"It's a TV dinner. You are supposed to watch TV while you eat it." This is how a Polish immigrant explains this American phenomenon to his newly arrived cousin in the 1985 film Stranger Than Paradise. In fact, TV dinners, invented in 1953, represented much of what was new and technologically exciting in 1950s American culture. A marvel of modern streamlined efficiency, the TV dinner combined home refrigeration and television (see entry under 1940s—TV and Radio in volume 3), two of the decade's most popular new inventions. Besides that, they allowed Mom to take a break from preparing the family meal and to sit down with the family to eat in front of the television.

TV dinners shifted Americans' eating habits from around the dinner table to around the television. Archive Photos. Reproduced by permission.