Sunday, September 7, 2008

Then And Now #10 - Underwood Deviled Ham

The booklet I've shown below gives a list of all of Underwood's products:
I had no idea they once made all of these food items!
I'm sorry there is no date to be found on this vintage book, but I am guessing 1940's. (Nice dishes!)
Now,shown below is an advertisement from 1957 where you see the same scary devil logo:
But, apparently, sometime between then and the time this ad appeared in December of 1963, the company and/or ad executives had decided to go with the friendlier looking happy, smiling, waving devil instead of the frightening, threatening arms-outstretched devil of the past. Would you be more likely to purchase his ham?And then here is the Deviled Ham Spread label as it appears now, shown with a vintage Soft Shell Clams label. As you can see, they tweaked his look even a bit more, making his horns shorter, and opening up his mouth so that he looks like he is - dare I say it -laughing?Ah, the changing face(s) of advertising through the years!

7 comments:

Tina Dawn said...

Sorry, Underwood, even a laughing, waving devil with short horns couldn't get me to eat deviled ham. Black bean soup, maybe. Love T

Karen Jo said...

T, that goes double for me! Love, Deb

Anonymous said...

I remember eating some kind of party food made with deviled ham and adored it! (Of course, my tastes might have changed a little in the past 20 years...) I may have to call my mom to ask her what it was. It seems to me it sort of had the consistency of canned cat food. Heaven knows how it's actually made. Maybe I'd rather not know.

Heidi Ann said...

Barbara - I think it IS kind of like cat food! We never even had it in our house growing up, but I think I may have had it at someone else's house at least once, and I know I didn't love it, but I'm not altogether sure that I hated it, either. It has 15 g. of fat in 1/4 cup!

Dave said...

I loved this stuff growing up, but ironically I've never bought it as an adult. With the fat content, it's probably a good thing!

Those early labels are great!

Twyla and Lindsey said...

I didn't know they had changed the devil. I also didn't know they made anything other than deviled ham. Twyla

Monica said...

I ate the ubnderwood deviled ham as a kid and it tasted like cat food