JarJarDrinks
16196
285
15
Fresh out of the oven, everything was baked and crispy. No microwave monstrosities that were wet and gooey.
Apr 3, 2026 2:58 AM
JarJarDrinks
16196
285
15
Fresh out of the oven, everything was baked and crispy. No microwave monstrosities that were wet and gooey.
Dannoboyo
Mostly we got chicken pot pies, 5 or 6 for a dollar.
Mediathug
I like the ones with the brownie for dessert
Syko73
Those were the good old days
CelestialSea
TV dinner was invented because someone ordered WAY too many turkeys one year and they had to figure something to do with the 360 tons of leftovers.
TapeLeg
I could eat
AIisAbutnotI
That means Mom and Dad are going out tonight!
javeragetreats
Oh those awful carrots still give me nightmares.
TheDarknessInTheHeartsOfMen
Anyone else getting a lot of commercials for meal-delivery kits, where its either ingredients or pre-cooked stuff that comes in the mail?
They always make me think of these.
Cranbananarama
The leg is okay, but I never cared for wings. Barely any meat.
SwampApe75
the chicken texture of hard and chewy i still look for, its not great its just stuck in there like a core memory
KillTimeAndLife
Hello Fresh
rhitard
More like Factor I would say.
grandpasonlylivingheir
They NEVER looked like this. My mom thought it was the greatest invention since the wheel. It is all I ate growing up till I went off to college. But I still had a great mom otherwise.
Ih8thisSoMuch
It's been 50 years and I can still taste this picture.
ConfusedAxis
Especially those apples. Yum.
ReallyOG
That corn. The crunch. Damn.
BatmanAndCradleRobin
you might need this soon
TalanRhodes
I've never had one and I can taste this picture. Man, my generation missed out....
Marv111
I can taste it right now!
SecurityBadger
I always asked mom to get these because they were TV dinners, which meant you could watch them in front of the TV, right? But when we actually got them, mom always made me eat at the kitchen table.
claytonhadams
It's a guarantee that those things never looked like this.
CaptnRobAnybody
I grew up during that time and I can not remember any of those dinners that were bad, my faviorit was the surloin steak dinner and the turkey dinner as well. I wouldn't touch a modern frozen turkey dinner today.
UncleRat
Growing up, TV dinners were a treat. We couldn't have them very often, but my mother always had some in the freezer in case of total burnout.
GravyEducation
As an amateur food historian, it's because the packaging changed, and the methods by which they were cooked changed. Tv dinners rose to prominence in airlines at the advent of commercial air travel. They were often prepared and then immediately given to the plane, then reheated. After wwii they catered to the home market; then, microwave and plastic technology. You could still find foil stuff in 70s kitchens (meals and popcorn eg) but now, chef Mike reigns and nobody wants to hand out foil
tinyfootprints
They were a lot better after my mom figured out that when the instructions said to leave the food in its original container, that did NOT mean the waxy cardboard box it came in. Her first few tries were really nasty, but it got much better when she started removing the box before cooking.
seenunseen
They tasted better than any frozen dinner now. Real food, just flash frozen. No dehydrated mashed potato bullshit
Arenlor
You know you can still bake the modern stuff right? It comes out crispy if you do. You just need the spare time.
TheWeebleWobler
Fuck Tucker Carlson
onecowboytoo
Nanntuckett
Nothing wrong with tv dinners. They got me through college.
Kalab1225
And those apples ❤️
CanIGetSomeExtraSalt
pure napalm levels of heat
Apothecarius
Heat is afraid of the center of the chicken, so it hides in the apples
nutmegonyourdoodle
So eloquent! I am thankful you cleared this up for us.
Unclescam
It's been a long time since I had apple pie without the annoying crust.....
poscduke
You can just buy canned apple pie filling and go to town
Unclescam
That...sounds like a great idea I need to look into. Saturday is grocery day.
ThatSonOfaBitch
I was team brownie.
Table5
You classic sonofabitch.
chaotropicagent
Team Cherry pie or cranberry…some red and molten at any rate
tinydog
I liked the Salisbury steak with the brownie.
thepandasbum
Did you add anything to the brownie?
tinydog
Microwave radiation.
HenryLongfellowIII
I don't think you could nuke the ones in aluminum trays (like in the photo).
SwampApe75
true, but the brownie in the micro made it hot, chewy and if waited to eat it till the steak was done it was then pretty freaking hard
ThatSonOfaBitch
Always too many vegetables and never enough mashed potatoes.
GravyEducation
That's just life, kid
Detacheddavid
I wonder why. Aren't mashed potatoes cheaper than veggies? Cruelty is the point.
horsetuna
The mashed potatoes in these always tastes weird to me
AntaNce
Essence of aluminum.
jimhotep
Or, perhaps, how much sawdust you can put in mashed potatoes before people notice?
ilhares
I think it was because they usually had butter or sour cream pre-mixed into them. I wasn't a huge fan of those.
horsetuna
And it was ALWAYS the last to thaw and heat up. So if you were impatient you'd still have sad potatos.
Or your brownie burnt and your potatos were still cold.
MeowWoof
Keep in mind that between preheating the oven and cooking time these took about an hour to make.
ZackWester
Yep I can wait 10-15 min toss it into the oven 30-45 min later done. 1 hour total or spend let say 30 min standing in front of the pot cooking.
the 1 hour thing I can do something else... like watch movie have a phone call take a shower. the pot im stuck there untill its done.
Ruhig
1 hour of waiting, but not 1 hour of human effort, which was pretty impressive for the time lol
MeowWoof
Yeah but it explains why people accepted the reduced quality of microwaved meals, they were ready in 5 minutes. My hard line was banquet pot pies (still on sale for $1 to this day), that was my frozen pot pie and it was worth the hour wait. Otherwise...
Richels
life was slower then. I had time to finish my homework.
Goodmerlinpeen
I never did