October 2018 – saleintothe90s

368. “Tab Soda Drinkers Miss Familiar Taste” (October 10, 1984)

Around the time of the 1984 Summer Olympics, commercials aired with model Jayne Kennedy rap/singing about “let’s taste new Tab”, turns out, most people didn’t want to taste new Tab:

(source)

Ever since Nutrasweet, the brand name for the low-calorie sweetener aspartame, was added to Tab in May, the Coca-Cola Company, which manufactures the diet cola, has been hearing from customers. Nearly 5,000 people have called or written, according to Thomas Mattingly, a company spokesman. Many have praised the taste of new Tab. But the vast majority, Mr. Mattingly said, are letters and calls of complaint.
“They say it doesn’t taste like their Tab,” Mr. Mattingly said, noting that it is more common for dissatisfied customers to write than satisfied ones. “We expected that,” he said. “There was a loyal group that drank Tab and wore that like a badge.”

[…]

Some Tab drinkers have bought cases of the old-style diet soda for rainy days. Vicki Cohen, a freelance television producer who used to drink 10 cans of Tab a day, has quit “cold turkey.”

“If I can’t have my Tab,” she said, “I’d rather have nothing.” She now drinks water.

[…]

Kathy Abrams, a law clerk in Alabama, agrees. At law school, she drank a six-pack of the soda daily because, she said, “I’m the type of person who needs something to do with my hands. I’m sure if I ever tried a cigarette, I’d smoke three packs a day.”

Ellen Schafer, who designs children’s clothing for Atlanta Knitting Mills in Manhattan, has been drinking Tab at meals and as a between- meal snack for about 10 years. She, too, has switched to ice water or, when she wants caffeine, iced coffee. “It’s too sweet now, I liked the chemical taste better,” she said. “I’d rather have the cyclamates, the saccharin, whatever used to be in it. Just give me back my Tab.”

Now, 34 years later, us Tab fans are wanting our Tab again. Give us back our Tab. One of the largest Coca-Cola bottlers on the East Coast, Consolidated stopped production of Tab earlier this year. New York Times ran a big article about it!

I picked up some Tab from Amazon Prime this week (affiliate link), and it will be waiting for me when I come home from work today!

Update on the Sears cosmetic counter entry from a few days ago

Hi everybody,

I have an update on the Sears entry. I found the name of one of the products I was looking for, turns out it was a Sears house brand:

http://saleintothe90s.tumblr.com/post/179197173314/367-when-sears-tried-to-get-into-cosmetics-late

Thanks for the notes on that last post, everybody.

367. When Sears tried to get into cosmetics (late 1990s)

(my photo of the Sears in Hampton, VA)

As we all know by now, Sears is pretty much on death’s door. They can close stores all they want (including the one in my hometown which is finally closing after nearly 44+ years of being open) but guys, they’re dead.

My most vivid memory of Sears during my teenage years in the late 90s is that they tried to get into the cosmetics department. My mom was always at Sears in the late 90s, using her Sears card. Finally one day in late 1999, there was something for me to do while I waited for her: a help-yourself cosmetics counter, with samples.

(http://gaus212.com/Sears.php) Ours in Hampton looked kinda like this? It was white that’s all I remember. White and long.

I’m mad that I don’t remember the brand names of the cosmetics sears carried at my store, they were not the brands that were in usual department stores, like Lancome, or Clinique, Sears in the U.S. couldn’t get those names. I just primarily remember Circle of Beauty, Sears’ in house brand. I remember all the shades being totally unflattering. I got a couple of things when Sears shut down their cosmetics counter in 2001, and the blush had no pigment, and the foundation felt like paint.

There were several other brands that catered to younger women, that I had a couple of items from. I think one brand was Studio Essentials? I had a white sparkily powder, that I put all over my face, because I didn’t know what highlighter was back in ‘99, 2000. I’ve looked all over for something about the brand, but all I find is the stuff dumb dumbs buy thinking its real MAC. The compact was square and black, and the font for the brand was something in the lucinda console family.

edit

I found a Pic I took 12 years ago of my embarrassing makeup. Guess who was there. The brand was called “studiomakeup" :

Clearly I could not afford makeup back then.

Also, it was an in house brand for Sears, according to the Paula Begoun book “Don’t go to the cosmetics counter without me” (2001 edition) 1:

Chicago Tribune:

Now Sears is rolling out a new line called Studio Makeup to attract a younger, edgier set of customers. By design, Studio Makeup resembles MAC, a line of highly pigmented products popularized by professional makeup artists. “We’re looking to be hip but extraordinarily more affordable,” said Mark Cohen, Sears senior vice president of merchandising in charge of cosmetics and accessories. 2

Another brand whose name I have completely forgotten, but they made lipsticks in tiny silver tubes, and at the top of the tube was the letters “FX”. The lipstick I wore to my high school graduation (hot pink, crunchy sparkles) in 2001 came from them. Solar FX?

(source)

I originally learned of Smell this perfume though the Delia*s catalog back in the late 90s. I flipped out when I saw that Sears had a small section of it in their new cosmetics department. I got Soda Pop Fizz and Canned Peaces for Christmas. I still have them! Of course I never use them because there’s only a drop left of each, but they still smell the same after nearly 20 years. I got Iced Tea to wear at high school graduation right before Sears stopped selling cosmetics. This is my most missed perfume line of all time. There’s absolutely none of it left online, except for some scant bottles of cookie dough lotion. ew.

I forgot that Sears also ~~sold~~ had on the shelves a lot of The Healing Garden. I only liked the one in the dark blue packaging for when you had a cold, the menthol one.

Time Out – when I think of the term “Time Out”, I think of a stressed out mom yelling “TIME OUT!” –not relaxing . This was Sears’ bobo answer to Bath and Body Works. This strawberry one STUNK. I remember getting a free set of it one year while back to school shopping. I still remember how crappy the bottle tops were, how they would leak all over the shelves at Sears.

1. Begoun, Paula, “Don’t go to the cosmetics counter without me : a unique guide to over 30,000 products, plus the latest skin-care research,” (Seattle: Beginning Press, 2001), 825.https://archive.org/details/dontgocosmetics00bego/page/824

2. Chandler, Susan, “Following the Scent,” Chicago Tribune, October 11, 1998. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1998-10-11-9810110471-story.html

337. 88 things about 1988 part 5

(part 4)

35. Fiesta Chicken McNuggets

Matt from Dinosaur Dracula has written in extreme detail about these lil guys and their coins in the past.

36. What to pack to college in 1988

Don’t forget Pictionary! I wanna now how much a “small portable computer with a printer” cost back then. Better just bring the electronic typewriter.

37. War & Remembrance Flops

In something that would be unheard of today, tv miniseries dominated the non-cable airwaves back then. One of which was 1983′s The Winds of War, based on the book by Herman Wouk. Well, ABC tried again in 1988 with the sequel War & Remembrance. Thing is, I suppose people were either tried of TV in general due to the writer’s strike, or just didn’t want to see the horrors of World War II in primetime. There’s some really upsetting scenes in the miniseries, I mean one of the main characters dies in the gas chambers in a concentration camp. You see him die. You see him being cremated. From the Los Angeles Times:

Despite good reviews and heavy promotion, the first 18-hour installment of ABC’s 32-hour “War and Remembrance” miniseries proved a ratings misfire, audience estimates showed Monday.

Aired on seven nights over 11 days, the $110-million sequel to ABC’s 1983 blockbuster “Winds of War” averaged an 18.6 rating–1.6 ratings points below what ABC had promised advertisers.

The miniseries opened on Nov. 13 with a 21.8 rating, but then faltered in the Nielsens. Last Wednesday’s closing episode got a 16.9. Each ratings point represents 904,000 homes.

Advertising executives said that as a result, ABC–which already expected to lose as much as $20 million on the project–may lose as much as an additional $3 million. The network will have to give sponsors “make-goods”–free or reduced-rate air time to compensate for the lower ratings.

What happened, ABC research director Larry Hyams said Monday, is that NBC succeeded with its youth-oriented counterprogramming ploys. Those included running such films as “Back to the Future,” “The Karate Kid” and the made-for-TV “Goddess of Love,” which featured Vanna White’s acting debut and which nearly beat the somber, serious “War and Remembrance” episode on Nov. 20. 2

Shows in 2018 do not get 16.9 ratings anymore! My favorite shows usually pack like, a 1.8 rating!

38. Sears Tower [Willis Tower] goes up for sale in Chicago (November 1)

I didn’t realize that in 1988, it was still the world’s tallest building, it stayed the tallest in the United States until the One World Trade center was completed. United Airlines is now the biggest tenant at Willis Tower.

Most employees left by 1992 to another complex in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. 3

39. Atlantic Shores School Shooting (December 16, 1988)

In a private Christian school in Virginia Beach, Nicholas Elliott shot two teachers in a trailer classroom and tried to fire at students (mainly his school bully) before his gun jammed. Nicholas received life in prison. 4

40. Jody Watley wins “Best New Artist” at the Grammy awards (March 2, 1988)

41. Roy Orbison dies (December 6th, 1988)

His wife would die 23 years later on the same date.

I learned who Roy was by watching old Saturday Night Live episodes when I was a teenager, and saw this tribute to him from the Kevin Kline December 10th, 1988 episode.

42. Lauryn Hill gets booed at the Apollo

(clip)

How dare they.

1. “Now That You’re College Material, It’s Time to Pack,” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, May 14, 1988. https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=cz8gAAAAIBAJ&sjid=XHoEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2964%2C5332672

2. Sharbutt, Jay, “’War’ Proves a Ratings Misfire,” Los Angels Times, November 29, 1988. http://articles.latimes.com/1988-11-29/entertainment/ca-525_1_premium-rates

3. Green, Larry and Tracy Shryer, “Sears to Move Core Group to Chicago Suburb,” Los Angeles Times, June 27, 1989. http://articles.latimes.com/1989-06-27/business/fi-4459_1_sears-tower-merchandising-group-chicago-suburb

4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UiMYIiS7bE