 Winston was one of the most popular brands of cigarettes in the United States at the time. | The Flintstones first appeared on our screens in 1960, as an animated prime-time family sitcom. It quickly gained mass appeal, and so was perfect for advertisers to exploit its popularity to sell their products. Now the most infamous product that The Flinstones pushed on the viewing public of America was for Winston Cigarettes. Not so unusual at the time to have cigarette commercials on prime-time TV, though due to The Flintstones being a show that was watched by children there was some controversy. The end-of-show sponsorship bumper was pulled in 1963, when the character of baby Pebbles was introduced. |
| At the time it wasn't the fact that the commercial pushing the virtues of cigarettes was on a family show, watched by impressionable children. No, one of the biggest issues with the commercial, and the whole Winston campaign was one of grammatical error. The slogan "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should." has more people up in arms than anything, with its grammatically incorrect use of "like" rather than "as", as a conjunction. | |
Famed broadcast journalist and anchorman Walter Cronkite refused to say the phrase with the grammatical error, and thus correcting the phrase when he had to say it during his time on the CBS Morning Show. This angered the sponsors, which resulting in the use of a voice-over announcer being used to say the line how they wanted it to be said.
