“Skippy Peanut Butter and Hellmann’s Mayonnaise… Together Tremendous!”
The ’60s were a wild time, and one of the wildest things about it was the food! I mean, look at this ‘60s-era ad we came across from Skippy Peanut Butter and Hellman’s Mayonnaise. It is really something else:
The text reads in part: "Peanut butter and mayonnaise...a brand new flavor promise! Skippy and Hellmann's together make any sandwich taste doubly delicious!"
Skippy/Hellmann's
That's right, they wanted people to eat peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches!
Debmar-Mercury
The ad suggested people try the basic "lunchbox special" — which was just peanut butter and mayo — or "fancy" versions, which augmented the PB and mayo:
Double Crunch: +Bacon and pickles.
Pineapple Topper: +Pineapple and a maraschino cherry.
Apple Fandango: +Sliced apples and marmalade
Crazy Combo: +Salami, sliced eggs, and onions.
Funny Face: +Raisin and carrots.
Skippy/Hellmann's
Since we're the adventurous sorts, we — Asia, Mike, and Krista — decided to give this "brand new flavor promise" a try.
Also, we're all parents, so we're used to eating weird things and dealing with gross stuff.
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First, we made the basic lunchbox version (just peanut butter and mayo):
Skippy/Hellmann's/Buzzfeed
Next we tried the double crunch (peanut butter and mayo plus bacon and pickles):
We didn't have pickles for this one, so we improvised with relish.
Skippy/Hellmann's/Buzzfeed
Asia
Because of the relish, it tasted kind of like a hot dog with bacon on it, so I tried to envision myself at a baseball game to see if that helped. Nope, there was no saving it — it was still pretty gross.
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Mike
Ugh. As I started to chew a thought popped into my head: "This was a bad life choice." Taste-wise it felt confused — the bacon and relish were sort of making sense together, but the peanut butter and mayo were like party crashers who changed the whole vibe for the worse. Basically, it's like something your really drunk or stoned college roommate would make at 2 a.m. with whatever they could find in the fridge.
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Krista
I hate bacon (don't @ me) and relish, so I knew going into this it was going to be a challenge. After this travesty entered my mouth, my tastebuds started crying. The flavor of the PB and mayo were an afterthought because the relish/bacon combo was so overpowering.
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Next up: apple fandango (peanut butter and mayo plus sliced apples and jam):
Skippy/Hellmann's/Buzzfeed
And lastly, the crazy combo (peanut butter and mayo plus salami, sliced eggs, and onions).
Skippy/Hellmann's/Buzzfeed
Asia
I honestly felt like crying. So much was wrong with this sandwich. The boiled egg was a very overpowering addition to it. I couldn't taste anything else even though my mind knew there were other horrible tastes present. I couldn't taste the peanut butter, the salami, or the mayo at all. Just egg. All egg.
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Mike
Guys...guys...I took too big of a bite. The ad calls this one a "man-sized pleaser," but it's not pleasing anyone. The onion and egg overwhelmed everything else and not in a good way. Honestly, I think the people who invented this knew it was bullshit, and that's why they called it the "crazy combo." Thoughts and prayers to anyone in the '60s who had to sit down to this for dinner.
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Krista
This one was VERY egg and onion-y. That's all I could taste, so did I like it? Nope.
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Final Thoughts:
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Oh, '60s, you tried it. The original combo wasn't that bad, but once onions, boiled egg, salami, and relish got involved, this flavor experiment got a little out of hand, IMO. If I had a time machine, I would go back and buy out all of the magazines that had this ad in them before some unsuspecting person could get any "doubly delicious" ideas. I will never look at a jar of mayo the same way again.
This ad seems pretty wacky from the vantage of 2018, but last year Burger King sold mac 'n' cheese deep-fried in a Cheetos crust, and that will undoubtedly seem pretty weird in 55 years.
Still, I can't help but think about how this ad came from a pre-internet age (with a far from developed mass media), so regular folks really had no way to reject it or spread the word that these recipes were not, in fact, "together tremendous." If a brand proposed something like this today, it would be flamed to hell in 15 minutes on Twitter, but back then brands could promote a bad-faith concept like this designed to increase sales of two of their products, and suffer no repercussions for it.
What were they thinking back then?! In all honestly, I don't know why or how this ad got approved. It was a good effort, but PB and mayo will NEVER BE A THING. Oh, and I won't be able to eat peanut butter for a while now thanks to this little experiment.
Together Tremendous!
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via BuzzFeed/Food