The White-Gloved History of Hamburger Helper

[Music] latchkey kids Rejoice it's Hamburger Helper time to some it's a sodium filled nostalgic Taste of childhood to others it's just a cheap and easy way to whip up dinner but how did this dry dinner mix become a staple of so many American homes today on weird history food we're cooking up the history of Hamburger Helper one Skillet at a time but before we get started be sure to subscribe to the weird history Food Channel and let us know in the comments below what other nostalgic meals you would like to hear about okay now let's join hands or a hand and make a great meal foreign [Music] during the economic downturn of the 1970s cash strapped American families looked for ways to stretch their meals further than ever before gone with a swinging 60s where a mother of three could satisfy her entire family with jelly beef in a Jello mold today those recipes are prosecutable dark days had fallen over the land and the country found itself in the middle of a nearly two decade-long inflationary period while all meat prices were on the rise beef was hit particularly hard as multiple cattle feed disruptions negatively affected the supply chain and caused Farmers to shrink their herds and you cannot cut Corners by recycling your old cows into the feed and that's how you get mad cow beef became hard to come by and hungry families cried out the nation over they needed a helping hand and who should answer their call but Betty Crocker herself well not literally Betty Crocker she's not a real person and she never was but the Betty Crocker brand which has been owned and operated by General Mills since 1928 in 1967 Betty Crocker introduced four beef-based dinner mixes for struggling families they consisted of noodles stroganoff macaroni Montebello noodles Canton and rice karaoke you may have noticed they misspelled both Canton and Teriyaki everyone else did too but no one seems to know why it really didn't matter though because the products which require the use of two separate pans for cooking up the noodles and for browning the beef failed to gain widespread appeal two pans Betty we are at War they were soon after pulled off the market and Betty Crocker had to go back to the drawing board just three years later General Mills home economist Marjorie Johnson came up with the idea that wood catapult an all-new brand into households Across America what if they could capture the flavor of the 1967 product line but have it all come together in just one easy to clean pan one pan now you're talking Betty no more boiling noodles no more shopping around for individual ingredients no more pain and suffering and so in December of 1970 Betty Crocker first introduced Hamburger Helper well what can I cook that Dad and the boys would like Hamburger Helper what I was planning this new product boasting its one Skillet method for meal prep began as a West Coast exclusive but thanks to marketing that included Johnson herself it quickly spread throughout the rest of the country by the following year dinner with hamburger helper is one of my specialties at launch they featured five different flavors including chili tomato beef noodle hash rice Oriental and potato stroganoff what's more Betty Crocker promised that just one pan one pound of hamburger and one package of any of her new products could feed a whole family of five and if you've ever had to feed five people every single day of the week you can see the appeal within the first year of its release a whopping 27 percent of U.S households had purchased at least one Hamburger Helper box its launch was so successful that within just a few years more they expanded the initial five flavor lineup to include the now famous cheeseburger macaroni and honestly we could have halted all human progress at that point mission accomplished Betty Crocker began playing with a non-beef helpers as well first there was 1972's tuna helper which helped fish loving families make loads of tuna casserole in one simple Skillet then there was 1973's fruit helper yeah fruit helper we double checked a flop compared to its predecessors this little number promised easy to make canned fruit-based desserts including the strawberry fruit Crunch and the coconut pudding fruit crunch unfortunately the failure of fruit helper was followed by a broader decline in overall sales and by the late 1970s hamburger helpers cash flow began to cash slow they needed to course correct before the entire brand went under and Betty Crocker knew just the man for the job meet the helping hand he was an all-new mascot launched in 1977 meant to rejuvenate the Hamburger Helper brand with only three fingers a thumb a nose like Rudolph and the coal black eyes of a rampaging shark this little guy began to pop up in TV sets Across America hi who's that that's the helping hand mom gets with hamburger helper his eyes didn't have a static position on his face and instead shifted all about his head seemingly unconnected from his hand-shaped body it's a little creepy his entire body is his face but also his hand how does that work and those creepy qualities weren't entirely lost on The Hamburger Helper making public for instance in 1979 writer and director Scott Spiegel produced a short horror film called attack of the helping hand it started Linda quiroz and future Spider-Man director Sam Raimi along with a young Bruce Campbell who was made to voice both the helping hand and the Pillsbury Doughboy in the film baby Scott Spiegel raymie and Campbell would later collaborate on the Evil Dead 2 which features a scene inspired by the short film in which Campbell's character must fight his own evil hand to the death luckily for General Mills attack of the helping hand had little reach unlike their adorable new mascot in rather wholesome commercials the helping hand would appear out of nowhere snap the fingers atop his head and break out into song as he helped struggling family's piece easy meals together like Mary Poppins if she were a giant disembodied hand he was a hit with families the nation over and hamburger helper was back on track as the 70s turned into the 80s and hamburger helper raced towards the New Millennium they again tried their hand at another spin-off product in 1984 they released Chicken Helper which was the same concept as the hamburger varieties with one key distinction the chicken soon after they released their own sloppy joe bake along with some all new flavors such as the irresistible delectable lasagna lasagna in a box the future truly has everything and we are lucky to live in it it was around this time that the helping hand simply became known as Lefty because he's a southpaw and the helping hand takes valuable time to say time that could be spent eating Chicken Helper over just a handful of years they released Asian helper whole grain helper Hamburger Helper microwave singles and pork helper the latter two of which were discontinued shortly after their initial launches when will pork finally receive the help it deserves Lefty found further Fame in comedy sketches of the Arts playing up the mascot's creepiness Jay Leno made a sketch in which a mother clubs Lefty with a wooden spoon and then feeds him to her family and a Mad TV sketch featured a dejected housewife seducing Lefty while her husband is out of town meanwhile Saturday Night Live made a sketch poking fun at the Brand's never-ending line of new products wherein couple is treated to Hamburger helper's newest product Hamburger Helper antibacterial [Music] after several years of being the butt of one too many jokes no unwanted Hamburger Helper anymore I'm so sorry for your burden in 2005 Hamburger Helper even ranked third on the Food Network's top 5 fat foods of 1970. uh that's tough to bounce back from the brand was in Decline and the rise of competing single skillet dinner boxes increasingly cut into its market share like Ascension hand faced with a big pair of scissors foremost among these competitors were Velveeta Skillets crafts 2011 answer to Hamburger Helper but with the full backing of cheesesaurus Rex behind it Velveeta Skillet took off and even though they cost more to make than Hamburger Helper many customers were willing to pay the premium price just to get a taste of Kraft's cheeseburger macaroni Slayer ultimate cheeseburger Mac within just two years of its launch Kraft had successfully taken over a whole fifth of the dry dinner mix Market this increase likewise dropped hamburger helpers market share from 8 88 to 69 percent a whopping 19 points it turns out the helping hand may not have had the legs they'd hoped [Music] Hamburger Helper was in the midst of a destabilizing period and the brand almost didn't recover the company needed to change quick if they wanted to save their product and their alarming mascot so in 2013 they decided to Rebrand entirely due to the increasing popularity of chicken General Mills began their pivot by dropping the hamburger from the hamburger helper name ever since the brand has officially been called helper even though the majority of us will continue to add the hamburger in there until we are cold in the ground along with this name change they also revamped their packaging to more heavily featured Lefty he'd save them once before who's to say nearly 40 years on he couldn't save them once again after all they don't call him the helping hand for nothing until they stop calling him that that is after some additional marketing research General Mills found that many of the customers they'd lost to other products were moms the helper brand was starting to be seen as a cheap sodium heavy alternative to healthier higher quality dry dinner mixed meals and choosing moms were happy to spend a little more to get what they perceived to be a better product for their families with hamburger helper being seen as too cheap and unhealthy for nuclear families the brand needed to court a new demographic in their time of need the answer single young men General Mills quickly shifted away from family focused advertising and instead directed their attention to their new Target demographic of single young men with this move came a whole new marketing approach helper brought back their microwave singles and upped its presence on both Facebook and Twitter engaging with pop culture like never before instance in response to Jay-Z and Kanye West's album Watch the Throne helper came out with a masterpiece all their own watch the stove released directly to SoundCloud this all new mixtape featured five different up-and-coming rappers all vibing out over helpers tasty lineup its songs included feed the streets Hamburger Helper crazy food for your soul and in love with a glove all of which today have a combined 15 million listens on the platform that's more than expected for a novelty food EP they even produced two accompanying music videos one of which features Lefty dancing uncomfortably close to a woman at the club shortly after dropping their mixtape helper through the Lefty 40-ounce bounce a wild party in Brooklyn New York celebrating the Brand's 40th anniversary in 2017. Lefty was DJing and that's not a joke in 2022 after over 50 years on the market Eagle brand bought helper from General Mills for 600 10 million dollars up from its original five flavors helper now has over 40 different flavors to choose from including cheesy enchilada tomato basil penne and ranch and bacon however it's been almost 15 years since the company's last spin-off attempt pork helper ship may have sailed but we're still holding out hope for haggis helper so what do you do you think what's your favorite Hamburger Helper flavor let us know in the comments below and while you're at it check out some of these other weird history food videos

Channel: Weird History Food

Views: 150,455

Keywords: history of hamburger helper, how hamburger helper got its start, the origins of hamburger helper, hamburger helper facts, how did hamburger helper start?, weird history food, weird history food nostalgia, hamburger helper, one pan meals, hamburger helper products, cheeseburger helper, tuna helper, chicken helper, food history, 80s food, 90s food, hamburger helper mascot, the helping hand, lefty hamburger helper, tasting history with max miller, history for busy people, eater

Id: U1wqZvOjle8

Length: 12min 2sec (722 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 09 2023