What you learn from a bygone donut ad.

There’s a bit more history to this picture than you might think. An ad from a 1933 church recipe book:

Who was Langford? Googling around yields this:

L. C. Langford, 79, who invented the frozen malted milk shake 40 years ago, died Thursday after a long illness. Langford, a native of Clarksville, Tenn., expanded a sandwich shop in Mason City, Iowa, into a chain of 129 restaurants before he retired in 1965. Langford devised the frozen malt in the 1930’s, when he had an ice cream shop in downtown Nashville and another on the highway to Gallatin, Tenn.

Langford was 11 when he started his career as a soda jerk after his mother died. Through various jobs he saved $500, and borrowed another $500 to open Langford’s Sandwich Shop in Mason City.

He prospered there before selling out and starting again at Minneapolis in 1921.

Those stores led to a multi-state chain. As for the claim about the malted milk shake - I suppose there are some who’ll insist he did, but Wikipedia says:

The use of malted milk powder in milkshakes was popularized in the USA by the Chicago drugstore chain Walgreens. In 1922, Walgreens' employee Ivar "Pop" Coulson made a milkshake by adding two scoops of vanilla ice cream to the standard malted milk drink recipe (milk, chocolate syrup, and malt powder).[ This item, under the name "Horlick's Malted Milk", was featured by the Walgreen drugstore chain as part of a chocolate milk shake, which itself became known as a "malted" or "malt" and became one of the most popular soda-fountain drinks.

That seems to be the consensus, although whether it’s WALGREENS PROPAGANDA or not you decide. In any case, no one remembers Langford's around here. Just as few people seem to recall Mr. Donut.

ART Why did “Jupiter Ascending” fail? It’s your fault for not trusting imaginative fresh material that’s not a sequel. Here’s a quote in Variety:

“Audiences are kind of reticent to take a chance on something they don’t know or understand,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Rentrak. “They marketed the heck out of this movie, and it was still tough to bring people through the door.”

First of all, reticent does not mean hesitant. It means unwilling to unload what you're thinking. Second, as far as the audience’s unwillingness to see something they don’t know: “Guardians of the Galaxy” wasn’t exactly full of time-tested characters. It just looked fun. “Jupiter” looked stupid, and saying that something is from the directors of the “Matrix” is like saying it’s “From the Mind of George Lucas.” It’s a warning label. He goes on:

Where are the fresh visions of distant worlds and futuristic conflicts to inspire the next George Lucas or Steven Spielberg? Younger audiences are already abandoning the theater in favor of videogames and mobile devices. Nostalgia for an era of popcorn films they didn’t grow up with is unlikely to lure them back.

Except that “Guardians” was a fine example of a popcorn movie with humor and intelligence. And the reason they’re abandoning theater in favor of games is because the storytelling and situations are often more immersive than movies.

“Jupiter Ascending” may have crashed and burned, but at least it tried to soar on the strength of its own originality and daring. Its failure makes it harder for other filmmakers to get a chance to take similar risks. In this climate, would “The Matrix” ever have gotten made?

I don’t know. But the lesson isn’t support visionaries who manage to convince studies to gives them millions of dollars even though their last four films have been noisy soulless disappointments. The lesson isn’t support movies because the marketing budget are big. The lesson is make better movies. This just looks like a guy with elf ears trying to save a woman whose entire face has been novacained.