Smoke
By Jeff
Little
Smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette
Puff, puff, puff until you smoke yourself to death
Tell St. Peter at the Golden Gate
That you hate to make him wait,
But you just gotta have another cigarette
As sung by singer/songwriter Sollie "Tex" Williams in 1947,
the lyrics to Merle Travis' ode to tobacco addiction may still
ring true today, but the public demonstration of the habit has
all but ceased to exist. Local ordinances and common sense have
seen to that.
Every day there are fewer places where smoking is
allowed, and venues where the pastime is acceptable are
disappearing at an even faster rate. But in the 1950's and
1960's (the peak of visible cigarette usage), smoke and smoking
was everywhere.
For a good long while, smoking was not only acceptable,
it was considered "cool" by many. And why not? Most everyone in
the public eye smoked. And with the popularity boom in
television, viewers in the 1950's and 1960's routinely witnessed
their heroes lighting-up on TV.
One of TV's favorite dad's could be seen occasionally
puffing away on The Andy Griffith Show (1960-1968). Both Dick
Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore smoked Kent Cigarettes in
commercials on The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961-1966). And
unbelievable but true is the fact that The Flintstones
(1960-1966) had a tobacco brand as a key sponsor for a time.
There were even commercials which showed the animated characters
smoking Winston cigarettes.
Even John Wayne became part of the decades-long
television tobacco blitz when he appeared in a commercial for
Camel in 1952. Ironic is the fact that Wayne would later die of
lung cancer in 1979. Some of "The Duke's" last commercials were
impassioned pleas for people to stop smoking.
Even when not employing star power, tobacco companies
managed to mount effective ad campaigns for their products.
Singing cigarettes, dancing cigarettes, painfully hip people
smoking in fun locales, and, yes, even actors portraying doctors
while espousing the virtues of cigarettes in television ads. And
who can forget the slogans made popular by television, radio and
print publications?
"You've Come a Long Way, Baby" (Virginia Slims), "Come to
where the flavor is" (Marlboro), "Blow some my way"
(Chesterfield), "I'd rather fight than switch" (Tareyton),
Winston tastes good like a cigarette should" (Winston) and
dozens of other snazzy catch phrases bombarded millions for
years. And even though one was more ridiculous than the last,
the most laughable had to be L & M's claim that it was "Just
what the doctor ordered."
Fortunately, real doctors began to prevail over
advertising in 1965 when cigarette manufacturers were ordered to
include warning labels on their packages.
And as the public digested
the facts on tobacco use, the television industry was forced to
swallow a loss of approximately $220 million dollars a year in
ad revenues when the federal government ordered an end to
televised spots promoting cigarettes. In The United States, the
last televised cigarette commercial (for Virginia Slims) aired
on The Tonight Show on January 1, 1971.
Even without television's influence, millions still
smoke. But Sollie "Tex" Williams (previously a heavy smoker) no
longer does. He died of cancer in 1985.
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