Old commercials are time capsules, and few are more charming than the black-and-white ads for canned sloppy joe. In one widely shared example for Libby’s, cheerful young people in block-lettered sweatshirts dance while an announcer promises a hot meal ready in minutes. No computer graphics, no rapid-fire editing: just a camera, a dance floor and a can.
The pitch
The selling point was convenience. In the 1950s and ’60s, food companies raced to sell American families fast, canned and frozen meals. Sloppy joe filling, seasoned ground beef in a sweet tomato sauce, was perfect for that. Heat it, spoon it onto a bun and dinner was done. In 1969 Hunt’s launched Manwich, a canned sauce to which cooks added their own beef, with the slogan “A sandwich is a sandwich, but a Manwich is a meal.” Manwich is still on supermarket shelves.
Where the sandwich came from
Nobody knows for sure. One popular story credits a cook named Joe at a café in Sioux City, Iowa, in the 1930s, who added tomato sauce to a “loose meat” sandwich. Another links the name to Sloppy Joe’s, a famous bar in Havana, or to the Key West bar of the same name that Ernest Hemingway frequented, though neither is known for the sandwich we know. Food historians generally conclude that loose-meat sandwiches were common in the Midwest and that the name stuck sometime in the mid-20th century.
Why the ad still works
Today’s viewers may smile at the dancing and the canned beef. But the ad’s simple promise of a warm, easy meal for a busy family is the same one food brands make now, with fancier cameras. And the sloppy joe itself remains a staple of school cafeterias and weeknight dinners.
Sources: Sloppy joe, Wikipedia; Manwich, Wikipedia; Smithsonian Magazine on the history of the sloppy joe.
