to an army of TV repair men and their mobile services.

It was not uncommon in the early days of broadcasting to see families, with small children rugged up in their dressing gowns, standing outside retailers’ shop windows to watch a particular TV program – often an imported American production. If you owned an early TV it was a real status symbol and some people even held parties to celebrate and afford their less fortunate neighbours the opportunity to enjoy the wonders of their brand new Admiral Ambassador.

Televisions gradually changed the layout of Australian living rooms with furniture arranged around the ‘idiot box’, as if it was paying some kind of religious homage. Traditionally suburban families gathered at the dinner table for the evening meal but with a TV in the lounge room that soon began to change. We saw the introduction of the TV tray, that sat conveniently in front of your chair or lounge, and made the consumption of your rapidly prepared meal only a minor distraction from an episode of ‘Disneyland’.

In America the first so called ‘TV Dinners’, first appeared in the early 1950s with the Swanson Company considered the original innovator.

The story goes that in 1953 they were stuck with tonnes of leftover Thanksgiving turkey and had the bright idea of packaging it along with peas and sweet potatoes in a partitioned aluminium tray. With a few preservatives thrown in it could be easily be reheated and enjoyed right in front of the tele. Needless to say a rash of copycats followed and the TV dinner became part of the national culinary ethos.

It took a while for the concept to hit our shores but in 1962, and with a lot more TV sets sold, the piemakers Scotts introduced their frozen ‘heat and eat’ TV dinners. Whilst never as popular as the American version, TV dinners did enjoy some popularity with Australian consumers during the 60s but gradually disappeared from supermarket shelves. Waves of multi-cultural migration introduced far more enticing culinary alternatives and the original dinners had a reputation for being soggy and often bland.

Believe it or not there is actually a collector’s market for vintage TV Dinners, still unopened in their original packaging. In the US they can bring up to $500, with their mushy contents preserved in some horrendous physical form and their brightly coloured labels designed to excite the tastebuds. Intrigued, I had a quick browse through eBay and found a Swanson Turkey Dinner Box – Vintage TV Dinner from 1981 going for $131.30 (plus a whopping $54.07 delivery). Just wondering what Australian customs would make of the package if it went through an X-Ray. Sorry – I’ll have to pass.

These days you be hard pressed to find any packaged dinner marketed as a TV Dinner. There are of course hundreds of different packaged meals currently available from supermarkets and online providers. They are promoted on the basis of taste and nutrition, with maybe just a nod to convenience. Perhaps there is a new market out there for those needing something to shovel down their throat whilst they enjoy their favourite activity. The ‘TikTok’ package could be directed at modern day teenagers – a minimum of chewing required, heaps of sugar and easily digested as they scroll endlessly on their mobile.

Finally, forget about the apocalyptic warnings currently issued for the burgeoning AI industry. It might seem incredible but humanity could well be annihilated by a vintage TV dinner. Imagine if one of the obsessed collectors decided to open a 60-year-old Swanson’s Mexican-style dinner, maybe at a big football match with 80,000 spectators or even a Trump rally (better idea!). Who knows what deadly, fast multiplying bacteria could be released, spreading globally like the plague to end all plagues.

And if you do readily shop for the modern day packaged dinner, which let’s face it, you are going to eat in front of the TV anyway – always check the use by date!