Latest / Stuff You Should Know / How Tupperware Works
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
- 0:04Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
- 0:13Speaker 1: the Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry the Stuff
- 0:17Speaker 1: you Should Know herb. Have you ever heard a tupper
- 0:23Speaker 1: Warrior burp? Yeah, sort of, I mean it, you know,
- 0:26Speaker 1: it doesn't sound like a burb. It's just sort of like,
- 0:29Speaker 1: can you emulate one? Well, it's just like a like
- 0:32Speaker 1: air just sort of it's like a burb. It sounds
- 0:35Speaker 1: like a dude, yeah, something different. Yeah, but I don't
- 0:38Speaker 1: think you could call it a Tupperware bart because it
- 0:41Speaker 1: probably wouldn't sell us. Well, even a burp is a
- 0:44Speaker 1: little you know. Okay, So I guess I have heard
- 0:47Speaker 1: one before when I was a kid, but I thought
- 0:49Speaker 1: like there was like a burb or something like that,
- 0:51Speaker 1: or do you remember that cartoon. It might have been like,
- 0:54Speaker 1: h what was the Droopy I think it might have
- 0:57Speaker 1: been a droopy cartoon, So some sort of cartoon where
- 1:02Speaker 1: like they had a machine that burped radishes. But I
- 1:06Speaker 1: like it. It was a great I think it was
- 1:07Speaker 1: like the Kitchen of the Future, one great cartoon. Bert.
- 1:13Speaker 1: That's what I assumed the Tupperware thing was like, yeah,
- 1:15Speaker 1: that was a big droopy fans I thought I was
- 1:17Speaker 1: missing out. Nope, no, it's just a little air being expelled.
- 1:21Speaker 1: But it was a very very important bit of air,
- 1:26Speaker 1: because Chuck. At the time that Tupperware came out, women
- 1:30Speaker 1: were using like basically a pot that they cooked something in,
- 1:36Speaker 1: maybe a bowl, and putting a shower cap over it
- 1:40Speaker 1: and storing it in the ice box. You know what
- 1:42Speaker 1: they call that primitive? That's primitive food storage. It sounds
- 1:47Speaker 1: like a tuk tuk would have done something like that,
- 1:50Speaker 1: not men and women in the nineteen forties, except he
- 1:54Speaker 1: would have used like some sort of Madagascar type animal
- 1:58Speaker 1: pelt sure them from the movie Madagascar. No, not Madagascar.
- 2:03Speaker 1: I say, that's what I'm thinking of. I say, I
- 2:06Speaker 1: haven't seen it one. So they're very similar. It is
- 2:08Speaker 1: setting like different climbs in different time periods. I've never
- 2:11Speaker 1: seen me either, different animal protagonists. I just I can
- 2:14Speaker 1: get a lot from commercials. Yeah, uh so, yeah, Tupperware,
- 2:19Speaker 1: let's let's talk about it. Um, the original patent. I
- 2:22Speaker 1: love the name of this thing, and you know it
- 2:25Speaker 1: was created. You want to drop this cool little fact
- 2:28Speaker 1: by the name the name of the guy Earl Tupper.
- 2:31Speaker 1: Yeah I never knew that. Yeah, I guess I didn't either.
- 2:34Speaker 1: I didn't didn't think about it. No, you think of
- 2:36Speaker 1: tupper war is nothing but tupper ware, and there's no
- 2:39Speaker 1: Tupper who invented It's crazy talk, right, Yeah, No, there
- 2:42Speaker 1: was a tupper named Earl and that tupper tup tupperware. Yes,
- 2:46Speaker 1: the Earl of Tupper he Uh he has a patent
- 2:49Speaker 1: um call it. Well had he didn't have it anymore. Uh.
- 2:52Speaker 1: The e s tupper open mouth container and non snap
- 2:55Speaker 1: type of closure. Therefore this by the way, Yeah, that's
- 3:00Speaker 1: why I read it like that. But I was explaining
- 3:02Speaker 1: that to the everybody else. Do they know me? This
- 3:06Speaker 1: is going poorly? No, it's not so. Um. Let's you
- 3:10Speaker 1: want to talk a little bit about Tupper himself. Yeah.
- 3:14Speaker 1: He Um was a bit of a reclusive figure, as
- 3:18Speaker 1: we'll find, but he was also like a he was
- 3:21Speaker 1: a pretty sharp guy. I A grouch, I think is
- 3:24Speaker 1: a possible way to describe him. Maybe a bit of
- 3:28Speaker 1: a mad, smart, tinkering grouch. Um. He disliked his father
- 3:32Speaker 1: because he felt his father lacked ambition. And this is
- 3:35Speaker 1: when he was like ten. Right, Um, all you do
- 3:38Speaker 1: is just go to the races and lay around het. Well,
- 3:40Speaker 1: his parents owned a like a farm of sorts, but
- 3:42Speaker 1: I think I get the idea. It was like kind
- 3:44Speaker 1: of a harvest your own farm. And this kid, little
- 3:47Speaker 1: Earl Tupper, when he was like ten twelve, he was
- 3:50Speaker 1: like pitching the idea to to build like a children's
- 3:53Speaker 1: playground on the grounds of his pick your own farm
- 3:57Speaker 1: for you know, to at track tourists and stuff. And
- 3:59Speaker 1: his I was like, it sounds like a lot of work, totally,
- 4:03Speaker 1: just go to school or something. Get out of my hair.
- 4:06Speaker 1: And Arrow was like, you're gonna pay for ignoring me.
- 4:11Speaker 1: But he he was of sharp contrast to his father,
- 4:14Speaker 1: is what I'm trying to say. He was very ambitious.
- 4:17Speaker 1: Big Tinker came up with a lot of different patent
- 4:20Speaker 1: ideas and apparently patents too. Yeah he Uh he had
- 4:23Speaker 1: a book of inventions. Uh. There was a better stocking guarter,
- 4:28Speaker 1: which is a very sexy thing for a child to admit, right. Um,
- 4:32Speaker 1: A better way to remove a burst appendix. Yeah, yeah,
- 4:35Speaker 1: that's for real. Um, a dagger shaped comb to be
- 4:38Speaker 1: clipped to the belt. Um pants that wouldn't lose their crease. Um.
- 4:43Speaker 1: This one of great import. Yeah, the customized cigarettes, I
- 4:47Speaker 1: can't believe that didn't catch on, like for real, you
- 4:49Speaker 1: know how Coca Cola does this stupid cans and bottles
- 4:52Speaker 1: now with names. Oh now I understand. Yeah, there were
- 4:55Speaker 1: cigarettes that said like Sporty or the collegiate on the cigarette,
- 4:59Speaker 1: so it would have like your sports team like emblazoned
- 5:03Speaker 1: on the side. Maybe the problem is none of these
- 5:07Speaker 1: inventions took off. Now this guy literally well he could
- 5:12Speaker 1: give his inventions away, but like he almost literally couldn't
- 5:16Speaker 1: give him give them away. He he ended up manufacturing
- 5:19Speaker 1: these things and giving them away is like premiums for
- 5:22Speaker 1: other stuff like cigarettes and things like that. Yeah. So, um,
- 5:25Speaker 1: he starts a tree uh doctor business, Tupper Tree Doctors
- 5:31Speaker 1: that um failed after um the depression, people were cutting
- 5:35Speaker 1: back on things like tree doctoring. So he went out
- 5:38Speaker 1: of business and in a very fortuitous move, went and
- 5:42Speaker 1: worked um for Visca Lloyd Plant, which is a division
- 5:47Speaker 1: of DuPont making plastics. Right, and this is where things
- 5:51Speaker 1: kind of started taking shape. Yes, yes, yes, so basically
- 5:56Speaker 1: he gets into plastics and this town in Massachusetts that
- 6:01Speaker 1: he ended up in where the Vistalloid plant was, he
- 6:04Speaker 1: was all over New England basically growing up right, this
- 6:07Speaker 1: particular town was kind of like a mad scientists mecca
- 6:11Speaker 1: where like all of this stuff is going on in plastics,
- 6:14Speaker 1: all these little tiny plastic manufacturing outfits are, you know,
- 6:18Speaker 1: start It's like a startup town for plastics in like
- 6:21Speaker 1: the thirties or forties. They're like, we have this new thing,
- 6:23Speaker 1: Like what all can we do with it? Yeah? And which,
- 6:25Speaker 1: by the way, plastic, especially polyethylene. Polyethylene was invented by accident,
- 6:31Speaker 1: and by the forties they had still kind of they
- 6:35Speaker 1: perfected the polyethylene or had come out perfect, but they
- 6:39Speaker 1: hadn't figured out quite how to use it. And Earl
- 6:41Speaker 1: Tupper was one of those guys in the forties on
- 6:44Speaker 1: the cutting edge of taking plastics and figuring out how
- 6:46Speaker 1: to mold them in the right shape, how to keep
- 6:48Speaker 1: him from being oily or sticky or falling apart when
- 6:52Speaker 1: they were sitting out in the sunlight or all this stuff.
- 6:54Speaker 1: This guy is doing all these tests and he ends
- 6:57Speaker 1: up coming up thanks to getting a block of this
- 7:00Speaker 1: pure polyethylene from DuPont, the good stuff, the good stuff,
- 7:04Speaker 1: uncut stuff, um, and he figures out how to make
- 7:07Speaker 1: this bowl, A wonder lier bowl is what he calls it. Yeah,
- 7:11Speaker 1: and um DuPont at the time didn't think that they
- 7:14Speaker 1: could even mold plastic. Like he was smarter than their
- 7:16Speaker 1: guys because he figured out how to do it. And
- 7:20Speaker 1: Um then along with the design the the patented U
- 7:25Speaker 1: tupperware seal that made it so useful and famous, that
- 7:29Speaker 1: made the what sound that made the like the burping
- 7:32Speaker 1: sound or tooting sound. Um he originally got that idea
- 7:37Speaker 1: for the seal from paint cans, apparently, the fact that
- 7:40Speaker 1: you could turn a paint can upside down and it
- 7:42Speaker 1: wouldn't leak paint out all over the place. And he said,
- 7:44Speaker 1: I guess we can do this with food, you know, Yeah,
- 7:48Speaker 1: like put food in here. It's sealed. Look at the demonstration.
- 7:51Speaker 1: It's upside down and I'm shaking it and there's none
- 7:53Speaker 1: of that gravy coming out. What right, the grave is
- 7:56Speaker 1: not coming out. I can drop this bowl and it's
- 7:58Speaker 1: not gonna break because everyone knows how clumsy housewives are
- 8:03Speaker 1: breaking stuff all over And the fact that it, um
- 8:07Speaker 1: is that you burp it right, and it makes that sound,
- 8:12Speaker 1: and you're basically preserving the food for many many days
- 8:16Speaker 1: to come which was huge because a lot of the
- 8:19Speaker 1: people who were um homemakers in the forties and fifties,
- 8:24Speaker 1: they had lived through the depression and they remembered exactly
- 8:27Speaker 1: what it was like. So preserving food was a big deal.
- 8:30Speaker 1: And so this thing was like it's really easy to
- 8:33Speaker 1: take for granted these days, but it was very cutting
- 8:36Speaker 1: edge technology. Well, these days they have all those terrible
- 8:40Speaker 1: cheap oh uh, I was gonna say knockoffs are not
- 8:43Speaker 1: knockoffs are major brands. But you know those little cheap
- 8:46Speaker 1: plastic containers that are sold, they're they're not nearly the
- 8:50Speaker 1: quality of Tupperware. No tupper Warres started all that. Yeah,
- 8:53Speaker 1: and this stuff is garbage. The lids don't fit right ever,
- 8:57Speaker 1: they break, they don't, they don't do any thing that
- 9:00Speaker 1: Tupperware did. Like I have a Wonder bowl from the
- 9:03Speaker 1: nineteen seventies that's still like perfect. I mean it's a
- 9:08Speaker 1: little worn down, but it's still like functions perfectly right. Well,
- 9:11Speaker 1: it's a testament to and that other garbage that stuff,
- 9:15Speaker 1: like I don't have anything from last year. Well, it's
- 9:18Speaker 1: made and it was made during a time of much
- 9:22Speaker 1: more disposable thinking. You know, at the time it was like,
- 9:27Speaker 1: we're gonna make something now will last forever. Yeah, and
- 9:29Speaker 1: I think they still have a lifetime guarantees on everything. Yeah.
- 9:33Speaker 1: Like you could send in a tupperware piece from the
- 9:35Speaker 1: sixties and they'll, you know, if it's broken and it
- 9:39Speaker 1: meets the requirements, like you know, you didn't smash it
- 9:42Speaker 1: with a hammer or something. Um, because they can't prove you,
- 9:46Speaker 1: they'll give you like credits or the equivalent of what
- 9:48Speaker 1: you could get today or something. It's like, well, you
- 9:50Speaker 1: paid for that, but like, let's see what the West
- 9:54Speaker 1: Aid currency calculator has to say about that. So, um,
- 9:57Speaker 1: he formed Upper Plastics. Uh. Thing did not take off though,
- 10:02Speaker 1: um like he thought they would. He put him in
- 10:03Speaker 1: department stores and hardware stores for some reason, not a
- 10:08Speaker 1: good place to sell your tupperware. Yeah. I mean nowadays
- 10:11Speaker 1: I can see that, but back then you probably just
- 10:14Speaker 1: went to hardware stores for nails and hammers and stuff. Yeah,
- 10:17Speaker 1: I'm sure there are home goods and stuff too. It
- 10:18Speaker 1: was probably closer to a general store in the hardware
- 10:21Speaker 1: stores today, but even still, they weren't flying off the
- 10:24Speaker 1: shelves at the point. They were not. Um. So what
- 10:27Speaker 1: he did was there was another timeline going on at
- 10:31Speaker 1: the same time. UM Stanley Home Products was this, uh
- 10:36Speaker 1: basically pioneered the non door to door sales in favor
- 10:41Speaker 1: of hosting a party for lack of a better word,
- 10:45Speaker 1: in home demonstrations where you would gather people together. And
- 10:49Speaker 1: it was a guy named Norman Squires had um garnered
- 10:53Speaker 1: a lot of profits in this kind of sales, and
- 10:56Speaker 1: they had working for them a woman named Brownie Wise
- 11:00Speaker 1: and she was selling all kinds of stuff for Stanley
- 11:03Speaker 1: Home Products and uh they called it the hostess group
- 11:06Speaker 1: demonstration plan and she was a great, great salesperson. Yeah.
- 11:11Speaker 1: So these people at Stanley Home Products basically found tupperware
- 11:16Speaker 1: on their own and started selling it at these hostess parties. Right. Yeah,
- 11:20Speaker 1: she formed her own company called Tupperware Patio Parties. Oh
- 11:25Speaker 1: did she yea before she was hired. Before she was hired,
- 11:28Speaker 1: And she was selling so much of it that Earl
- 11:31Speaker 1: Tupper got in touch with her and was like, I
- 11:33Speaker 1: can't sell this stuff in stores like you're beating like
- 11:36Speaker 1: department stores in New York City sales records, and she yeah,
- 11:40Speaker 1: she really was. She had a lot of charms. She
- 11:42Speaker 1: had um she figured out that this burp thing that
- 11:47Speaker 1: was so essential and made this product so revolutionary, right that, Um,
- 11:53Speaker 1: it wasn't like intuitive, you didn't just understand how to
- 11:57Speaker 1: work it, and so it wasn't helping sale, which again
- 12:00Speaker 1: seems weird today, but back then people like, what is
- 12:03Speaker 1: this weird colored thing? Just go together? And they're just
- 12:08Speaker 1: banging them together in the isle of a hardware store crying. Um.
- 12:12Speaker 1: They She figured out that if you demonstrate this to people,
- 12:16Speaker 1: especially in like somebody's house or whatever and they've had
- 12:20Speaker 1: a couple of martinis and there's or Derv's, people are
- 12:23Speaker 1: apt to buy these things. And yeah, like you said,
- 12:25Speaker 1: she started out selling department stores hardware stores obviously, um,
- 12:30Speaker 1: and she got hired on by Earl Tupper. She was
- 12:33Speaker 1: in Detroit at the time. I think I think she'd
- 12:35Speaker 1: moved down to Orlando when she was hired. Oh really
- 12:39Speaker 1: by that point. Yeah, she was from Beauford, Georgia originally. Yeah,
- 12:42Speaker 1: she was from Earl Georgia. And U ended up, um
- 12:45Speaker 1: being married and divorced, which was pretty unusual at the time.
- 12:48Speaker 1: And she was a single mom. Yep, the little Jerry
- 12:50Speaker 1: Wise that's right. She unfortunately her husband was a violent
- 12:54Speaker 1: drunk that too, so that's not saying that. That's PBS
- 12:58Speaker 1: taken the fall for that. So she was re married
- 13:00Speaker 1: him for about six years and then it was basically like,
- 13:03Speaker 1: I'm gonna make my own way. He only had an
- 13:05Speaker 1: eighth grade education, and she was killing it on the
- 13:08Speaker 1: sales front. Yeah, she she really was. So it took
- 13:11Speaker 1: before we get any further about Brownie Wise. Great name name, yeah,
- 13:16Speaker 1: maybe not a band name, but a great name. The
- 13:18Speaker 1: brown the Brownie Wise would be a good name, or
- 13:21Speaker 1: the the Brownie Wise massacre Yeah sure, yeah, there you go,
- 13:26Speaker 1: or Brownie Wise over Drive. Both of those anyway for
- 13:30Speaker 1: one another. I guess the point that I'm trying to
- 13:33Speaker 1: get to his Let's take your break, Okay. So Brownie
- 13:50Speaker 1: Wise has her tupper Wear Patio Parties company out selling stores.
- 13:55Speaker 1: She gets hired on UM. They literally divide the company
- 13:59Speaker 1: into uh two sides, the Tupperware manufacturing up in Massachusetts
- 14:03Speaker 1: and then Tupperware Home Parties down in Orlando. Down in Orlando, yeah,
- 14:07Speaker 1: where she lives. Basically, Earl Tupper comes to her in
- 14:11Speaker 1: n and says, hey, how would you like to be
- 14:14Speaker 1: one of like three female high level executives in the
- 14:18Speaker 1: United States in the world I would guess, and she said,
- 14:21Speaker 1: that's sure, why not, I'll do you a favor. And
- 14:25Speaker 1: I said she was a very interesting woman. If I didn't,
- 14:27Speaker 1: I did in my head and meant to say it,
- 14:29Speaker 1: but she, Um, there's apparently a movie coming out about
- 14:33Speaker 1: her life, starring Sandra Bullock. You did not say that,
- 14:36Speaker 1: and I did see that, So there you go. I
- 14:39Speaker 1: couldn't find any information on except that I think it's
- 14:42Speaker 1: in uh in pre uh pre production right now. Oh,
- 14:45Speaker 1: I see, I think it's going to happen. But um, yeah,
- 14:48Speaker 1: I mean she she's one of the great uh woman
- 14:52Speaker 1: entrepreneurs that this country has ever seen, the world has
- 14:54Speaker 1: ever seen. Really yea, because she took this tupperware, which
- 14:57Speaker 1: everyone except the American public agreed was great. In ninety seven,
- 15:02Speaker 1: the year that Tupper invented this stuff, Time named it
- 15:07Speaker 1: this amazing thing. It won design Awards. Yeah, she was
- 15:11Speaker 1: on the first woman on the cover of Business Week magazine,
- 15:13Speaker 1: right right. But even before she came along, everybody, especially
- 15:17Speaker 1: in the art world, in the design world, um said this, this,
- 15:20Speaker 1: this stuff is great. But it was just sitting there languishing,
- 15:23Speaker 1: and then then Brownie Wise comes along and just turns
- 15:26Speaker 1: it into a blockbuster, like turns it into it an
- 15:29Speaker 1: American iconic brand, which it still is today. Yeah. And
- 15:32Speaker 1: what she realized, which is uh was a stroke of genius,
- 15:36Speaker 1: was it's the nineteen fifties. The suburbs are happening post
- 15:41Speaker 1: World War two in a big way. Um, there's a
- 15:44Speaker 1: lot of women that are that are homemakers, that are
- 15:49Speaker 1: I guess we could just say they were bored and
- 15:51Speaker 1: looking for something to do well. Plus also they had
- 15:54Speaker 1: very um, they had very real constrictions on their time
- 16:00Speaker 1: where like they're basically freedom of movement. They didn't have cars,
- 16:04Speaker 1: they didn't have things like this, they didn't have a
- 16:06Speaker 1: lot of ways to make money. Yeah. Well, and again
- 16:08Speaker 1: they were out in the suburbs for the first time.
- 16:10Speaker 1: It's not like many of these were connected by subway
- 16:13Speaker 1: or anything. That was still an inner city deal. Right. So,
- 16:15Speaker 1: But rather than view these places as fast like waste
- 16:18Speaker 1: lands of isolation, Brownie Wise said, no, these are like
- 16:21Speaker 1: little tiny social networks where people know and trust one
- 16:25Speaker 1: another and they're board out of their skulls and they're
- 16:28Speaker 1: looking for ways to make money. Like so, not only
- 16:31Speaker 1: do you have a really great market to sell this to,
- 16:34Speaker 1: you have a really great workforce that's just sitting there, idol.
- 16:37Speaker 1: And she said, how would you gals like to sell tupperware?
- 16:41Speaker 1: And they went, let's do this, that's right. And what
- 16:44Speaker 1: she did was came up with a system where and
- 16:46Speaker 1: you could work your way up the chain, um, from
- 16:50Speaker 1: sales all the way. Well, let's let's just detail it.
- 16:53Speaker 1: What you are is your consultant at first, which is
- 16:57Speaker 1: out there, you know, holding the parties, hosting these parties.
- 17:00Speaker 1: Talk about everybody's till yeah, and then you can work
- 17:04Speaker 1: your up to manager if you organize a certain number
- 17:06Speaker 1: of parties, and then managers, uh, we're eventually recruiting other women.
- 17:14Speaker 1: So if you recruit enough women and increased sales, then
- 17:17Speaker 1: you could rise to distributor. And that was the highest
- 17:20Speaker 1: level you could attain at that point. Yes, you could
- 17:23Speaker 1: be a distributor. You have your own office, you have
- 17:25Speaker 1: your network of managers, and then they managed the consultants
- 17:28Speaker 1: or the party throwers, party hosts, and um. Basically she
- 17:33Speaker 1: started her own army of salespeople. Yeah, so incentibized salespeople.
- 17:38Speaker 1: Right now, there are two point nine million people in
- 17:44Speaker 1: the world. Every three seconds there's another top waur party.
- 17:48Speaker 1: But we're getting ahead of ourselves, right, So she she
- 17:50Speaker 1: put together this workforce and again it was UM, this
- 17:53Speaker 1: guy named Norman Squires who came up with this idea
- 17:56Speaker 1: that led to UM being a huge, huge hip for tupperware,
- 18:01Speaker 1: but also later on avon Um and Mary Kay and
- 18:07Speaker 1: Pampered Chef and like all of these, all of these
- 18:10Speaker 1: brands that like are sold through hostess parties basically get
- 18:15Speaker 1: you in our house and get you drunk and just
- 18:20Speaker 1: leave me a blank Checkly, but the it wasn't invented
- 18:24Speaker 1: by Brownie wise, but she definitely perfected it for sure.
- 18:27Speaker 1: So UM she tapped this workforce. And one of the
- 18:30Speaker 1: ways that she kept people excited and loyal not just
- 18:33Speaker 1: the fact that they could rise throughout this hierarchy UM
- 18:38Speaker 1: in the tupperware industry, but there there was also like
- 18:41Speaker 1: this thing that she created called the Jubilee every year
- 18:44Speaker 1: down Orlando. It was a big company party it was,
- 18:47Speaker 1: and they would just pull out all the stops like
- 18:50Speaker 1: they would bury fur coats. They were bury blenders. One
- 18:55Speaker 1: of the buyers once said that he bought a hundred
- 18:57Speaker 1: thousand blenders once for this jubilee. They just bring all
- 19:00Speaker 1: these tupperware sales associates and just basically throw them a
- 19:04Speaker 1: party for a few days and let them just win
- 19:06Speaker 1: free stuff and have a great time. Yeah. And when
- 19:09Speaker 1: you say, Barry, I think we should explains that sounds
- 19:11Speaker 1: really weird. They would bury these prizes and people would
- 19:14Speaker 1: go and dig them up. Right. It wasn't like you
- 19:17Speaker 1: can't have this. Look at what you can't have, we're
- 19:19Speaker 1: burying it. They just sounded fun. You're like, they bury
- 19:21Speaker 1: for coats, they bury anything that moves. Yeah, thank you. Yeah,
- 19:24Speaker 1: but it was all part of the fun. Apparently they
- 19:26Speaker 1: lost a lot of them too. Yeah. Years later, Um,
- 19:30Speaker 1: at the at the Tupperware headquarters in ORLEANSO, they went
- 19:33Speaker 1: to dig a pond and they found a bunch of
- 19:35Speaker 1: the prizes that had never been found. Yes, some say
- 19:38Speaker 1: there's still for coats buried all over Orlando by the illuminati. Right. So, um,
- 19:46Speaker 1: those are the big jubilee parties, the big company parties.
- 19:48Speaker 1: Great for morale. Um. The hostess uh themselves or the
- 19:53Speaker 1: consultants would um, they would make percentage. Uh, they basically
- 19:58Speaker 1: make a cut what they were able to sell as
- 20:00Speaker 1: well as get prizes. Um, like these really neat prizes
- 20:04Speaker 1: and the more parties you hosted, the better the prizes
- 20:06Speaker 1: would get. So it's like it's like the Wild West.
- 20:11Speaker 1: It's the Heyday for these women. They're like earning their
- 20:13Speaker 1: own money for a change. They're getting these great prizes.
- 20:16Speaker 1: They're feeling great about themselves. They're not bored any longer.
- 20:20Speaker 1: And their husbands were like, WHOA, what's going on here?
- 20:22Speaker 1: Give me that money you made? Yeah, exactly. And things
- 20:26Speaker 1: were so successful with this model that that was their
- 20:29Speaker 1: only sales model up until the late nineteen eighties. Right,
- 20:32Speaker 1: You couldn't even buy the stuff in stores. No, he
- 20:34Speaker 1: just stopped. It wasn't even worth the money or effort
- 20:36Speaker 1: to distribute it. The stories. They just did it through
- 20:39Speaker 1: parties and home parties. Thank you, Brownie Wise all right, So, um,
- 20:44Speaker 1: and like you said in they started selling it through
- 20:48Speaker 1: um catalogs, I guess, uh, yeah, I think they. I've
- 20:54Speaker 1: seen like older catalogs from like the fifties and sixties,
- 20:57Speaker 1: So I don't know what that means. Maybe over the
- 20:59Speaker 1: phone you saw Tupperware one. Yeah, it's on our it's
- 21:03Speaker 1: on the podcast pitch for this episode. There's a link
- 21:05Speaker 1: to this kind of design layout and it has some catalogs.
- 21:09Speaker 1: So it must have been like ordered by phone. Oh yeah,
- 21:11Speaker 1: maybe so. And then just about ten years later, Tupperware
- 21:15Speaker 1: had their first website, which e commerce in that was
- 21:20Speaker 1: fairly forward thinking. Yeah that's true, you know. Yeah, um,
- 21:24Speaker 1: so this caught like wildfire today you can it's not
- 21:29Speaker 1: just like an American institution. There are Tupperware parties, like
- 21:33Speaker 1: we said, at the rate of one every three seconds,
- 21:36Speaker 1: and more than a hundred countries around the world. I
- 21:39Speaker 1: had no idea that Tupperware was that popular in like
- 21:41Speaker 1: Asia and India, And they said half a million, more
- 21:45Speaker 1: than half a million every year in France alone. Yeah,
- 21:50Speaker 1: of Tupperware sales are outside of the US these days. Yeah,
- 21:53Speaker 1: and it's a I mean, like it's got it moving
- 21:56Speaker 1: like gangbusters. Last I saw, I was trading at like
- 21:58Speaker 1: sixty three dollars a share, which is down from like
- 22:00Speaker 1: a hundred in December. Maybe. Um, Like it's it's a
- 22:05Speaker 1: really set company again these days, Like it's been able
- 22:09Speaker 1: to just be on the brink of utter irrelevance when
- 22:12Speaker 1: it finds a new market, when it figures out a
- 22:15Speaker 1: new way to do to sell, when it figures out
- 22:18Speaker 1: a new product, like currently right now in China. Um,
- 22:23Speaker 1: Tupperware is making tons of cash selling a thousand dollar
- 22:26Speaker 1: water filter, and they're doing it by traveling from town
- 22:29Speaker 1: to town and setting up these in home demonstrations or
- 22:32Speaker 1: public demonstrations and showing how to do it. So they're
- 22:35Speaker 1: like taking the Tupperware model that Brownie Wise like really
- 22:38Speaker 1: perfected and and figuring out how it best works and
- 22:41Speaker 1: cultures around the world. Yeah, I know. They make um also,
- 22:44Speaker 1: like uh, depending on your country and what they eat,
- 22:47Speaker 1: like certain shaped um containers, right like round bread containers
- 22:51Speaker 1: for non in India. How about that? So what happened
- 22:55Speaker 1: to Brownie Wise? I guess she retired, was thanked, carried
- 22:59Speaker 1: out on everyone shoulders, and lived a great fulfilled life
- 23:04Speaker 1: until her death. Right. Well, we're gonna tell you right
- 23:07Speaker 1: after this break, all right, Josh, let's fast forward to um.
- 23:30Speaker 1: The Tupperware business is booming, Brownie Wise is a bit
- 23:36Speaker 1: of a celebrity. The twist is going like Gangbusters? Was it?
- 23:40Speaker 1: Probably okay? People are still twisting the night away? Yeah?
- 23:44Speaker 1: I mean what was that like? Probably started three years?
- 23:47Speaker 1: Sure there was some squares still twisting. Yeah, they weren't
- 23:51Speaker 1: doing the mashed potato yet. No, I think that was
- 23:54Speaker 1: a little later, Okay, Um, so business is booming, Brownie
- 23:57Speaker 1: Wise is killing it. She's a celebrity. Earl Tupper um
- 24:01Speaker 1: starts to get little jealous over the years. It's as
- 24:03Speaker 1: simple as that. Yeah. As much as he like didn't
- 24:07Speaker 1: seek or want the limelight, he was still jealous that
- 24:10Speaker 1: Brownie Wise people thought that she was Tupperware and that
- 24:14Speaker 1: she started the company um and started selling like I
- 24:17Speaker 1: can sell anything like this. So she didn't say that
- 24:21Speaker 1: him in the media said she could. She could have
- 24:24Speaker 1: done this with any brand. She's that great, and Earl
- 24:27Speaker 1: Tupper wanted to be like, well, no, I mean my
- 24:29Speaker 1: product that I invented is you know a big part
- 24:33Speaker 1: of this, if not the thing, Earl Tupper right, so
- 24:36Speaker 1: he um he apparently also she stopped kind of cow
- 24:40Speaker 1: towing to him quite as much. Um, but I got
- 24:43Speaker 1: on great for a while. Yeah. And again he had
- 24:47Speaker 1: said to their PR department and to any media interviewer like, yes,
- 24:52Speaker 1: this lady is the face of Tupperware. Treater is such, promoter,
- 24:55Speaker 1: is such, And he, just like you said, ended up
- 24:58Speaker 1: getting jealous. Didn't like that she wasn't cows outing to
- 25:01Speaker 1: him any longer, and in night said, you're fired. Yeah.
- 25:05Speaker 1: He The story I read was that he wanted to
- 25:08Speaker 1: sell the company and cash in, and that he didn't
- 25:12Speaker 1: think and was advised that it would be really hard
- 25:15Speaker 1: to sell a company with a woman in such a
- 25:17Speaker 1: prominent position on the board. And so he, uh, like
- 25:21Speaker 1: you said, just unceremoniously get rid of her, gave her
- 25:24Speaker 1: one year salary. It was like thirty grands zero stock
- 25:29Speaker 1: that she had built almost from the ground up. Yeah,
- 25:32Speaker 1: or help build at least. And I gotta say that
- 25:35Speaker 1: was her you know, that was her mistake. She should
- 25:38Speaker 1: have gotten some stock along the way. Yeah, I guess.
- 25:41Speaker 1: You know, she's too busy selling And yeah, I mean exactly.
- 25:45Speaker 1: She was imagined thirty five grand a year was a
- 25:47Speaker 1: pretty good salary at the point. You want me to
- 25:50Speaker 1: look it up, I will, you can. So she got
- 25:53Speaker 1: that small pay out. She went UM and what he
- 25:56Speaker 1: said to her was is that there were some accounting
- 26:00Speaker 1: errors in the previous year. She wouldn't come to Massachusetts
- 26:03Speaker 1: to talk to him about it, and sort of dug
- 26:05Speaker 1: In says that she said that she had gotten sicker,
- 26:08Speaker 1: injured and couldn't leave Florida. He finally went down to
- 26:11Speaker 1: Florida UM and basically said that, you know, these jubilees
- 26:15Speaker 1: are too expensive. The landscaping you've done here in Florida,
- 26:19Speaker 1: the company headquarters is too expensive. You're spending too much
- 26:22Speaker 1: money on clothes. Uh. And we own all that stuff,
- 26:25Speaker 1: We own all your clothing. What well, I mean that's
- 26:28Speaker 1: I don't know if he actually took it, but he
- 26:30Speaker 1: basically was like, you know, she paid for all that
- 26:32Speaker 1: stuff through the company, as she should have, you know,
- 26:35Speaker 1: to keep up appearances. But um, yeah, that was it
- 26:39Speaker 1: for her. She started a small company called Cinderella Cosmetics
- 26:43Speaker 1: that folded after a year and sort of faded into obscurity.
- 26:47Speaker 1: Then um earl tupper Uh sold out that the next
- 26:53Speaker 1: year I think sixteen million. Yeah, he sells out for
- 26:56Speaker 1: sixteen million dollars. Nice cash. She wrecked all drug company,
- 27:01Speaker 1: which was eventually absorbed by Kraft, who apparently now owns Tupperware.
- 27:06Speaker 1: I think maybe it's the parent company. Um and yeah,
- 27:10Speaker 1: sixteen million in nineteen fifty eight. It's not too bad
- 27:13Speaker 1: for a boy who couldn't get his parents to build
- 27:14Speaker 1: a playground on the family pick your own whatever farm.
- 27:18Speaker 1: Did you find out if she thirty five grand was
- 27:20Speaker 1: a good salary? Yeah? It wasn't bad. It was like
- 27:23Speaker 1: two hundred and I think thirty two thousand dollars back then. Yeah,
- 27:29Speaker 1: that's good. It's not bad. I mean especially for a executive. Yeah. Um.
- 27:35Speaker 1: But he sold the whole thing for sixteen million, gave
- 27:37Speaker 1: her one year salary, moved to Costa Rica, bought an island,
- 27:42Speaker 1: announced as US citizenships so they didn't have to pay
- 27:44Speaker 1: any taxes on that. Got divorced. Yeah right, and uh
- 27:48Speaker 1: said Siona, everybody, I'm going to Costa Rica to buy
- 27:52Speaker 1: an island and keep a note pad in my pocket.
- 27:55Speaker 1: So anytime an idea for a new invention hits, I'll
- 27:59Speaker 1: have it. Yeah. And just like probably you know, eight
- 28:03Speaker 1: pineapples on his island. Yeah. He died in three in
- 28:07Speaker 1: Costa Rica, Uh, seventy six, and she died in nineteen
- 28:12Speaker 1: and Um, tupperware has not gone out of fashion. It's
- 28:16Speaker 1: it's been featured uh starting in what year was it,
- 28:21Speaker 1: I guess when they first came out at the Museum
- 28:23Speaker 1: of Modern Art, and then again in two thousand eleven.
- 28:25Speaker 1: I think I even saw this exhibit. In fact, I'm
- 28:28Speaker 1: almost positive I did, because it was about just industrial
- 28:31Speaker 1: design and things, and there's Tupperware all over again because
- 28:35Speaker 1: of its gorgeous of course, now you know that fifties
- 28:39Speaker 1: era design. The original line that tupper released is called
- 28:46Speaker 1: the Millionaire line, and it came in six colors, five
- 28:50Speaker 1: pastels and one white, right, yellow, blue, green, orange, and pink.
- 28:54Speaker 1: And they're really pretty. Like if you look at a
- 28:56Speaker 1: set of these things in a good, good condition, they're gorgeous.
- 28:59Speaker 1: He went on to the Plastics Hall of Fame. Um
- 29:03Speaker 1: and now like this stuff from the fifties and sixties,
- 29:06Speaker 1: you can get some decent money on eBay for that stuff,
- 29:10Speaker 1: you know, because it still works and people love that
- 29:12Speaker 1: retro look. Did you know that he refused refused to
- 29:18Speaker 1: have any um any pet bowls designed. He thought it
- 29:22Speaker 1: was Tupperware was too good for pets to eat out of.
- 29:25Speaker 1: What a jerk. See, I was all on board until that.
- 29:30Speaker 1: Actually I wasn't on board. I was off board when
- 29:32Speaker 1: I found out that he fired Brownie Wise. Yeah he
- 29:34Speaker 1: and then was like, okay, I've got some money. See
- 29:36Speaker 1: a later family. Yeah, moved to Costa Rica. Would you
- 29:40Speaker 1: be funny if he went down and started a cult
- 29:42Speaker 1: with the slinky guy. Um? So Tupperware stayed pretty much
- 29:47Speaker 1: the same until when they designer named Morrison Cousins basically
- 29:53Speaker 1: kind of redesigned for for the new era. Yeah he
- 29:57Speaker 1: he was UM already a VP I guess that Tupperware
- 30:01Speaker 1: and he was. He decided that it was a little difficult.
- 30:05Speaker 1: He had an eighty two or eighty one year old
- 30:07Speaker 1: mother at the time eighty seven year old mother at
- 30:10Speaker 1: the time when he was charged with redesigning the Tupperware line,
- 30:14Speaker 1: and UM he from that viewpoint, he redesigned it to
- 30:18Speaker 1: make it easier for UM the aged to use. Right,
- 30:21Speaker 1: So like that burping lid that you had to like
- 30:25Speaker 1: really kind of have some decent hand strength to put on.
- 30:28Speaker 1: He figured out a way around it by UM using
- 30:31Speaker 1: flaps that opened and closed to release the air. Didn't
- 30:35Speaker 1: require quite as much hand strength. UM. The lids were
- 30:39Speaker 1: made in contrast and closure to the bowls, so if
- 30:41Speaker 1: you had a low visibility low vision not visibility, that's
- 30:47Speaker 1: totally different. If you were wearing all camouflage at the time,
- 30:50Speaker 1: you'd be able to find the lid and the bowl
- 30:53Speaker 1: that go together pretty easy. So he yea, he made
- 30:56Speaker 1: them easier for old books, yep. And he was the
- 30:59Speaker 1: guy who UM brought it online. He did a lot
- 31:02Speaker 1: of good stuff. Apparently with it, he also took the brand.
- 31:08Speaker 1: I thought this is cool, and I would love to
- 31:09Speaker 1: see this on video because I'll bet it's just so
- 31:14Speaker 1: bizarre and surreal to watch. They broadcast a series of
- 31:17Speaker 1: live Tupperware parties on some home shopping channel in the
- 31:21Speaker 1: early nineties. That was probably the first home shopping experience.
- 31:25Speaker 1: I think those were around in the eighties. I think
- 31:27Speaker 1: home shopping was already established. When did they do this
- 31:30Speaker 1: early nineties? Oh? I thought you said he did it
- 31:33Speaker 1: like in the sixties. No, no, no, got no, we
- 31:35Speaker 1: should do one on home shopping. I'll bet that has
- 31:37Speaker 1: an interesting, weird history. You think I'll look into you know? Okay,
- 31:44Speaker 1: my mom's into it, man. QBC. So did we talk
- 31:47Speaker 1: about how to throw a tupperware party? We did? We
- 31:50Speaker 1: sure did. Okay, did we talk about tupperware drag parties?
- 31:56Speaker 1: We did not. We should because there's more than one.
- 32:00Speaker 1: There's well, there's one person in particular, a guy named
- 32:03Speaker 1: Chris Anderson, who performs in drag as Dixie Longate and
- 32:09Speaker 1: um sells like a million dollars worth of tupperware in
- 32:12Speaker 1: the process. Like he gets paid to perform like you
- 32:15Speaker 1: gotta pay forty bucks just to a person just to
- 32:20Speaker 1: have I guess he stole does house parties, but he
- 32:22Speaker 1: literally does like tours and does like off Broadway shows
- 32:25Speaker 1: and stuff now right, But the whole thing is I
- 32:27Speaker 1: mean real tupperware party where like you can buy tupperware,
- 32:30Speaker 1: and like he's demonstrating the tupperware. He's kind of giving
- 32:34Speaker 1: his own take on what it's useful for. But he's
- 32:37Speaker 1: not the only um drag show in the country selling tupperware,
- 32:41Speaker 1: of course, not apparently. Uh. A drag queen named Aunt
- 32:45Speaker 1: Barbara up in Long Island is was at least in
- 32:49Speaker 1: two twelve the number one salesperson in North America for tupperware.
- 32:53Speaker 1: It all makes sense when you think about it. So
- 32:55Speaker 1: two d and fifty grand worth of tupperware in one year.
- 32:58Speaker 1: Like the kitch of the drag show the kitch of
- 33:01Speaker 1: tupperware parties, it all sort of goes hand in hand. Yes,
- 33:05Speaker 1: it does. And um I went to the website of
- 33:07Speaker 1: Dixie Longate and he has a pretty interesting bio. I
- 33:13Speaker 1: have three kids, Winona, Dwayne and Absorbing Junior. It's all
- 33:19Speaker 1: made up, I think, I think maybe, although you never know,
- 33:22Speaker 1: but yeah, now he has solo stand up shows, um
- 33:26Speaker 1: and a recent theatrical show called Never Wear a Tube
- 33:29Speaker 1: Top while Riding a Mechanical bowl and sixteen other things
- 33:33Speaker 1: I learned while I was drinking last Thursday. And apparently
- 33:36Speaker 1: that is selling out venues. It's basically that's selling out venues.
- 33:41Speaker 1: We're not, but that is don't be better. We will
- 33:44Speaker 1: one day if we didn't dragging. Probably. Well, no, that's
- 33:47Speaker 1: not true either, one day chuck. Yeah. Uh wow, that's
- 33:53Speaker 1: a weird way to end us. Yeah, I think it's perfect. Um.
- 33:56Speaker 1: I thought I had something else, but I guess I don't. Oh,
- 33:59Speaker 1: yes I do. PBS did a great documentary called Tupperware
- 34:03Speaker 1: with an exclamation point. It's got a whole website on
- 34:06Speaker 1: online and you can watch parts of the documentary, if
- 34:09Speaker 1: not the whole thing. Yeah, and look for the Sandra
- 34:11Speaker 1: Bullock the Brownie Wise story coming to a theater near
- 34:14Speaker 1: you in a couple of years. Nice job, you said
- 34:17Speaker 1: a theater near you. A theater you just said coming
- 34:20Speaker 1: to a theater near you. That's like, Wow, did you
- 34:24Speaker 1: ever think you would grow up to say that like
- 34:27Speaker 1: in public? Sure? Okay, Well, if you want to know
- 34:31Speaker 1: more about tupper war. You can type that one word
- 34:33Speaker 1: and the search part how stuff works dot com? And uh,
- 34:37Speaker 1: since I said search parts time for listener mail. And
- 34:41Speaker 1: they call this the Strisand effect. Have you ever heard
- 34:43Speaker 1: of this? No, Hello, Josh, Chuck and Jerry really enjoyed
- 34:47Speaker 1: the podcast on Internet censorship, although I was disturbed that
- 34:51Speaker 1: s OP three oh three exists. Sure, one thing not
- 34:55Speaker 1: mentioned that I thought was relevant is when individuals attempt
- 34:58Speaker 1: to censor specific things from their own life and the
- 35:01Speaker 1: resulting fallout that occurs. In two thousand three, and I
- 35:04Speaker 1: remember what was happening. Actually, a picture of Barbra Streisand's
- 35:07Speaker 1: home in Malibu appeared in a publicly available collection of
- 35:11Speaker 1: over twelve thousand photos of California coastline. The collection was
- 35:16Speaker 1: documenting coastal erosion and not related to news paparazzi or
- 35:20Speaker 1: tabloids or anything like that. But Streisand's lawyers filed a
- 35:23Speaker 1: fifty million dollar lawsuit against the photographer, asking the picture
- 35:27Speaker 1: to be taken down for privacy reasons. Before stories of
- 35:31Speaker 1: the lawsuit hit the press, the photo of the home
- 35:33Speaker 1: had only been downloaded six times, two of which were
- 35:36Speaker 1: by her attorneys. During the following month. After the whole
- 35:39Speaker 1: thing became a news story. More than four hundred thousand
- 35:42Speaker 1: people visited the website. Uh, they even coined the term
- 35:46Speaker 1: the streisand effect were an attempt to hand for her.
- 35:50Speaker 1: Yeah it did. I remember this blew up in her face.
- 35:53Speaker 1: An attempt at censoring or removing something from the Internet
- 35:55Speaker 1: results and said thing being seen and reported on much
- 35:58Speaker 1: more than if the person requesting it be removed it
- 36:00Speaker 1: simply let it fade into obscurity. Thanks for the podcast.
- 36:04Speaker 1: Also possibly a shout out to my wife Emily, who
- 36:07Speaker 1: is nearly as addicted to stuff you should know as
- 36:09Speaker 1: I am nearly And that is from Brinton Krausse in
- 36:13Speaker 1: uh mid Hudson Valley, New York, USA. So Emily and
- 36:18Speaker 1: get on it so you're equally as addicted. And thank
- 36:21Speaker 1: you Britton for being fully addicted. Yeah to the brim.
- 36:25Speaker 1: I guess Uh. If you want to get in touch
- 36:29Speaker 1: with us and talk to us about tupperware or um whatever,
- 36:34Speaker 1: you can tweet to us right at s y s
- 36:38Speaker 1: K podcast. Josh's manning that station. You can go on
- 36:41Speaker 1: to our awesome Facebook page courtesy of Chuckers Facebook dot
- 36:45Speaker 1: com slash stuff you should know You can send us
- 36:47Speaker 1: an email. We both get those become direct to us
- 36:51Speaker 1: to uh stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com,
- 36:54Speaker 1: and hang out with us at our home on the
- 36:56Speaker 1: web Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on
- 37:04Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff Works
- 37:06Speaker 1: dot com. M