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         The idea of the T.V. dinner and how it was and is advertised has not changed much until recently. In 1953  two brothers Gilbert and Clark Swanson were in trouble. They had 520,000  pounds of leftover turkey from their  Omaha, Neb frozen food company. Sales of the thanksgiving day turkeys had been very slow this year. The turkeys were loaded onto ten refrigerated rail cars and sent from Nebraska to the east coast. The cars had to stay moving to keep cold so they went back and forth. The brothers asked for help from employee's and Gerry Thomas came up with a three compartment aluminum. He had gotten the idea while visiting Pan Am and noticed they used aluminum trays to keep food hot. The genius in the advertising was to link the dinners with the latest craze of the day, TELEVISION! The package would resemble a T.V. right down to the knobs.The individual compartments would have the greatest effect on people. Betty Fussell an author said "The segmented plate was enormously powerful and the fact that everything was separate was a form of comfort and reminded of us of when we were kids" The first run of meals of five thousand was way to little and the next year twenty five million dinners were sold. To be eaten in front of the thirty three million televisions sold. Swanson's signature tray was given a spot and Mann's Chinese Theater in 1997 and in 1999 it received a star on the Hollywood walk of fame. By the time of the next century sales had dramatically decreased and Swanson was bought by Pinnacle Food Corporation in 2001. With the company bankrupt a new ad campaign was put together to get the attention of the aging baby boomers and their kids. The ten million dollar ad campaign was hoping to boost . The idea of making the taste of the food was high on the list of things that were to be advertised. New dinners like Mesquite Chicken with Santa Fe rice and beans were introduced. They also started using brand names like Tyson . The initial commercial has a well dressed beautiful rich women. She is walking around her mansion and ends up leaning over the railing of her grand staircase. The next scene shows her open the T.V. dinner and breathing in the new delicious food and to top it all off at the end she likes her tray clean. The voice over says even though Swanson is now chic , T.V. dinner etiquette still applies. This advertising method is not being well received by critics, consulting groups, or professor's of business. The seventy percent of dinners are being  prepared by women and Pinnacle is hoping by making dinner a little more simple they can lure them back to the T.V. dinner side.