William A. Mitchell invented some iconic snack foods and candies. Learn all about him today!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapter 1: Who was William A. Mitchell?
That's right. A food scientist named William A. Mitchell, who was a research chemist for 35 years at General Foods. And this is a great guy. He seems like it. There was an interview with a guy named Marv Rudolph, who worked with... with Mitchell that said he just knew how to amplify flavors in food. He knew what colors to make something to make it more attractive.
And if you had a problem, he was a guy to go to. He could figure it out. The other great thing was, and this is also from the same interview, is they tried to promote him at General Foods to management many, many times, but he didn't want to do that. He was a lab guy and wanted to stay in the lab.
Yes. And that is the sign of a true artiste.
Yeah.
Because I think we talked about in our Peter Principle episode, appropriately enough, because that's what we're talking about here. You can very easily get raised, I guess. Promoted. Thank you. Out of your field of expertise and suddenly you're a manager. And not everybody's a manager, we can tell you for sure.
Yeah. I've done that job. I'm OK at it. I don't love it.
I'm terrible at it, just screaming, pounding my fists on desks. It doesn't work.
But Mitchell, and we'll get to the things he invented after this maybe because that will be a nice little teaser, but he has more than 70 food patents that he invented from 1941 to 1976. But this was a guy that was born to very, very hard work in a Minnesota farm family or to a Minnesota farm family in 1911. Isn't that right?
Yeah, because his dad died while he was in elementary school. Although I suspect if you're born to a Minnesota farm family in 1911, you're going to work regardless. But I think the pressure was on William Mitchell even more than the average Minnesota farm child born in 1911 because of his father's death.
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Chapter 2: What are some inventions by William A. Mitchell?
So he's like, just throw some Tang powder in there and you're all good. Yeah.
So, yeah, I mean, this was the time when America was just totally fascinated with space. You know, you could have put an old leather boot in space and sold it as Tang and people would have drank it. Yeah. So you talked about John Glenn saying it was gross to drink metallic water. Later on, Buzz Aldrin said Tang is gross. As a matter of fact, he said Tang sucks.
And he said it while he was doing the most 2013 thing you could possibly be doing. He was presenting a Spike TV Guy's Choice Award to Felix Baumgartner.
Oh, was he the parachute guy?
Yeah.
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Chapter 3: How did Tang become popular?
Yeah, that jumped from space. Yeah. Yeah. Sponsored by Red Bull, probably.
Yeah, and I don't know how it came up. I didn't see the clip, but that was what made the rounds in the media. Tang sucks, in quotes.
Oh, good for you, Buzz. Speaking of being sponsored, though, by the time Apollo 8 rolled around, Tang was such a thing for space flights that the televised event was sponsored by Tang. They were like, we got to get in on this thing.
Chapter 4: What was the impact of space travel on food products?
Chapter 5: What challenges did William A. Mitchell face in his career?
Chapter 6: How did Mitchell's background influence his work?
Yeah. Before that, though, he got a job that would kind of come in handy later on as a food scientist because he worked the overnight shift at the sugar crystallization tank room for the American beet sugar company. So that work with sugar just sort of put a pin in that because that'll come back.
Yeah. You can kind of imagine that's probably where he started to develop his love of food science, right?
I mean, I don't know. One can only guess. But, I mean, he was around all that sugar.
Yeah. It really hyped him up. Well, I say that because pretty early on, after he graduated with a master's degree in chemistry, he went into research chemistry with, I guess, a lean toward food because it was at the Agricultural Experiment Station in Lincoln, Nebraska. I'm guessing he worked a lot with corn. And so that was his first career was essentially in food science.
He started working with food as a scientist. How about that?
Yeah, for sure. And as you will see, he was not a person to be deterred because not long after he started that job, there was a pretty bad explosion from heating a cracked beaker with alcohol in it. And he got second and third degree burns over 80 percent of his body, took some time off to recover a few months.
And then that is when he landed his job and moved to White Plains, New York, with the General Food Foods. Excuse me. More than one food corporation.
Don't say it. Don't say any names yet.
I won't.
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Chapter 7: What is the legacy of William A. Mitchell?
So he's like, just throw some Tang powder in there and you're all good. Yeah.
So, yeah, I mean, this was the time when America was just totally fascinated with space. You know, you could have put an old leather boot in space and sold it as Tang and people would have drank it. Yeah. So you talked about John Glenn saying it was gross to drink metallic water. Later on, Buzz Aldrin said Tang is gross. As a matter of fact, he said Tang sucks.
And he said it while he was doing the most 2013 thing you could possibly be doing. He was presenting a Spike TV Guy's Choice Award to Felix Baumgartner.
Oh, was he the parachute guy?
Yeah.
Yeah, that jumped from space. Yeah. Yeah. Sponsored by Red Bull, probably.
Yeah, and I don't know how it came up. I didn't see the clip, but that was what made the rounds in the media. Tang sucks, in quotes.
Oh, good for you, Buzz. Speaking of being sponsored, though, by the time Apollo 8 rolled around, Tang was such a thing for space flights that the televised event was sponsored by Tang. They were like, we got to get in on this thing.
Did you drink Tang when you were a kid?
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