December 1, 1974: "Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie and Chevrolet"

A still photo from the original ad,

featuring a 1975 Chevrolet Vega

December 1, 1974: General Motors premieres at TV commercial that ties 4 American classics -- or 4 of what they perceive to be American classics -- together: "Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie and Chevrolet."

It worked: At a time when American cars, including Chevies, had not been doing well in the face of the rise of imports from former wartime opponents Germany and Japan, it became the most popular series of car commercials in American history, topping their own "See the U.S.A. In Your Chevrolet" (see, it rhymes) jingle, as sung by Dinah Shore while hosting The Dinah Shore Chevy Show on NBC from 1956 to 1963. And it did make sales rise -- for Chevy, if not for GM's other divisions: Buick, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Cadillac, and GMC Trucks.

So, did they get it right? Certainly, while it had already fallen behind football in popularity, baseball was still "the national pastime," and the ad -- despite its timing, during baseball's off-season -- probably helped the sport recover. Hot dogs had been a classic American food since the turn of the 20th Century. And apple pie had been popular in America since the Revolution of the 1770s.

But... Chevrolet? The company had been founded by Switzerland-born auto racer Louis Chevrolet (1878-1941) in 1911, and merged with other companies to create GM in 1918. But it hadn't been especially popular until 1953, when the Corvette was introduced. The 1957 Bel Air helped to make Chevy more popular than Ford, and thus the most popular brand in America, but it wasn't by that much. It's not quite the same as Gussie Busch's push to make Budweiser the one distinctly American brand of beer.

My father drove a 1966 Chevrolet Impala from his return from the U.S. Army in 1968 until it conked out in 1976, while the aforementioned ad campaign was still running. It wasn't a very good car: He called it "the Blue Bomb." A few years later, the Midas muffler company aired an ad featuring a 1963 Impala, in which the owner said his daughter called it "the Blue Bomber." Anyway, no one in the family has owned a Chevy since. (We have had a couple of GM cars, though: My father had a 1984 Buick Regal that lasted into the mid-1990s, his mother had a 1977 Buick Electra until her death in 1983, and my other grandmother had a Pontiac Le Mans in the 1970s and early '80s.)

The original ad featured a man named Ed Labunski playing a piano. He had written the jingle. In 2006, Chevy brought the ad back, altering the song with more modern references, including "goat cheese pizza." Labunski had died in 1980 -- with some irony, in a car crash -- but a new voiceover recorded, altered to sound like the original clip, with the similar-sounding announcer sounding puzzled at the new items being included in the song: "Now, hold on: What's a 'Rally Monkey'?" 

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December 1, 1974 was a Sunday. As I said, baseball was out of season when the commercial debuted. But the NFL played:

* The New York Giants lost to the Chicago Bears, 16-13 at Soldier Field in Chicago.

* The New York Jets beat the San Diego Chargers, 27-14 at Shea Stadium.

* The Philadelphia Eagles beat the Green Bay Packers, 36-14 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia.

* The Los Angeles Rams beat the Atlanta Falcons, 30-7 at Atlanta Stadium (later Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium).

* The Buffalo Bills beat the Baltimore Colts, 6-0 at Rich Stadium (later Ralph Wilson Stadium) in the Buffalo suburb of Orchard Park, New York.

* The Houston Oilers beat the Pittsburgh Steelers, 13-10 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh.

* The Minnesota Vikings beat the New Orleans Saints, 29-9 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* The Kansas City Chiefs beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 17-13 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. Because the football version of the Cardinals were in the NFC, and the Chiefs were in the AFC, and the Cards eventually moved to Arizona, the cross-Missouri matchup never became much of a rivalry. Nor was it much of one while the Rams were in St. Louis.

* The Cleveland Browns beat the San Francisco 49ers, 7-0 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

* The Oakland Raiders beat the New England Patriots, 41-26 at the Oakland Coliseum.

Three days earlier, on Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, the Dallas Cowboys beat their arch-rivals, the Washington Redskins, 24-23 at Texas Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Irving, Texas. This was the Clint Longley Game, and I have a separate entry for it.

Also on Thanksgiving, the Denver Broncos beat the Detroit Lions, 31-27. This was the Lions' last game at Tiger Stadium. They played their last 2 regular-season games on the road, did not make the Playoffs, and moved into the Silverdome in suburban Pontiac, Michigan the next season.

And the day after this Sunday, on ABC Monday Night Football, the Miami Dolphins beat the Cincinnati Bengals, 24-3 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati.

There were 2 games in the NBA. The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 117-112 at the Milwaukee Exposition and Convention Center Arena, a.k.a. The MECCA (now the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena). Kareem Abdul-Jabbar scored 35 points and grabbed 17 rebounds. And the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Phoenix Suns, 111-105 in overtime at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

There was 1 game in the American Basketball Association: The Memphis Sounds beat the Utah Stars, 101-88 at the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis.

There were 5 games in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers and the St. Louis Blues played to a 4-4 tie at Madison Square Garden.

* The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Kansas City Scouts, 10-0 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia. This was not that surprising: The Flyers were the Stanley Cup holders, and would win it again; while the Scouts were a 1st-year expansion team, and would move twice in their 1st 8 seasons, becoming the Colorado Rockies in 1976, and the New Jersey Devils in 1982.

Ross Lonsberry and Bill Barber each had 2 goals. Team Captain Bobby Clarke had a goal and 4 assists. Terry Crisp had 3 assists.

* The California Golden Seals beat the Washington Capitals, 5-2 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland. The Caps were also a 1st-year expansion team, so it's not that surprising that the Seals, who didn't win that often, beat them.

* The Buffalo Sabres beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 6-3 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium.

* And the Chicago Black Hawks beat the Minnesota North Stars, 3-0 at the Chicago Stadium.

And there were 5 games in the World Hockey Association:

* The Houston Aeros beat the Indianapolis Racers, 7-3 at the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis.

* The Minnesota Fighting Saints beat the Phoenix Roadrunners, 4-3 at the St. Paul Civic Center in St. Paul, Minnesota.

* The Winnipeg Jets beat the Quebec Nordiques, 3-2 at the Winnipeg Arena.

* The Edmonton Oilers beat the New England Whalers, 8-4 at the brand-new Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton.

* And the Toronto Toros beat the San Diego Mariners, 3-1 at the San Diego Sports Arena (now the Pechanga Arena).