Product marketing in The Waltons

[Alex]

I'm currently watching Season 4 and I've noticed Jim-Bob is seen on several episodes playing a yo-yo. There's even one episode (I think it's The Secret) in which a yo-yo seller makes a demonstration outside Ike's store amongst a bunch of kids who gather to buy yo-yo's.

Probably there was one of these yo-yo revivals at the time. You know, some toys come and go every few years, even these days with all the heavy competition from the Playstation and the like. I suppose it was hardly coincidental that one of the Waltons was showing a yo-yo now and again so I wonder if that was a marketing campaign from a yo-yo maker at the time.

Nowadays you watch any modern family sitcom and you see what brand of cereals they're having for breakfast, and of course that's been paid for. Do you think they did the same back in the mid 70's when The Waltons was produced?

[Deleted]

Did they mention a brand name? If not, I doubt that it was marketing. Might be that yo-yos were popular during the depression.
I have been researching the depression era and one of the things has been missing on the show is to make clothing out of flour and grain sacks.

[Alex]

Mmmh... No, they don't mention any brand names, but I doubt whether any yo-yo brand in the 30's (provided there were any) still survived in the 70's. If a 70's leading toy maker wanted to promote yo-yo's then The Waltons might have been a good way as it was popular with kids. And you can't watch any Walton kids playing with a yo-yo on any episode from seasons 1, 2 or 3, just a few episodes on season 4. I'm not too sure if that's a coincidence.

As for the clothes out of flour sacks, yes, I've read that too. Some flour makers knew that and they started packing their product in patterned sacks so that families could re-use them and bought their brand of flour instead of others. If you compare them to many depression-era images from books or the internet, The Walton kids look well dressed and clean, apart from the odd patch on their dungarees. Some of those images show people having a really hard time. All of the Waltons look clean and there's always food on the table. Or as Earl Hamner put it: "We were poor but we didn't know it."

[davidm]

I know Duncan's use to be #1 in yo yos, are they still around? Back when WCW/nWo were really popular a friend gave me a yo yo with a picture of Goldberg on it. It's made in China. I think the brand name is Racing Champions. Sometimes I think all professional sports are fake except professional wrestling. I haven't seen the script for this year's Super Bowl so I don't know who is slated to win. )