Posted on 03/30/2020 9:17:38 PM PDT by deport
It started with an unsubstantiated rumor. “You can laugh now,” Johnny Carson said on The Tonight Show on December 19, 1973, “but there is an acute shortage of toilet paper.” There wasn’t—but it didn’t matter. The broadcast sent America into a mass panic. Millions of shoppers swarmed into grocery stores and began hoarding toilet paper. Ex nihilo, a shortage was born. The Scott Paper Company urged people to stop panic-buying the product. Nevertheless, for four months, toilet paper—absent from shelves—was bartered for, traded, and even sold on the black market....
Some experts regard the toilet-paper shortage of ’73 as a case study in the mechanics of the rumor mill. Earlier that year, the stock market had crashed, losing more than 45 percent of its value—one of the worst declines in history. To make matters worse, an oil embargo caused gas prices to spike dramatically. Fear and uncertainty were in the air. The climate was ripe for the spread of misinformation.
You don’t have to look far to find parallels between 1973 and today. Just days after the first case of the coronavirus was identified stateside, Americans started stockpiling toilet paper, despite the fact that most stores had it in stock.
“I never thought this film would have the kind of relevance it currently holds,” Gersten said. “It’s truly astonishing and shocking. A toilet-paper panic sounds absolutely ludicrous, but here we all are, once again, panicking about not having enough toilet paper.”
END SNIP
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
I remember my brother filling the back of his big station wagon with TP when he lived in S.F. in 73
I was out working, etc. and I be darn if I can remember a
thing about event.
People have repeated in many times over the years and I believe it entered the public consciousness.
It actually started with the 130 day West Coast longshoreman’s strike of 1971. Hawaii had been getting very little cargo, only aircraft borne. Some wise ass radio announcer in Hawaii was the one that triggered it by saying something to the affect of a TP shortage. Then there was.
I was 3rd mate on the first ship to bring cargo (including TP) into Hawaii when the strike ended.
Johnny Carson may have used that as his model
I remember the oil embargo, even though I was very young, because we lived next to a gas station and I could see the sign that showed the price outside my bedroom window. I watched it go up and up, changing every couple days, and even thought I was only about 9, I knew Something Serious Was Happening.
Interesting. But one thing I do know is that we always painted the horrors of socialism/communism (same thing really) we’d point out “people in line to get TP”.
But I’m from the south, we have corn cobs! lol
I was in the Air Force at the time, and I don’t remember it either.
I had graduated from college in June 1973 and was working in Field Service Engineering in power plants. I lived in hotels during the jobs. So I had the pleasure of ignoring the idiocy and panic and let the hotel people keep my room well stocked.
I was in the Marine Corps at the time, so I have no recollection of it at the time, but I have heard the story a number of times over the years.
We were stationed in Klamath Falls, Oregon at that time....I don’t remember this...
In Oregon we could only buy gas on an even day if the last digit on our license plate was even or on an odd day if it was odd...Most gas stations only served 40 cars in the morning and 40 cars in the afternoon...10 gallons only ...
The base station line up started way before 9 and the attendant would come out and count 40 cars and put an obstacle behind that fortunate last car....I kept my knitting in my car in case my husband couldn’t get away to do the filling...both of our cars ended with an even number so it was a race to get enough gas to drive back and forth to wok...
Back and forth on the way to work we would pass big American gas guzzlers out of gas and abandoned on the side of the road...Since we needed a new car and there were no small American cars we had brought a 1974 Toyota Celica 5 Speed with overdrive...small gas tank but much better MPH...we drove it to work and limited our other trips and it got us through ...
BTW that new Toyota cost #3,640 a lot of money to spend on a car in those days...
:)
Who would have thought that Carson and this hoaxdemic would play such a big role in denying tree huggers something to hug
Carson should have been dressed as Karnak for this joke.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5K9-Lz0SbrA
Hah! I was stationed in Sicily at the time. I knew nothing of this. Of course, Italian toilet paper was nothing to write home about.
Also missed the gas crisis. The Navy issued gas coupons to us to buy gas on the local economy at HALF PRICE. I forget the liter amount, but always proved to be plenty. Plus, you could buy gas at the market price at the pump.
Yeah, that was quite a moment in history, as I remember.
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