0:01

Hello, friends, Do you want to know how Tupperware

0:03

works all over again? But you're in the right spot

0:05

because it is a throwback

0:08

time to how

0:10

Tupperware works. This is a good one. Welcome

0:16

to Stuff You Should Know, a production of

0:18

I Heart Radio.

0:25

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh

0:27

Clark with Charles W Chuck Bryant, and

0:30

there's Jerry. So this is stuff you should

0:32

know herb.

0:36

Have you ever heard a tupper Warrior burp? Yeah?

0:39

Sort of? I mean it, you know, it doesn't

0:41

sound like a burb. It's just sort of

0:43

like, can you emulate one? Well, it's just like a

0:46

like air just sort of. It doesn't sound like a

0:48

burb. It sounds like a dude, yeah,

0:51

something different. Yeah, but I don't think you could call

0:53

it a Tupperware bart because

0:56

it probably wouldn't sell us much. Well, even

0:58

a burp is a little you know. Okay,

1:00

So I guess I have heard one before when I was a kid,

1:02

But I thought like there was like a burp

1:05

or something like that. Or do you remember that cartoon?

1:08

It might have been like a what was the

1:10

Droopy? I think it might have been a droopy cartoon.

1:14

So some sort of tech savory cartoon, where

1:16

like they had a machine that burped radishes. But

1:21

I like it. It was a great I think it was like the Kitchen

1:23

of the Future, one great cartoon

1:26

Bert. That's what I assumed.

1:28

The tupperware thing was like, Yeah, that was a big

1:30

droopy fans I thought I was missing out. Nope,

1:33

No, it's just a little air being expelled.

1:36

But it was a very very important

1:39

bit of air because Chuck. At

1:41

the time that tupperware came

1:44

out, women were using

1:46

like basically a

1:48

pot that they cooked something

1:50

in, maybe a bowl, and

1:52

putting a shower cap over it

1:55

and storing it in the ice box. You

1:57

know what they call that primitive that

2:00

primitive food storage. It sounds like

2:02

tuk Tuk would have done something like that, not

2:05

men and women in the nineteen forties, except

2:08

he would have used like some sort of Madagascar

2:12

type animal pelt sure

2:15

from the movie Madagascar. No, not Madagascar.

2:17

I say, that's what I'm thinking of. I

2:19

say, I haven't seen it the one.

2:21

So they're very similar. It is setting like different

2:24

climbs in different time periods.

2:26

I've never seen me. They're different animal protagonists.

2:28

I just I can get a lot from commercials

2:30

yeah. Uh

2:33

so, yeah, Tupperware. Let's let's talk about

2:35

it. Um, the original pat and I love the name of this

2:37

thing, and you know it was

2:39

created. You want to drop this cool little

2:41

fact by the name, the name of the

2:43

guy, Earl Tupper. Yeah

2:46

I never knew that. Yeah,

2:48

I guess I didn't either. I didn't didn't think

2:50

about it. No, you think of Tupper wears nothing

2:52

but tupper ware, and there's no Tupper who invented

2:54

It's crazy talk, right, Yeah? No, there

2:57

was a Tupper named Earl and that Tupper

2:59

tup tup for why yes, the Earl

3:01

of Tupper he uh he has a

3:03

patent um call it, well had he doesn't

3:05

have it anymore. Uh. The e s

3:07

tupper open mouth container and non

3:10

snap type of closure. Therefore this

3:13

by the way, Yeah, that's why I read it like that. But

3:16

I was explaining that to the everybody

3:18

else. Do they know me? This is

3:20

going poorly? No, it's not so.

3:24

Um. Let's you want to talk a little bit about

3:26

Tupper himself. Yeah.

3:28

He um was a bit of a reclusive

3:31

figure, as we'll find, but

3:34

he was also like he was a pretty

3:36

sharp guy. I a grouch,

3:38

I think, is it possible way to

3:40

describe him maybe a bit of a mad,

3:43

smart, tinkering, grouchy.

3:46

Um. He disliked his father because he felt

3:48

his father lacked ambition. And this is when he was

3:50

like ten, right, Um,

3:52

all you do is just go to the races and lay around.

3:54

He well, his parents owned a like a farm

3:56

of sorts, but I think I get the idea. It

3:58

was like kind of a harvest your own farm.

4:01

And this kid, little Earl Tupper, when he was

4:03

like ten twelve, he was like

4:05

pitching the idea to to build like a

4:07

children's playground on the ground

4:10

of this pick your own farm for

4:12

you know, to attract tourists and stuff. And

4:14

his dad was like, it sounds like a lot

4:16

of work. Totally, just go

4:18

to school or something. Get out of my hair. And

4:21

Earl was like, you're

4:23

gonna pay for ignoring me. But

4:26

he he was of sharp contrast

4:28

to his father, is what I'm trying to say. He was

4:30

very ambitious. Big tinker

4:33

came up with a lot of different patent ideas

4:35

and apparently patents too. Yeah.

4:37

He uh, he had a book of inventions. Uh.

4:40

There was a better stocking guarter, which

4:42

is a very sexy thing for a child. To admit,

4:45

right, UM, a better way

4:47

to remove a burst appendix. Yeah,

4:50

yeah, that's for real. UM, A

4:52

dagger shaped comb to be clipped to the belt.

4:55

Um pants that wouldn't lose their crease. UM.

4:58

One of great import the customized

5:00

cigarettes. I can't believe that didn't catch on,

5:03

Like for real, you know how Coca Cola

5:05

does those uh stupid cans and bottles

5:07

now with names? Oh now I understand.

5:09

Yeah, there were cigarettes that said like Sporty

5:12

or the collegiate on the cigarette, so

5:14

it would have like your sports team

5:16

like emblazoned on the side.

5:19

Maybe the problem is none of

5:21

these inventions took off. You

5:23

know this guy literally well

5:26

he could give his inventions away,

5:29

but like he almost literally couldn't

5:31

give him give them away. He he ended up

5:33

manufacturing these things and giving

5:35

them away as like premiums for other stuff like

5:37

cigarettes and things like that. Yeah. So,

5:40

UM he starts a a tree

5:42

uh doctor business, Tupper tree Doctors

5:45

that UM failed after um

5:48

the depression, people were cutting back

5:50

on things like tree doctoring, so

5:52

he went out of business and

5:55

in a very fortuitous move, went and worked UM

5:58

for Visca aid Plant,

6:01

which is a division of DuPont making plastics,

6:04

right, and this is where things kind of started

6:06

taking shape. Yes,

6:09

yes, yes, So basically he gets

6:11

into plastics and this

6:14

town in Massachusetts that he

6:16

ended up in where the viscaloid plant

6:18

was. He was all over New England basically growing

6:20

up, right, but this particular town was kind

6:22

of like a mad scientists

6:25

mecca where like all of this stuff

6:27

is going on in plastics, all these

6:29

little tiny plastic manufacturing outfits

6:32

are, you know, start It's like a startup

6:34

town for plastics in like the thirties

6:36

or forties, because they're like, we have this new thing, like what

6:38

all can we do with it? Yeah? And which, by the way,

6:40

plastic, especially polyethylene. Polyethylene

6:43

was invented by accident, and

6:46

by the forties they had still kind

6:49

of they perfected the polyethylene or

6:51

had come out perfect, but they

6:54

hadn't figured out quite how to use it. And Earl

6:56

Tupper was one of those guys in the forties

6:58

on the cutting edge of taking plastic and figuring

7:00

out how to mold him in the right shape, how

7:02

to keep him from being oily or sticky

7:05

or falling apart. When they were sitting out in the

7:07

sunlight or all this stuff. This guy is

7:09

doing all these tests and he

7:11

ends up coming up thanks to getting

7:13

a block of this pure polyethylene

7:16

from DuPont. The good stuff, the good stuff,

7:18

the uncut stuff. Um. And

7:20

he figures out how to make this bowl

7:23

a wonder lire bowl is what he calls

7:25

it. Yeah, and um, DuPont

7:27

at the time didn't think that they could even mold plastic.

7:29

Like he was smarter than their guys

7:32

because he figured out how to do it. And

7:35

um. Then along with the

7:37

design, the the patented tupperware

7:40

seal that made it so useful

7:43

and famous, that made the what sound that made

7:45

the like the burping sound

7:48

or tooting sound. Um.

7:50

He originally got that idea for the seal from

7:52

paint cans, apparently, the fact that

7:54

you could turn a paint can upside down and it wouldn't

7:57

leak paint out all over the place. And he

7:59

said, I guess we can do us with food, you

8:02

know, yeah, like put food in here. It's

8:04

sealed. Look at the demonstration. It's

8:06

upside down and I'm shaking it and there's none

8:08

of that gravy coming out. What right, the

8:10

grave is not coming out. I can drop this bowl

8:12

and it's not gonna break because

8:15

everyone knows how clumsy housewives are

8:18

breaking stuff all over And the fact

8:20

that it um is that

8:23

you burp it right and

8:26

it makes that sound, and you're basically

8:29

preserving the food for many, many days

8:31

to come, which was huge because a

8:33

lot of the people who were um

8:36

homemakers in the forties and fifties,

8:38

they had lived through the depression and they remembered

8:41

exactly what it was like. So preserving food was a

8:43

big deal. And so this thing

8:45

was like it's really

8:47

easy to take for granted these days, but

8:50

it was very cutting edge technology. Well,

8:52

these days they have all those terrible

8:55

cheap oh uh, I was

8:57

gonna say knockoffs are not knockoffs are major brands.

9:00

But you know those little cheap plastic containers that are

9:02

sold, they're they're not

9:04

nearly the quality of Tupperware. No, Tupperware

9:06

started all that. Yeah, and this stuff is garbage.

9:10

The lids don't fit right ever, they

9:12

break, they don't they don't do anything that

9:14

Tupperware did. Like I have a Wonder

9:17

bowl from the nineteen seventies that's

9:19

still like perfect. I

9:22

mean, it's a little worn down, but it's still like functions

9:24

perfectly right. Well, it's a testament

9:26

to tupperware and that other

9:29

garbage that stuff, Like I don't have anything from

9:31

last year. Well it's made and

9:33

it was made during a time of much

9:36

more disposable thinking. You

9:39

know. At the time, it was like we're

9:41

going to make something now will last forever. Yeah, and I

9:43

think they still have a lifetime guarantees

9:46

on everything. Yeah, Like you could

9:48

send in a tupperware piece from the sixties

9:51

and they'll, you know, if it's broken

9:53

and it meets the requirements, like you know, you didn't

9:56

smash it with a hammer or something. Um,

9:59

because they can prove you. They'll

10:01

give you like credits or the equivalent

10:03

of what you could get today or something. It's

10:05

like, well you paid for that. But like let's

10:07

see what the West Aid currency calculator

10:10

has to say about that. So, um, he formed

10:12

upper Plastics. Uh. Things

10:14

did not take off though, um

10:17

like he thought they would. He put him in department stores

10:19

and hardware stores for some reason.

10:21

Oh yeah, not a good

10:23

place to sell your tupperware. Yeah.

10:25

I mean nowadays I can see that, but back then

10:28

you probably just went to hardware stores for nails and hammers

10:30

and stuff. Yeah, I'm sure there are home goods

10:32

and stuff too. It was probably closer to a general

10:35

store in the hardware stores today, but

10:37

even still, they weren't flying off the

10:39

shelves at the point they were not. UM.

10:42

So what he did was there was another

10:44

timeline going on at the same time. UM

10:47

Stanley Home Products was this, uh,

10:50

basically pioneered the

10:53

non door to door sales in favor

10:56

of hosting a

10:58

party for lack of a better word, in

11:00

home demonstrations where you would gather people together.

11:03

And it was a guy named Norman Squires

11:05

had um garnered

11:08

a lot of profits in this kind of sales, and

11:10

they had working for them a woman named

11:13

Brownie Wise, right, and

11:15

she was selling all kinds of stuff for Stanley

11:17

Home Products and uh they

11:19

called it the hostess group demonstration

11:21

plan and she was a great,

11:24

great salesperson. Yeah. So these

11:26

people at Stanley Home

11:28

Products basically found Tupperware

11:30

on their own and started selling it

11:32

at these hostess parties. Right. Yeah,

11:35

she formed her own company called Tupperware

11:37

Patio Parties. Oh did

11:39

she? Yeah, before she was hired. Before

11:42

she was hired, and she was selling so much

11:44

of it that Earl Tupper

11:46

got in touch with her and was like, I can't

11:48

sell this stuff in stores like you're beating, like

11:51

department stores in New York City sales

11:53

records she and she yeah, she really was.

11:55

She had a lot of charms. She had. Um.

11:57

She figured out that this burp

12:00

thing that was so

12:02

essential and made this product so revolutionary,

12:06

right that, um, it

12:08

wasn't like intuitive, you didn't just understand

12:11

how to work it, and so it wasn't

12:13

helping sales, which again seems weird today,

12:16

but back then, you know, people like, what is this weird

12:19

colored thing? Right? Does

12:21

go together? And they were just banging them together in the

12:23

aisle of a hardware store crying. Um.

12:27

They she figured out that if you demonstrate

12:29

this to people, especially in

12:32

like somebody's house or whatever and

12:34

they've had a couple of martinis and there's or

12:36

Derv's, people are apt to buy

12:38

these things. And yeah, like you said, she started out

12:40

selling department stores hardware

12:43

stores obviously. Um,

12:45

and she got hired on by Earl Tupper.

12:47

She was in Detroit at the time. I think I

12:49

think she'd moved down to Orlando when she was hired.

12:53

Really by that point, Yeah, she was from Beauford, Georgia,

12:55

originally. Yeah, she was from Earl, Georgia

12:57

and uh ended up um being

13:00

married and divorced, which was pretty unusual

13:02

at the time. And she was a single mom. Yep,

13:04

the little Jerry Wise. That's right. She

13:06

Unfortunately her husband was a violent

13:09

drunk. I saw that too, So that's not

13:11

saying that, that's PBS taking the fall for twe

13:13

So she was only married to him for about six years

13:16

and then it was basically like, I'm gonna

13:18

make my own way. He only had an eighth grade education,

13:21

and she was killing it on the sales front.

13:24

Yeah, she she really was. So it took

13:26

before we get any further about Brownie Wise.

13:29

Great name, awesome name. Yeah, maybe

13:31

not a band name, but a great name. The

13:33

brown the Brownie Wise would be a good name.

13:35

Or the the Brownie Wise Massacre.

13:38

Yeah sure, yeah, there you go, or Brownie

13:41

Wise over drive. Both

13:43

of those anyway for one another.

13:45

I guess the point that I'm trying to get

13:47

to. Let's take a break. Okay,

14:05

So Brownie Wise has her Tupperware patio

14:08

Parties company out selling stores.

14:10

She gets hired on um

14:12

they literally divide the company into uh

14:15

two sides, the Tupperware manufacturing

14:18

up in Massachusetts and then Tupperware

14:20

home parties down in Orlando. Down in Orlando,

14:23

yeah, where she lives. Basically, Earl

14:25

Tupper comes to her in n and

14:29

says, Hey, how would you like to be one of like three

14:31

female high level executives in the

14:33

United States in the world, I would guess, And

14:36

she said, that's sure, why not, I'll

14:38

do you a favor. And I said

14:40

she was a very interesting woman. If I didn't,

14:43

I did in my head and meant to say it, but

14:45

she, Um, there's apparently a movie coming

14:48

out about her life, starring

14:50

Sandra Bullock. You did not say that, and I did

14:52

see that, So there you go. I

14:54

couldn't find any information on except

14:56

that I think it's in uh in pre

14:59

uh pre production right now. Oh, I see,

15:01

I think it's going to happen. But um,

15:03

yeah, I mean she she's one of the great uh

15:07

woman entrepreneurs that this country has ever

15:09

seen, the world has ever seen. Really, yeah, because

15:11

she took this tupper wear, which everyone

15:13

except the American public agreed

15:16

was great. In ninety seven, the

15:18

year that Tupper invented this stuff, Time

15:21

named it this amazing thing.

15:24

It won design awards. Yeah, she was on

15:26

the first woman on the cover of Business Week magazine,

15:29

right right, but even before she came along, everybody,

15:32

especially in the art world, in the design world,

15:34

um said this this, this stuff is great.

15:36

But it was just sitting there languishing. And

15:38

then the brownie wise comes along

15:41

and just turns it into a blockbuster,

15:43

like turns it into it an American iconic

15:45

brand, which it still is today. Yeah.

15:48

And what she realized, which is uh,

15:50

was a stroke of genius, was it's

15:54

the nineteen fifties. The suburbs are happening

15:56

post World War two in a big way. Um,

15:59

there's a lot of the men that are that are

16:01

homemakers, that are I

16:04

guess we could just say they were bored and

16:06

looking for something to do well. Plus also

16:09

they had very um,

16:12

they had very real constrictions on their

16:14

time where like they're

16:17

basically freedom of movement. They didn't have

16:19

cars, they didn't have things like this, they

16:21

didn't have a lot of ways to make money. Yeah. Well,

16:23

and again they were out in the suburbs for the first time. It's

16:25

not like many of these were connected by subway

16:28

or anything. That was still an inner city deal. Right.

16:30

So, But rather than view these places as vast

16:33

like waste lands of isolation. Brownie

16:35

Wise said, no, these are like little

16:37

tiny social networks where

16:39

people know and trust one another and

16:42

they're bored out of their skulls and they're

16:44

looking for ways to make money. Like so, not

16:46

only do you have a really great

16:48

market to sell this to, you have a really great

16:50

workforce that's just sitting there idol. And

16:53

she said, how would you gals like to sell

16:55

tupperware? And they went, let's

16:57

do this, that's right. And what she did

16:59

was came up with a system where and you

17:01

could work your way up the chain

17:04

um from sales all the way. Well,

17:07

let's let's just detail it. What you

17:09

are is your consultant

17:11

at first, which is out there, you know, holding

17:14

the party, hosting these parties. We'll talk about

17:16

everybody's chilling. Yeah, and then

17:19

you can work your up to manager if you

17:21

organize a certain number of parties, and

17:23

then managers, uh,

17:26

we're eventually recruiting other

17:28

women. So if you recruit enough

17:30

women and increased sales, then

17:32

you could rise to distributor. And

17:35

that was the highest level you could attain at

17:37

that point. Yes, you could be a distributor.

17:39

You have your own office, you have your network of managers

17:42

and then they manage the consultants or the party

17:44

throwers, party hosts, and

17:47

UM basically she started

17:49

her own army of salespeople. Yeah,

17:51

so Chuck incentibized salespeople. Right

17:54

now, there are two

17:56

point nine million people

17:59

in the world selling tupperware. Every

18:01

three seconds, there's another Tupperware party.

18:03

But we're getting ahead of ourselves, right, So she

18:06

she put together this workforce. And again it

18:08

was UM, this guy named Norman Squires who came

18:10

up with this idea that led to UM

18:14

being a huge, huge hit

18:16

for Tupperware, but also later on avon

18:19

Um and Mary

18:21

Kay and Pampered Chef

18:24

and like all of these, all of these brands that

18:26

like are sold

18:28

through hostess parties basically get

18:30

you in our house and get you drunk, and so just

18:35

just leave me a blank check basically.

18:37

But the it wasn't invented

18:39

by Brownie Wise, but she definitely perfected

18:42

it for sure. So UM she tapped

18:44

this workforce. And one of the ways that she kept

18:46

people excited and loyal not

18:49

just the fact that they could rise throughout

18:51

this hierarchy UM in the

18:53

tupperware industry, but there

18:56

there was also like this thing that she created

18:58

called the Jubilee every year down

19:00

Orlando. It's a big company party, it

19:03

was. And they would just pull out all the

19:05

stops. Like they would bury

19:07

fur coats, they would bury blenders.

19:10

One of the buyers once said that he bought a hundred

19:12

thousand blenders once for the Jubilee. They

19:15

would just bring all these Tupperware sales

19:17

associates and just basically throw them a

19:19

party for a few days and let them just win

19:22

free stuff and have a great time. And

19:24

when you say, Barry, I think we should explain, because it sounds

19:26

really weird. They would bury these prizes

19:29

and people would go and dig them up. Right.

19:31

It wasn't like you can't have this. Look

19:33

at what you can't have. We're burying It just sound you're

19:36

like, they'd bury fur coats, they'd bury anything that

19:38

moved. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, but it was

19:40

all part of the fun. Apparently they lost a

19:42

lot of them too. Yeah. Years

19:44

later, um at the at

19:47

the Tupperware headquarters in Orlando, they went to

19:49

dig a pond and they found a bunch

19:51

of the prizes that had never been found.

19:53

Yes, some say there's still fur coats buried all

19:55

over Orlando. By the illuminati.

19:59

Right. So, um,

20:01

those are the big jubilee parties, a big company parties,

20:04

great for morale. Um.

20:06

The hostess uh themselves

20:08

or the consultants would um,

20:11

they would make percentage. They'd basically

20:14

make a cut what they were able to sell, as

20:16

well as get prizes. Um

20:19

like these really neat prizes. And the more parties you hosted,

20:21

the better the prizes would get. So it's

20:24

like it's like the wild

20:26

West. It's the heyday for these women. They're

20:28

like earning their own money for a change. They're

20:30

getting these great prizes. They're feeling

20:33

great about themselves. They're not bored any longer.

20:35

And their husbands were like, WHOA, what's going on here?

20:38

Give me that money you made? Yeah, exactly. And

20:41

things were so successful with this model

20:43

that that was their only sales model up until

20:46

the late nineteen eighties. Right. You couldn't even

20:48

buy the stuff in stores. No, he just stopped. It wasn't

20:50

even worth the money or effort to distribute

20:53

his stories. They just did it through

20:55

parties and home parties. Thank you, Brownie

20:57

Wise. Right, so um,

20:59

in like you said, in eighty

21:02

they started selling it through UM

21:05

catalogs. I guess uh

21:07

yeah, I think they cat I've

21:10

seen like older catalogs from like the fifties

21:12

and sixties, So I don't know what that means. Maybe over

21:14

the phone, you saw Tupperware one catalog.

21:17

Yeah, it's on our it's on the

21:19

podcast page for this episode. There's a link to

21:21

this kind of design layout

21:23

and it has some catalogs. So it must have been like ordered

21:25

by phone. Oh yeah, maybe so. And

21:27

then just about ten years later in Tupperware

21:31

had their first website, which e

21:33

commerce in that

21:35

was fairly forward thinking. Yeah, that's true, you

21:37

know. Yeah, um so

21:40

this caught like wildfire. Today

21:43

you can it's not just like an American

21:46

institution. There are Tupperware parties,

21:48

like we said, at the rate of one every

21:50

three seconds, and more than a hundred countries

21:53

around the world. I had no idea that Tupperware

21:56

was that popular in like Asia and India,

21:58

and they said half a million, more

22:01

than half a million every year in France alone.

22:04

Yeah, of Tupperware sales

22:06

are outside of the US these days. Yeah,

22:09

and it's a I mean like it's got it's moving

22:11

like gangbusters. Last I saw I was trading at

22:13

like sixty three dollars a share, which

22:15

is down from like a hundred in December.

22:18

Maybe, UM like it's

22:20

it's a really set company

22:22

again these days, like it's been able to

22:25

just be on the brink of utter

22:27

irrelevance when it finds a new market,

22:29

when it figures out a new way to

22:32

to sell, when it figures out a new product,

22:34

like currently right now in China, um

22:38

Tupperware is making tons of cash selling

22:40

a thousand dollar water filter, and they're doing

22:43

it by traveling from town to town and

22:45

setting up these in home demonstrations

22:47

or public demonstrations and showing how to

22:50

do it. So they're like taking the Tumperware

22:52

model that Brownie Wise like really perfected

22:54

and and figuring out how it best works

22:56

and cultures around the world. Yeah, I

22:58

know. They make um all so like h

23:01

depending on your country and what they eat, like certain

23:03

shaped UM containers, right

23:06

like round bread containers for non in

23:08

India. How about that? So

23:10

what happened to Brownie Wise? I guess she retired,

23:13

was thanked, carried out on everyone's shoulders,

23:16

and lived a great fulfilled

23:18

life until her death. Right, Well,

23:21

we're gonna tell you right after this break,

23:41

all right, Josh, let's fast forward to UM.

23:46

The Tupperware. Business is booming,

23:49

Brownie Wise is a

23:51

bit of a celebrity. The twist is

23:54

going like Gangbusters? Was it? Probably?

23:57

Okay? People are still twist in the

23:59

night away? I mean what was that like?

24:02

Probably started three years. Sure there

24:04

was some squares still twisting. Yeah,

24:07

they weren't doing the mashed potato yet. No,

24:09

I think that was a little later. Okay. Um,

24:12

so business is booming, Brownie Wise is killing

24:14

it. She's a celebrity. Earl Tupper

24:16

um starts to get a little jealous over the years.

24:18

It's as simple as that. Yeah. As much as

24:20

he liked didn't seek

24:23

or want the limelight, he was still jealous

24:25

that Brownie Wise people

24:27

thought that she was Tupperware and

24:29

that she started the company um

24:32

and started selling like I can sell anything like

24:34

this. So she didn't say that

24:37

in the media said she could. She could have

24:39

done this with any brand. She's that great. Well

24:42

she could, And Earl Tupper wanted to be like,

24:44

well, no, I mean my product that I invented

24:47

is you know a big part of this, if not

24:49

the thing. I'm Earl Tupper right,

24:51

so he um he apparently Also

24:54

she stopped kind of cow towing

24:56

to him quite as much. Um,

24:59

but I got a lot great for while. Yeah,

25:01

and again he had said to

25:03

their PR department and to

25:06

any media interviewer, like, yes, this lady

25:08

is the face of Tupperware. Treater, is such, promoter,

25:11

is such, And he, just like

25:13

you said, ended up getting jealous. I

25:15

didn't like that she wasn't cows outing to him

25:17

any longer, and in said

25:19

you're fired. Yeah. He The

25:22

story I read was that he wanted to

25:24

sell the company and cash in, and

25:26

that he didn't think and was

25:28

advised that it would be really hard to sell

25:31

a company with a woman in

25:33

such a prominent position on the board. And

25:35

so he, uh, like you said, just unceremoniously

25:38

get rid of her, gave her one year salary.

25:41

It was like thirty grand zero stock

25:44

in this company that she had built almost

25:46

from the ground up. Yeah, or help build

25:48

at least. And um, I

25:50

gotta say that was her You know, that

25:53

was her mistake. She should have gotten some stock along

25:55

the way. Yeah, I guess you know, she's

25:57

too busy selling and jam, I mean and

26:00

exactly she was imagined thirty five grand

26:02

a year was a pretty good salary at the point.

26:05

You want me to look it up, I will you can.

26:08

So she got that small pay out. She went

26:11

um and what he said to her

26:13

was is that there were some accounting

26:15

errors in the previous year. She

26:17

wouldn't come to Massachusetts to talk to him

26:19

about it, and sort of dug In says

26:22

that she said that she had gotten sicker,

26:24

injured and couldn't leave Florida. He finally

26:26

went down to Florida, um

26:28

and basically said that, you know, these jubilees

26:31

are too expensive. The landscaping you've

26:33

done here in Florida, the

26:35

company headquarters is too expensive. You're

26:37

spending too much money on clothes. Uh.

26:40

And we own all that stuff, We own all your clothing.

26:43

What well, I mean that's I don't know if he actually

26:45

took it, but he basically was like, you know, she

26:47

paid for all that stuff through the company

26:50

as she should have, you know, to keep up appearances.

26:53

But um, yeah, that was it for her.

26:55

She started a small company called

26:57

Cinderella Cosmetics that folded after

26:59

a year and sort of faded

27:01

into obscurity. So then um

27:04

Earl Tupper uh sold

27:06

out that the

27:08

next year I think sixteen million. Yeah,

27:11

he sells out for sixteen million

27:13

dollars. Nice. Cash to rex All

27:15

Drug Company, which was eventually

27:17

absorbed by Kraft, who apparently now owns Tupperware.

27:21

I think maybe it's the parent company.

27:24

Um and yeah, sixteen million

27:26

in nineteen fifty eight. It's not too bad for

27:28

a boy who couldn't get his parents to build a playground

27:31

on the family pick your own whatever farm.

27:33

Did you find out if she thirty five

27:35

grand was a good salary? Yeah, it wasn't bad. It was

27:38

like two hundred and

27:41

I think thirty two thousand dollars

27:43

back then. Yeah, that's good. It's

27:45

not bad, I mean especially for a executive.

27:49

Yeah. Um. But he

27:51

sold the whole thing for sixteen million, gave

27:53

her one year salary, moved

27:55

to Costa Rica, bought in island, announced

27:58

as US citizenships so we didn't have to pay any taxes

28:00

on. Got divorced before

28:02

all that, right, and uh said, sion

28:05

are everybody, I'm going to Costa

28:07

Rica to buy an island and keep

28:09

a note pain in my pocket. So anytime

28:11

an idea for a new invention

28:13

hits, I'll have it. Yeah.

28:16

And just like probably you know,

28:18

eight pineapples on his island.

28:21

Yeah. He died in three in Costa

28:23

Rica. Uh, seventy six

28:25

and she died in nine and

28:28

um, Tupperware has not

28:31

gone out of fashion. It's it's been featured,

28:33

uh starting in what

28:36

year was it, I guess when they first came out at the Museum

28:38

of Modern Art, and then again in two

28:40

thousand eleven. I think I even saw this exhibit.

28:43

In fact, I'm almost positive I did, because it was about

28:45

just industrial design and things,

28:48

and there's Tupperware all over again because

28:51

of its gorgeous of course, now

28:53

you know that fifties era retro

28:56

design. The original

28:58

line that tupper Um released

29:01

is called the Millionaire line, and

29:03

it came in six colors, five

29:06

pastels and one white, right,

29:08

yellow, blue, green, orange, and pink. And they're

29:10

really pretty. Like if you look at a set of these

29:12

things and a good condition, they're gorgeous.

29:15

He went on to the Plastics Hall of Fame,

29:18

UM and now like this

29:20

stuff from the fifties and sixties, you can

29:22

get some decent money on eBay for that stuff,

29:25

you know, because it still works and people

29:28

love that retro look. Did

29:30

you know that he refused refused

29:33

to have any um

29:36

any pet bowls designed. He thought it was tupper

29:39

Ware was too good for pets to eat out

29:41

of. What a jerk. See,

29:43

I was all on board until that. Actually

29:46

I wasn't on board. I was off board when I found out

29:48

that he fired Brownie Wise. Yeah

29:50

he and then was like, Okay, I've got some money.

29:52

See you later. Family moving to Costa Rica.

29:55

Would you be funny if he went down and started a cult

29:58

with this slinking guy? Um?

30:01

So Tupperware stayed pretty much the same

30:03

until when they UM

30:05

a designer named Morrison Cousins

30:09

basically kind of redesigned for for

30:11

the new era. Yeah. He

30:13

he was UM already a VP

30:15

I guess at Tupperware, and he

30:18

was. He decided that it was a little

30:20

difficult. He had an eighty two or eighty

30:22

one year old mother at the time eighty

30:24

seven year old mother at the time when

30:27

he was charged with redesigning

30:29

the Tupperware line, and UM

30:31

he from that viewpoint, he redesigned

30:33

it to make it easier for UM the

30:35

aged to use. Right, So, like

30:38

that burping lid that you

30:40

had to like really kind of have some decent

30:42

hand strength to put on. He figured

30:44

out a way around it by UM

30:46

using flaps that opened and close

30:49

to release the air didn't require

30:51

quite as much hand strength. Um, the lids

30:54

were made in contrast and close to the bulls,

30:56

so if you had a low visibility

31:00

low vision, not visibility,

31:02

that's totally different. If

31:04

you were wearing all camouflage at the time, you'd

31:06

be able to find the lid and the bowl

31:09

that go together pretty easy. So

31:11

he yeah, he made them easier for old books.

31:14

Yep. And he was the guy who brought

31:16

it online. He did a lot of good

31:18

stuff apparently with it. He

31:21

also took the brand. I

31:23

thought this is cool, and I would love to see

31:25

this on video because I'll bet it's just so

31:29

bizarre and surreal to watch. They

31:31

broadcast a series of live temperware

31:34

parties on some home shopping

31:36

channel in the early nineties. That was probably the

31:38

first home shopping experience.

31:41

You know, I think those were around in the eighties. I think

31:43

home shopping was already established. When

31:45

did they do this early nineties? Oh?

31:47

I thought you said he did it like in the sixties. No, no,

31:49

no, no, we should do

31:51

one on home shopping. I'll bet that has an interesting,

31:54

weird history.

31:56

You think I'll look into I let you know, Okay,

32:00

my mom's into it, man, QBC. So did

32:02

we talk about how to throw a tupperware

32:04

party. Yeah we did, We

32:06

sure did. Okay, did

32:08

we talk about tupperware drag parties?

32:11

We did not? We should, Yeah, because

32:14

there's more than one. Yeah, there's well,

32:16

there's one person in particular, a guy named Chris

32:19

Anderson who performs

32:21

in drag as Dixie Longate and

32:24

um sells like a million

32:26

dollars worth of Tupperware in the process,

32:29

Like he gets paid to perform, Like

32:31

you gotta pay forty bucks just to a

32:34

person just to have

32:36

I guess he still does house parties, but he literally does

32:38

like tours and does like off Broadway

32:40

shows and stuff. Now right, But the whole thing is I

32:42

mean real tupperware party where

32:45

like you can buy tupperware and like he's demonstrating

32:47

the tupper wearing. He's kind of giving

32:50

his own take on what it's useful for. But

32:52

he's not the only um drag

32:54

show in the country selling tupperware,

32:57

of course, not apparently. UH

33:00

drag queen named Aunt Barbara up in Long

33:02

Island is was at

33:04

least in two thous twelve, the number one

33:06

salesperson in North America for Tupperware.

33:09

It all makes sense when you think about it so two

33:12

fifty grand worth of Tupa in one year.

33:14

Like the kitch of the Drag show, the

33:16

kitch of Tupperware parties, it

33:18

all sort of goes hand in hand. And

33:21

Um, I went to the website of Dixie

33:23

Longate and he has a pretty interesting

33:27

bio. I have three kids,

33:30

Winona, Dwayne and absorbing Junr.

33:34

It's all made up, I think, I think maybe,

33:36

although you never know. But yeah. Now

33:38

he has solo stand up shows, um

33:41

and a recent theatrical

33:43

show called never Wear a tube top while

33:46

Riding a mechanical bowl and sixteen

33:48

other things I learned while I was drinking last

33:50

Thursday. And apparently that is

33:52

selling out venues. It's

33:55

basically that's selling out venues. We're not, but

33:57

that is don't be better. We

34:00

will one day. If we did it in drag we'd

34:02

probably well, no, that's not true either, one

34:05

day chuck. Uh

34:08

wow, that's a weird way to end this. Yeah,

34:10

I think it's perfect. Um. I

34:12

thought I had something else, but I guess I don't. Oh,

34:15

yes I do. PBS did a great documentary

34:17

called Tupperware with an exclamation

34:19

point. It's got a whole website on

34:21

online and you can watch parts

34:24

of the documentary, if not the whole thing. Yeah,

34:26

and look for the Sandra Bullock the Brownie Wise

34:28

story coming to a theater near

34:30

you in a couple of years. Nice job,

34:32

you said a theater near you.

34:35

You just said coming to a theater near you. That's

34:38

like wow? Did you ever think

34:40

you would grow up to say that like

34:43

in public? Sure? Okay,

34:46

Well, if you want to know more about tupper ware, you can type

34:48

that one word and the search part how stuff works

34:51

dot com? And uh, since I said

34:53

search parts, time for a listener mail and

34:57

they call this the strisand effect? Have you ever heard

34:59

of this? Hello?

35:01

Josh, Chuck and Jerry really enjoyed the podcast

35:03

on Internet censorship. Although I was

35:05

disturbed that s OP three

35:08

oh three exists, one

35:11

thing not mentioned that I thought was relevant is when individuals

35:13

attempt to censor specific things from

35:15

their own life and the resulting fallout

35:17

that occurs. In two thousand three, and

35:20

I remember this happening. Actually, a

35:22

picture of Barbra Streisand's home in Malibu

35:24

appeared in a publicly available collection

35:26

of over twelve thousand photos of

35:29

California Coastline. The collection

35:31

was documenting coastal erosion and

35:33

not related to news paparazzi or tabloids

35:36

or anything like that. But Streisand's

35:38

lawyers filed a fifty million dollar lawsuit

35:41

against the photographer, asking the picture to be

35:43

taken down for privacy reasons.

35:46

Before stories of the lawsuit hit the press, the photo

35:48

of the home had only been downloaded six

35:50

times, two of which were by her attorneys.

35:54

During the following month, after the whole thing became a news

35:56

story, more than four hundred thousand people

35:58

visited the website. Uh. They even

36:00

coined the term at the strice end effect

36:04

an attempt to really got out of hand for her.

36:06

Yeah, I did I remember this blew up in her face.

36:08

An attempt at censoring or removing something from

36:11

the Internet results and said thing being seen and reported

36:13

on much more than if the person requesting

36:15

it be removed had simply let it fade into obscurity.

36:18

Thanks for the podcast. Also possibly

36:20

a shout out to my wife Emily, who

36:23

is nearly as addicted to stuff you should know as

36:25

I am nearly And that is from Brenton

36:27

Krauss in uh mid Hudson

36:30

Valley, New York, USA. So Emily

36:32

and get on it. So you're equally

36:35

as addicted, and thank

36:37

you Britton for being fully addicted. Yeah

36:40

to the brim, I guess uh.

36:43

If you want to get in touch with us and

36:45

talk to us about Tupperware or

36:48

um whatever, you

36:50

can tweet to us right at

36:53

s y s K podcast. Josh's

36:55

manning that station. You can go on to our awesome

36:57

Facebook page courtesy of Chuckers

37:00

I'm in that station, Facebook, dot com, slash

37:02

Stuff you Should Know. You can send us an email. We both

37:04

get those. They come direct to us to

37:07

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37:09

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37:11

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37:13

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37:16

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