When I took a video productions class in college, I recall reading that it used to be common practice to do all sorts of strange things. Shoe polish would be added to coffee, for example, to darken it.
After the laws changes, you’re right, the product being advertised had to be the actual product, but all sorts of things were done to help it along. If you’re doing cereal, the photographer might pour out 50 boxes to pick out each and every individual flake and arrange it just so. I’ve seen a few companies that have cereals that have added things (like dried strawberries, marshmellows, etc) get called out on consumer shows because the picture clearly uses all the available extras shown on a single bowl to make it look like the box contains more. Not illegal, but definitly questionable.
Typically, they’d use something like white glue as a milk subsititue. If they were advertising ice cream topping, they’d used Crisco for the ice cream. Cakes used to advertise frosting are usually baked differently with some added ingrediates to increase their fluffyness. (My neighbor as a child did photo shoots for advertising for a while, and brought home a bunch of cakes from one. They tasted very bland.)
As for some of the other ones:
Hitchcock might have lost his bellybutton at some point through surgery, but he was most certainly born with one.
Computer users do indeed blink far less than someone not on the computer. Seven times a minute might be a bit low, but not by much.
the idea that Prince Charels and Williams don’t travel together isn’t so odd. The President and Vice President don’t, either. In fact, by tradition, at least one member of the cabinent is left at the White House during the state of the union to prevent the total decapitation of the US government. On a more personal level, some families don’t all travel together to prevent everyone from being wiped out (A passenger on Eastern 401 that crashed in the Everglades was a father traveling apart from his wife)
That’s still a far cry from claiming the carburetor (such as it was) was made froma tomato can. Other descriptions call it a “pan”, including another page on your NASA cite:
This appears, from the diagram on this page, to include more than the admittedly can-shaped air intake. Could the air intake have actually been made from a can, possibly even a tomato can? I suppose so, but there’s no direct evidence for it, that I can find.
WOW thanks for the info gang. This was sent to me by my SIL and there were a bunch of those questions that were… questionable. I appreciate the answers. Count me as one of the more enlightened ones now
No, this is far too early. We know the toothbrush originated in West Virginia, because if it had been invented anywhere else, it would have been called the “teethbrush”.
sorry if someone esle answerd this, but I didnt read through all the postings:
as for the milk one, the paint and thinner is a possibility, they almost certainly dont use actual milk. many shoots, particularly for commercials, last all day, under hot lights so spoilage is a possibility.
Plus milk just doesn’t look white enough on camera. i was on a shoot where Elmer’s glue was used for milk in a bowl of cereal, but a glass full of glue might not be so efficient so thinned paint seems a plausable substitute.
