Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: the Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry the Stuff
Speaker 1: you Should Know herb. Have you ever heard a tupper
Speaker 1: Warrior burp? Yeah, sort of, I mean it, you know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't sound like a burb. It's just sort of like,
Speaker 1: can you emulate one? Well, it's just like a like
Speaker 1: air just sort of it's like a burb. It sounds
Speaker 1: like a dude, yeah, something different. Yeah, but I don't
Speaker 1: think you could call it a Tupperware bart because it
Speaker 1: probably wouldn't sell us. Well, even a burp is a
Speaker 1: little you know. Okay, So I guess I have heard
Speaker 1: one before when I was a kid, but I thought
Speaker 1: like there was like a burb or something like that,
Speaker 1: or do you remember that cartoon. It might have been like,
Speaker 1: h what was the Droopy I think it might have
Speaker 1: been a droopy cartoon, So some sort of cartoon where
Speaker 1: like they had a machine that burped radishes. But I
Speaker 1: like it. It was a great I think it was
Speaker 1: like the Kitchen of the Future, one great cartoon. Bert.
Speaker 1: That's what I assumed the Tupperware thing was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a big droopy fans I thought I was
Speaker 1: missing out. Nope, no, it's just a little air being expelled.
Speaker 1: But it was a very very important bit of air,
Speaker 1: because Chuck. At the time that Tupperware came out, women
Speaker 1: were using like basically a pot that they cooked something in,
Speaker 1: maybe a bowl, and putting a shower cap over it
Speaker 1: and storing it in the ice box. You know what
Speaker 1: they call that primitive? That's primitive food storage. It sounds
Speaker 1: like a tuk tuk would have done something like that,
Speaker 1: not men and women in the nineteen forties, except he
Speaker 1: would have used like some sort of Madagascar type animal
Speaker 1: pelt sure them from the movie Madagascar. No, not Madagascar.
Speaker 1: I say, that's what I'm thinking of. I say, I
Speaker 1: haven't seen it one. So they're very similar. It is
Speaker 1: setting like different climbs in different time periods. I've never
Speaker 1: seen me either, different animal protagonists. I just I can
Speaker 1: get a lot from commercials. Yeah, uh so, yeah, Tupperware,
Speaker 1: let's let's talk about it. Um, the original patent. I
Speaker 1: love the name of this thing, and you know it
Speaker 1: was created. You want to drop this cool little fact
Speaker 1: by the name the name of the guy Earl Tupper.
Speaker 1: Yeah I never knew that. Yeah, I guess I didn't either.
Speaker 1: I didn't didn't think about it. No, you think of
Speaker 1: tupper war is nothing but tupper ware, and there's no
Speaker 1: Tupper who invented It's crazy talk, right, Yeah, No, there
Speaker 1: was a tupper named Earl and that tupper tup tupperware. Yes,
Speaker 1: the Earl of Tupper he Uh he has a patent
Speaker 1: um call it. Well had he didn't have it anymore. Uh.
Speaker 1: The e s tupper open mouth container and non snap
Speaker 1: type of closure. Therefore this by the way, Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: why I read it like that. But I was explaining
Speaker 1: that to the everybody else. Do they know me? This
Speaker 1: is going poorly? No, it's not so. Um. Let's you
Speaker 1: want to talk a little bit about Tupper himself. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He Um was a bit of a reclusive figure, as
Speaker 1: we'll find, but he was also like a he was
Speaker 1: a pretty sharp guy. I A grouch, I think is
Speaker 1: a possible way to describe him. Maybe a bit of
Speaker 1: a mad, smart, tinkering grouch. Um. He disliked his father
Speaker 1: because he felt his father lacked ambition. And this is
Speaker 1: when he was like ten. Right, Um, all you do
Speaker 1: is just go to the races and lay around het. Well,
Speaker 1: his parents owned a like a farm of sorts, but
Speaker 1: I think I get the idea. It was like kind
Speaker 1: of a harvest your own farm. And this kid, little
Speaker 1: Earl Tupper, when he was like ten twelve, he was
Speaker 1: like pitching the idea to to build like a children's
Speaker 1: playground on the grounds of his pick your own farm
Speaker 1: for you know, to at track tourists and stuff. And
Speaker 1: his I was like, it sounds like a lot of work, totally,
Speaker 1: just go to school or something. Get out of my hair.
Speaker 1: And Arrow was like, you're gonna pay for ignoring me.
Speaker 1: But he he was of sharp contrast to his father,
Speaker 1: is what I'm trying to say. He was very ambitious.
Speaker 1: Big Tinker came up with a lot of different patent
Speaker 1: ideas and apparently patents too. Yeah he Uh he had
Speaker 1: a book of inventions. Uh. There was a better stocking guarter,
Speaker 1: which is a very sexy thing for a child to admit, right. Um,
Speaker 1: A better way to remove a burst appendix. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's for real. Um, a dagger shaped comb to be
Speaker 1: clipped to the belt. Um pants that wouldn't lose their crease. Um.
Speaker 1: This one of great import. Yeah, the customized cigarettes, I
Speaker 1: can't believe that didn't catch on, like for real, you
Speaker 1: know how Coca Cola does this stupid cans and bottles
Speaker 1: now with names. Oh now I understand. Yeah, there were
Speaker 1: cigarettes that said like Sporty or the collegiate on the cigarette,
Speaker 1: so it would have like your sports team like emblazoned
Speaker 1: on the side. Maybe the problem is none of these
Speaker 1: inventions took off. Now this guy literally well he could
Speaker 1: give his inventions away, but like he almost literally couldn't
Speaker 1: give him give them away. He he ended up manufacturing
Speaker 1: these things and giving them away is like premiums for
Speaker 1: other stuff like cigarettes and things like that. Yeah. So, um,
Speaker 1: he starts a tree uh doctor business, Tupper Tree Doctors
Speaker 1: that um failed after um the depression, people were cutting
Speaker 1: back on things like tree doctoring. So he went out
Speaker 1: of business and in a very fortuitous move, went and
Speaker 1: worked um for Visca Lloyd Plant, which is a division
Speaker 1: of DuPont making plastics. Right, and this is where things
Speaker 1: kind of started taking shape. Yes, yes, yes, so basically
Speaker 1: he gets into plastics and this town in Massachusetts that
Speaker 1: he ended up in where the Vistalloid plant was, he
Speaker 1: was all over New England basically growing up right, this
Speaker 1: particular town was kind of like a mad scientists mecca
Speaker 1: where like all of this stuff is going on in plastics,
Speaker 1: all these little tiny plastic manufacturing outfits are, you know,
Speaker 1: start It's like a startup town for plastics in like
Speaker 1: the thirties or forties. They're like, we have this new thing,
Speaker 1: Like what all can we do with it? Yeah? And which,
Speaker 1: by the way, plastic, especially polyethylene. Polyethylene was invented by accident,
Speaker 1: and by the forties they had still kind of they
Speaker 1: perfected the polyethylene or had come out perfect, but they
Speaker 1: hadn't figured out quite how to use it. And Earl
Speaker 1: Tupper was one of those guys in the forties on
Speaker 1: the cutting edge of taking plastics and figuring out how
Speaker 1: to mold them in the right shape, how to keep
Speaker 1: him from being oily or sticky or falling apart when
Speaker 1: they were sitting out in the sunlight or all this stuff.
Speaker 1: This guy is doing all these tests and he ends
Speaker 1: up coming up thanks to getting a block of this
Speaker 1: pure polyethylene from DuPont, the good stuff, the good stuff,
Speaker 1: uncut stuff, um, and he figures out how to make
Speaker 1: this bowl, A wonder lier bowl is what he calls it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and um DuPont at the time didn't think that they
Speaker 1: could even mold plastic. Like he was smarter than their
Speaker 1: guys because he figured out how to do it. And
Speaker 1: Um then along with the design the the patented U
Speaker 1: tupperware seal that made it so useful and famous, that
Speaker 1: made the what sound that made the like the burping
Speaker 1: sound or tooting sound. Um he originally got that idea
Speaker 1: for the seal from paint cans, apparently, the fact that
Speaker 1: you could turn a paint can upside down and it
Speaker 1: wouldn't leak paint out all over the place. And he said,
Speaker 1: I guess we can do this with food, you know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like put food in here. It's sealed. Look at the demonstration.
Speaker 1: It's upside down and I'm shaking it and there's none
Speaker 1: of that gravy coming out. What right, the grave is
Speaker 1: not coming out. I can drop this bowl and it's
Speaker 1: not gonna break because everyone knows how clumsy housewives are
Speaker 1: breaking stuff all over And the fact that it, um
Speaker 1: is that you burp it right, and it makes that sound,
Speaker 1: and you're basically preserving the food for many many days
Speaker 1: to come which was huge because a lot of the
Speaker 1: people who were um homemakers in the forties and fifties,
Speaker 1: they had lived through the depression and they remembered exactly
Speaker 1: what it was like. So preserving food was a big deal.
Speaker 1: And so this thing was like it's really easy to
Speaker 1: take for granted these days, but it was very cutting
Speaker 1: edge technology. Well, these days they have all those terrible
Speaker 1: cheap oh uh, I was gonna say knockoffs are not
Speaker 1: knockoffs are major brands. But you know those little cheap
Speaker 1: plastic containers that are sold, they're they're not nearly the
Speaker 1: quality of Tupperware. No tupper Warres started all that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this stuff is garbage. The lids don't fit right ever,
Speaker 1: they break, they don't, they don't do any thing that
Speaker 1: Tupperware did. Like I have a Wonder bowl from the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies that's still like perfect. I mean it's a
Speaker 1: little worn down, but it's still like functions perfectly right. Well,
Speaker 1: it's a testament to and that other garbage that stuff,
Speaker 1: like I don't have anything from last year. Well, it's
Speaker 1: made and it was made during a time of much
Speaker 1: more disposable thinking. You know, at the time it was like,
Speaker 1: we're gonna make something now will last forever. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think they still have a lifetime guarantees on everything. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Like you could send in a tupperware piece from the
Speaker 1: sixties and they'll, you know, if it's broken and it
Speaker 1: meets the requirements, like you know, you didn't smash it
Speaker 1: with a hammer or something. Um, because they can't prove you,
Speaker 1: they'll give you like credits or the equivalent of what
Speaker 1: you could get today or something. It's like, well, you
Speaker 1: paid for that, but like, let's see what the West
Speaker 1: Aid currency calculator has to say about that. So, um,
Speaker 1: he formed Upper Plastics. Uh. Thing did not take off though,
Speaker 1: um like he thought they would. He put him in
Speaker 1: department stores and hardware stores for some reason, not a
Speaker 1: good place to sell your tupperware. Yeah. I mean nowadays
Speaker 1: I can see that, but back then you probably just
Speaker 1: went to hardware stores for nails and hammers and stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure there are home goods and stuff too. It
Speaker 1: was probably closer to a general store in the hardware
Speaker 1: stores today, but even still, they weren't flying off the
Speaker 1: shelves at the point. They were not. Um. So what
Speaker 1: he did was there was another timeline going on at
Speaker 1: the same time. UM Stanley Home Products was this, uh
Speaker 1: basically pioneered the non door to door sales in favor
Speaker 1: of hosting a party for lack of a better word,
Speaker 1: in home demonstrations where you would gather people together. And
Speaker 1: it was a guy named Norman Squires had um garnered
Speaker 1: a lot of profits in this kind of sales, and
Speaker 1: they had working for them a woman named Brownie Wise
Speaker 1: and she was selling all kinds of stuff for Stanley
Speaker 1: Home Products and uh they called it the hostess group
Speaker 1: demonstration plan and she was a great, great salesperson. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So these people at Stanley Home Products basically found tupperware
Speaker 1: on their own and started selling it at these hostess parties. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she formed her own company called Tupperware Patio Parties. Oh
Speaker 1: did she yea before she was hired. Before she was hired,
Speaker 1: And she was selling so much of it that Earl
Speaker 1: Tupper got in touch with her and was like, I
Speaker 1: can't sell this stuff in stores like you're beating like
Speaker 1: department stores in New York City sales records, and she yeah,
Speaker 1: she really was. She had a lot of charms. She
Speaker 1: had um she figured out that this burp thing that
Speaker 1: was so essential and made this product so revolutionary, right that, Um,
Speaker 1: it wasn't like intuitive, you didn't just understand how to
Speaker 1: work it, and so it wasn't helping sale, which again
Speaker 1: seems weird today, but back then people like, what is
Speaker 1: this weird colored thing? Just go together? And they're just
Speaker 1: banging them together in the isle of a hardware store crying. Um.
Speaker 1: They She figured out that if you demonstrate this to people,
Speaker 1: especially in like somebody's house or whatever and they've had
Speaker 1: a couple of martinis and there's or Derv's, people are
Speaker 1: apt to buy these things. And yeah, like you said,
Speaker 1: she started out selling department stores hardware stores obviously, um,
Speaker 1: and she got hired on by Earl Tupper. She was
Speaker 1: in Detroit at the time. I think I think she'd
Speaker 1: moved down to Orlando when she was hired. Oh really
Speaker 1: by that point. Yeah, she was from Beauford, Georgia originally. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she was from Earl Georgia. And U ended up, um
Speaker 1: being married and divorced, which was pretty unusual at the time.
Speaker 1: And she was a single mom. Yep, the little Jerry
Speaker 1: Wise that's right. She unfortunately her husband was a violent
Speaker 1: drunk that too, so that's not saying that. That's PBS
Speaker 1: taken the fall for that. So she was re married
Speaker 1: him for about six years and then it was basically like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make my own way. He only had an
Speaker 1: eighth grade education, and she was killing it on the
Speaker 1: sales front. Yeah, she she really was. So it took
Speaker 1: before we get any further about Brownie Wise. Great name name, yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe not a band name, but a great name. The
Speaker 1: brown the Brownie Wise would be a good name, or
Speaker 1: the the Brownie Wise massacre Yeah sure, yeah, there you go,
Speaker 1: or Brownie Wise over Drive. Both of those anyway for
Speaker 1: one another. I guess the point that I'm trying to
Speaker 1: get to his Let's take your break, Okay. So Brownie
Speaker 1: Wise has her tupper Wear Patio Parties company out selling stores.
Speaker 1: She gets hired on UM. They literally divide the company
Speaker 1: into uh two sides, the Tupperware manufacturing up in Massachusetts
Speaker 1: and then Tupperware Home Parties down in Orlando. Down in Orlando, yeah,
Speaker 1: where she lives. Basically, Earl Tupper comes to her in
Speaker 1: n and says, hey, how would you like to be
Speaker 1: one of like three female high level executives in the
Speaker 1: United States in the world I would guess, and she said,
Speaker 1: that's sure, why not, I'll do you a favor. And
Speaker 1: I said she was a very interesting woman. If I didn't,
Speaker 1: I did in my head and meant to say it,
Speaker 1: but she, Um, there's apparently a movie coming out about
Speaker 1: her life, starring Sandra Bullock. You did not say that,
Speaker 1: and I did see that, So there you go. I
Speaker 1: couldn't find any information on except that I think it's
Speaker 1: in uh in pre uh pre production right now. Oh,
Speaker 1: I see, I think it's going to happen. But um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean she she's one of the great uh woman
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs that this country has ever seen, the world has
Speaker 1: ever seen. Really yea, because she took this tupperware, which
Speaker 1: everyone except the American public agreed was great. In ninety seven,
Speaker 1: the year that Tupper invented this stuff, Time named it
Speaker 1: this amazing thing. It won design Awards. Yeah, she was
Speaker 1: on the first woman on the cover of Business Week magazine,
Speaker 1: right right. But even before she came along, everybody, especially
Speaker 1: in the art world, in the design world, um said this, this,
Speaker 1: this stuff is great. But it was just sitting there languishing,
Speaker 1: and then then Brownie Wise comes along and just turns
Speaker 1: it into a blockbuster, like turns it into it an
Speaker 1: American iconic brand, which it still is today. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: what she realized, which is uh was a stroke of genius,
Speaker 1: was it's the nineteen fifties. The suburbs are happening post
Speaker 1: World War two in a big way. Um, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of women that are that are homemakers, that are
Speaker 1: I guess we could just say they were bored and
Speaker 1: looking for something to do well. Plus also they had
Speaker 1: very um, they had very real constrictions on their time
Speaker 1: where like they're basically freedom of movement. They didn't have cars,
Speaker 1: they didn't have things like this, they didn't have a
Speaker 1: lot of ways to make money. Yeah. Well, and again
Speaker 1: they were out in the suburbs for the first time.
Speaker 1: It's not like many of these were connected by subway
Speaker 1: or anything. That was still an inner city deal. Right. So,
Speaker 1: But rather than view these places as fast like waste
Speaker 1: lands of isolation, Brownie Wise said, no, these are like
Speaker 1: little tiny social networks where people know and trust one
Speaker 1: another and they're board out of their skulls and they're
Speaker 1: looking for ways to make money. Like so, not only
Speaker 1: do you have a really great market to sell this to,
Speaker 1: you have a really great workforce that's just sitting there, idol.
Speaker 1: And she said, how would you gals like to sell tupperware?
Speaker 1: And they went, let's do this, that's right. And what
Speaker 1: she did was came up with a system where and
Speaker 1: you could work your way up the chain, um, from
Speaker 1: sales all the way. Well, let's let's just detail it.
Speaker 1: What you are is your consultant at first, which is
Speaker 1: out there, you know, holding the parties, hosting these parties.
Speaker 1: Talk about everybody's till yeah, and then you can work
Speaker 1: your up to manager if you organize a certain number
Speaker 1: of parties, and then managers, uh, we're eventually recruiting other women.
Speaker 1: So if you recruit enough women and increased sales, then
Speaker 1: you could rise to distributor. And that was the highest
Speaker 1: level you could attain at that point. Yes, you could
Speaker 1: be a distributor. You have your own office, you have
Speaker 1: your network of managers, and then they managed the consultants
Speaker 1: or the party throwers, party hosts, and um. Basically she
Speaker 1: started her own army of salespeople. Yeah, so incentibized salespeople.
Speaker 1: Right now, there are two point nine million people in
Speaker 1: the world. Every three seconds there's another top waur party.
Speaker 1: But we're getting ahead of ourselves, right, So she she
Speaker 1: put together this workforce and again it was UM, this
Speaker 1: guy named Norman Squires who came up with this idea
Speaker 1: that led to UM being a huge, huge hip for tupperware,
Speaker 1: but also later on avon Um and Mary Kay and
Speaker 1: Pampered Chef and like all of these, all of these
Speaker 1: brands that like are sold through hostess parties basically get
Speaker 1: you in our house and get you drunk and just
Speaker 1: leave me a blank Checkly, but the it wasn't invented
Speaker 1: by Brownie wise, but she definitely perfected it for sure.
Speaker 1: So UM she tapped this workforce. And one of the
Speaker 1: ways that she kept people excited and loyal not just
Speaker 1: the fact that they could rise throughout this hierarchy UM
Speaker 1: in the tupperware industry, but there there was also like
Speaker 1: this thing that she created called the Jubilee every year
Speaker 1: down Orlando. It was a big company party it was,
Speaker 1: and they would just pull out all the stops like
Speaker 1: they would bury fur coats. They were bury blenders. One
Speaker 1: of the buyers once said that he bought a hundred
Speaker 1: thousand blenders once for this jubilee. They just bring all
Speaker 1: these tupperware sales associates and just basically throw them a
Speaker 1: party for a few days and let them just win
Speaker 1: free stuff and have a great time. Yeah. And when
Speaker 1: you say, Barry, I think we should explains that sounds
Speaker 1: really weird. They would bury these prizes and people would
Speaker 1: go and dig them up. Right. It wasn't like you
Speaker 1: can't have this. Look at what you can't have, we're
Speaker 1: burying it. They just sounded fun. You're like, they bury
Speaker 1: for coats, they bury anything that moves. Yeah, thank you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it was all part of the fun. Apparently they
Speaker 1: lost a lot of them too. Yeah. Years later, Um,
Speaker 1: at the at the Tupperware headquarters in ORLEANSO, they went
Speaker 1: to dig a pond and they found a bunch of
Speaker 1: the prizes that had never been found. Yes, some say
Speaker 1: there's still for coats buried all over Orlando by the illuminati. Right. So, um,
Speaker 1: those are the big jubilee parties, the big company parties.
Speaker 1: Great for morale. Um. The hostess uh themselves or the
Speaker 1: consultants would um, they would make percentage. Uh, they basically
Speaker 1: make a cut what they were able to sell as
Speaker 1: well as get prizes. Um, like these really neat prizes
Speaker 1: and the more parties you hosted, the better the prizes
Speaker 1: would get. So it's like it's like the Wild West.
Speaker 1: It's the Heyday for these women. They're like earning their
Speaker 1: own money for a change. They're getting these great prizes.
Speaker 1: They're feeling great about themselves. They're not bored any longer.
Speaker 1: And their husbands were like, WHOA, what's going on here?
Speaker 1: Give me that money you made? Yeah, exactly. And things
Speaker 1: were so successful with this model that that was their
Speaker 1: only sales model up until the late nineteen eighties. Right,
Speaker 1: You couldn't even buy the stuff in stores. No, he
Speaker 1: just stopped. It wasn't even worth the money or effort
Speaker 1: to distribute it. The stories. They just did it through
Speaker 1: parties and home parties. Thank you, Brownie Wise all right, So, um,
Speaker 1: and like you said in they started selling it through
Speaker 1: um catalogs, I guess, uh, yeah, I think they. I've
Speaker 1: seen like older catalogs from like the fifties and sixties,
Speaker 1: So I don't know what that means. Maybe over the
Speaker 1: phone you saw Tupperware one. Yeah, it's on our it's
Speaker 1: on the podcast pitch for this episode. There's a link
Speaker 1: to this kind of design layout and it has some catalogs.
Speaker 1: So it must have been like ordered by phone. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe so. And then just about ten years later, Tupperware
Speaker 1: had their first website, which e commerce in that was
Speaker 1: fairly forward thinking. Yeah that's true, you know. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: so this caught like wildfire today you can it's not
Speaker 1: just like an American institution. There are Tupperware parties, like
Speaker 1: we said, at the rate of one every three seconds,
Speaker 1: and more than a hundred countries around the world. I
Speaker 1: had no idea that Tupperware was that popular in like
Speaker 1: Asia and India, And they said half a million, more
Speaker 1: than half a million every year in France alone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: of Tupperware sales are outside of the US these days. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's a I mean, like it's got it moving
Speaker 1: like gangbusters. Last I saw, I was trading at like
Speaker 1: sixty three dollars a share, which is down from like
Speaker 1: a hundred in December. Maybe. Um, Like it's it's a
Speaker 1: really set company again these days, Like it's been able
Speaker 1: to just be on the brink of utter irrelevance when
Speaker 1: it finds a new market, when it figures out a
Speaker 1: new way to do to sell, when it figures out
Speaker 1: a new product, like currently right now in China. Um,
Speaker 1: Tupperware is making tons of cash selling a thousand dollar
Speaker 1: water filter, and they're doing it by traveling from town
Speaker 1: to town and setting up these in home demonstrations or
Speaker 1: public demonstrations and showing how to do it. So they're
Speaker 1: like taking the Tupperware model that Brownie Wise like really
Speaker 1: perfected and and figuring out how it best works and
Speaker 1: cultures around the world. Yeah, I know. They make um also,
Speaker 1: like uh, depending on your country and what they eat,
Speaker 1: like certain shaped um containers, right like round bread containers
Speaker 1: for non in India. How about that? So what happened
Speaker 1: to Brownie Wise? I guess she retired, was thanked, carried
Speaker 1: out on everyone shoulders, and lived a great fulfilled life
Speaker 1: until her death. Right. Well, we're gonna tell you right
Speaker 1: after this break, all right, Josh, let's fast forward to um.
Speaker 1: The Tupperware business is booming, Brownie Wise is a bit
Speaker 1: of a celebrity. The twist is going like Gangbusters? Was it?
Speaker 1: Probably okay? People are still twisting the night away? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean what was that like? Probably started three years?
Speaker 1: Sure there was some squares still twisting. Yeah, they weren't
Speaker 1: doing the mashed potato yet. No, I think that was
Speaker 1: a little later, Okay, Um, so business is booming, Brownie
Speaker 1: Wise is killing it. She's a celebrity. Earl Tupper um
Speaker 1: starts to get little jealous over the years. It's as
Speaker 1: simple as that. Yeah. As much as he like didn't
Speaker 1: seek or want the limelight, he was still jealous that
Speaker 1: Brownie Wise people thought that she was Tupperware and that
Speaker 1: she started the company um and started selling like I
Speaker 1: can sell anything like this. So she didn't say that
Speaker 1: him in the media said she could. She could have
Speaker 1: done this with any brand. She's that great, and Earl
Speaker 1: Tupper wanted to be like, well, no, I mean my
Speaker 1: product that I invented is you know a big part
Speaker 1: of this, if not the thing, Earl Tupper right, so
Speaker 1: he um he apparently also she stopped kind of cow
Speaker 1: towing to him quite as much. Um, but I got
Speaker 1: on great for a while. Yeah. And again he had
Speaker 1: said to their PR department and to any media interviewer like, yes,
Speaker 1: this lady is the face of Tupperware. Treater is such, promoter,
Speaker 1: is such, And he, just like you said, ended up
Speaker 1: getting jealous. Didn't like that she wasn't cows outing to
Speaker 1: him any longer, and in night said, you're fired. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He The story I read was that he wanted to
Speaker 1: sell the company and cash in, and that he didn't
Speaker 1: think and was advised that it would be really hard
Speaker 1: to sell a company with a woman in such a
Speaker 1: prominent position on the board. And so he, uh, like
Speaker 1: you said, just unceremoniously get rid of her, gave her
Speaker 1: one year salary. It was like thirty grands zero stock
Speaker 1: that she had built almost from the ground up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: or help build at least. And I gotta say that
Speaker 1: was her you know, that was her mistake. She should
Speaker 1: have gotten some stock along the way. Yeah, I guess.
Speaker 1: You know, she's too busy selling And yeah, I mean exactly.
Speaker 1: She was imagined thirty five grand a year was a
Speaker 1: pretty good salary at the point. You want me to
Speaker 1: look it up, I will, you can. So she got
Speaker 1: that small pay out. She went UM and what he
Speaker 1: said to her was is that there were some accounting
Speaker 1: errors in the previous year. She wouldn't come to Massachusetts
Speaker 1: to talk to him about it, and sort of dug
Speaker 1: In says that she said that she had gotten sicker,
Speaker 1: injured and couldn't leave Florida. He finally went down to
Speaker 1: Florida UM and basically said that, you know, these jubilees
Speaker 1: are too expensive. The landscaping you've done here in Florida,
Speaker 1: the company headquarters is too expensive. You're spending too much
Speaker 1: money on clothes. Uh. And we own all that stuff,
Speaker 1: We own all your clothing. What well, I mean that's
Speaker 1: I don't know if he actually took it, but he
Speaker 1: basically was like, you know, she paid for all that
Speaker 1: stuff through the company, as she should have, you know,
Speaker 1: to keep up appearances. But um, yeah, that was it
Speaker 1: for her. She started a small company called Cinderella Cosmetics
Speaker 1: that folded after a year and sort of faded into obscurity.
Speaker 1: Then um earl tupper Uh sold out that the next
Speaker 1: year I think sixteen million. Yeah, he sells out for
Speaker 1: sixteen million dollars. Nice cash. She wrecked all drug company,
Speaker 1: which was eventually absorbed by Kraft, who apparently now owns Tupperware.
Speaker 1: I think maybe it's the parent company. Um and yeah,
Speaker 1: sixteen million in nineteen fifty eight. It's not too bad
Speaker 1: for a boy who couldn't get his parents to build
Speaker 1: a playground on the family pick your own whatever farm.
Speaker 1: Did you find out if she thirty five grand was
Speaker 1: a good salary? Yeah? It wasn't bad. It was like
Speaker 1: two hundred and I think thirty two thousand dollars back then. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's good. It's not bad. I mean especially for a executive. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: But he sold the whole thing for sixteen million, gave
Speaker 1: her one year salary, moved to Costa Rica, bought an island,
Speaker 1: announced as US citizenships so they didn't have to pay
Speaker 1: any taxes on that. Got divorced. Yeah right, and uh
Speaker 1: said Siona, everybody, I'm going to Costa Rica to buy
Speaker 1: an island and keep a note pad in my pocket.
Speaker 1: So anytime an idea for a new invention hits, I'll
Speaker 1: have it. Yeah. And just like probably you know, eight
Speaker 1: pineapples on his island. Yeah. He died in three in
Speaker 1: Costa Rica, Uh, seventy six, and she died in nineteen
Speaker 1: and Um, tupperware has not gone out of fashion. It's
Speaker 1: it's been featured uh starting in what year was it,
Speaker 1: I guess when they first came out at the Museum
Speaker 1: of Modern Art, and then again in two thousand eleven.
Speaker 1: I think I even saw this exhibit. In fact, I'm
Speaker 1: almost positive I did, because it was about just industrial
Speaker 1: design and things, and there's Tupperware all over again because
Speaker 1: of its gorgeous of course, now you know that fifties
Speaker 1: era design. The original line that tupper released is called
Speaker 1: the Millionaire line, and it came in six colors, five
Speaker 1: pastels and one white, right, yellow, blue, green, orange, and pink.
Speaker 1: And they're really pretty. Like if you look at a
Speaker 1: set of these things in a good, good condition, they're gorgeous.
Speaker 1: He went on to the Plastics Hall of Fame. Um
Speaker 1: and now like this stuff from the fifties and sixties,
Speaker 1: you can get some decent money on eBay for that stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, because it still works and people love that
Speaker 1: retro look. Did you know that he refused refused to
Speaker 1: have any um any pet bowls designed. He thought it
Speaker 1: was Tupperware was too good for pets to eat out of.
Speaker 1: What a jerk. See, I was all on board until that.
Speaker 1: Actually I wasn't on board. I was off board when
Speaker 1: I found out that he fired Brownie Wise. Yeah he
Speaker 1: and then was like, okay, I've got some money. See
Speaker 1: a later family. Yeah, moved to Costa Rica. Would you
Speaker 1: be funny if he went down and started a cult
Speaker 1: with the slinky guy. Um? So Tupperware stayed pretty much
Speaker 1: the same until when they designer named Morrison Cousins basically
Speaker 1: kind of redesigned for for the new era. Yeah he
Speaker 1: he was UM already a VP I guess that Tupperware
Speaker 1: and he was. He decided that it was a little difficult.
Speaker 1: He had an eighty two or eighty one year old
Speaker 1: mother at the time eighty seven year old mother at
Speaker 1: the time when he was charged with redesigning the Tupperware line,
Speaker 1: and UM he from that viewpoint, he redesigned it to
Speaker 1: make it easier for UM the aged to use. Right,
Speaker 1: So like that burping lid that you had to like
Speaker 1: really kind of have some decent hand strength to put on.
Speaker 1: He figured out a way around it by UM using
Speaker 1: flaps that opened and closed to release the air. Didn't
Speaker 1: require quite as much hand strength. UM. The lids were
Speaker 1: made in contrast and closure to the bowls, so if
Speaker 1: you had a low visibility low vision not visibility, that's
Speaker 1: totally different. If you were wearing all camouflage at the time,
Speaker 1: you'd be able to find the lid and the bowl
Speaker 1: that go together pretty easy. So he yea, he made
Speaker 1: them easier for old books, yep. And he was the
Speaker 1: guy who UM brought it online. He did a lot
Speaker 1: of good stuff. Apparently with it, he also took the brand.
Speaker 1: I thought this is cool, and I would love to
Speaker 1: see this on video because I'll bet it's just so
Speaker 1: bizarre and surreal to watch. They broadcast a series of
Speaker 1: live Tupperware parties on some home shopping channel in the
Speaker 1: early nineties. That was probably the first home shopping experience.
Speaker 1: I think those were around in the eighties. I think
Speaker 1: home shopping was already established. When did they do this
Speaker 1: early nineties? Oh? I thought you said he did it
Speaker 1: like in the sixties. No, no, no, got no, we
Speaker 1: should do one on home shopping. I'll bet that has
Speaker 1: an interesting, weird history. You think I'll look into you know? Okay,
Speaker 1: my mom's into it, man. QBC. So did we talk
Speaker 1: about how to throw a tupperware party? We did? We
Speaker 1: sure did. Okay, did we talk about tupperware drag parties?
Speaker 1: We did not. We should because there's more than one.
Speaker 1: There's well, there's one person in particular, a guy named
Speaker 1: Chris Anderson, who performs in drag as Dixie Longate and
Speaker 1: um sells like a million dollars worth of tupperware in
Speaker 1: the process. Like he gets paid to perform like you
Speaker 1: gotta pay forty bucks just to a person just to
Speaker 1: have I guess he stole does house parties, but he
Speaker 1: literally does like tours and does like off Broadway shows
Speaker 1: and stuff now right, But the whole thing is I
Speaker 1: mean real tupperware party where like you can buy tupperware,
Speaker 1: and like he's demonstrating the tupperware. He's kind of giving
Speaker 1: his own take on what it's useful for. But he's
Speaker 1: not the only um drag show in the country selling tupperware,
Speaker 1: of course, not apparently. Uh. A drag queen named Aunt
Speaker 1: Barbara up in Long Island is was at least in
Speaker 1: two twelve the number one salesperson in North America for tupperware.
Speaker 1: It all makes sense when you think about it. So
Speaker 1: two d and fifty grand worth of tupperware in one year.
Speaker 1: Like the kitch of the drag show the kitch of
Speaker 1: tupperware parties, it all sort of goes hand in hand. Yes,
Speaker 1: it does. And um I went to the website of
Speaker 1: Dixie Longate and he has a pretty interesting bio. I
Speaker 1: have three kids, Winona, Dwayne and Absorbing Junior. It's all
Speaker 1: made up, I think, I think maybe, although you never know,
Speaker 1: but yeah, now he has solo stand up shows, um
Speaker 1: and a recent theatrical show called Never Wear a Tube
Speaker 1: Top while Riding a Mechanical bowl and sixteen other things
Speaker 1: I learned while I was drinking last Thursday. And apparently
Speaker 1: that is selling out venues. It's basically that's selling out venues.
Speaker 1: We're not, but that is don't be better. We will
Speaker 1: one day if we didn't dragging. Probably. Well, no, that's
Speaker 1: not true either, one day chuck. Yeah. Uh wow, that's
Speaker 1: a weird way to end us. Yeah, I think it's perfect. Um.
Speaker 1: I thought I had something else, but I guess I don't. Oh,
Speaker 1: yes I do. PBS did a great documentary called Tupperware
Speaker 1: with an exclamation point. It's got a whole website on
Speaker 1: online and you can watch parts of the documentary, if
Speaker 1: not the whole thing. Yeah, and look for the Sandra
Speaker 1: Bullock the Brownie Wise story coming to a theater near
Speaker 1: you in a couple of years. Nice job, you said
Speaker 1: a theater near you. A theater you just said coming
Speaker 1: to a theater near you. That's like, Wow, did you
Speaker 1: ever think you would grow up to say that like
Speaker 1: in public? Sure? Okay, Well, if you want to know
Speaker 1: more about tupper war. You can type that one word
Speaker 1: and the search part how stuff works dot com? And uh,
Speaker 1: since I said search parts time for listener mail. And
Speaker 1: they call this the Strisand effect. Have you ever heard
Speaker 1: of this? No, Hello, Josh, Chuck and Jerry really enjoyed
Speaker 1: the podcast on Internet censorship, although I was disturbed that
Speaker 1: s OP three oh three exists. Sure, one thing not
Speaker 1: mentioned that I thought was relevant is when individuals attempt
Speaker 1: to censor specific things from their own life and the
Speaker 1: resulting fallout that occurs. In two thousand three, and I
Speaker 1: remember what was happening. Actually, a picture of Barbra Streisand's
Speaker 1: home in Malibu appeared in a publicly available collection of
Speaker 1: over twelve thousand photos of California coastline. The collection was
Speaker 1: documenting coastal erosion and not related to news paparazzi or
Speaker 1: tabloids or anything like that. But Streisand's lawyers filed a
Speaker 1: fifty million dollar lawsuit against the photographer, asking the picture
Speaker 1: to be taken down for privacy reasons. Before stories of
Speaker 1: the lawsuit hit the press, the photo of the home
Speaker 1: had only been downloaded six times, two of which were
Speaker 1: by her attorneys. During the following month. After the whole
Speaker 1: thing became a news story. More than four hundred thousand
Speaker 1: people visited the website. Uh, they even coined the term
Speaker 1: the streisand effect were an attempt to hand for her.
Speaker 1: Yeah it did. I remember this blew up in her face.
Speaker 1: An attempt at censoring or removing something from the Internet
Speaker 1: results and said thing being seen and reported on much
Speaker 1: more than if the person requesting it be removed it
Speaker 1: simply let it fade into obscurity. Thanks for the podcast.
Speaker 1: Also possibly a shout out to my wife Emily, who
Speaker 1: is nearly as addicted to stuff you should know as
Speaker 1: I am nearly And that is from Brinton Krausse in
Speaker 1: uh mid Hudson Valley, New York, USA. So Emily and
Speaker 1: get on it so you're equally as addicted. And thank
Speaker 1: you Britton for being fully addicted. Yeah to the brim.
Speaker 1: I guess Uh. If you want to get in touch
Speaker 1: with us and talk to us about tupperware or um whatever,
Speaker 1: you can tweet to us right at s y s
Speaker 1: K podcast. Josh's manning that station. You can go on
Speaker 1: to our awesome Facebook page courtesy of Chuckers Facebook dot
Speaker 1: com slash stuff you should know You can send us
Speaker 1: an email. We both get those become direct to us
Speaker 1: to uh stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com,
Speaker 1: and hang out with us at our home on the
Speaker 1: web Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. M