TV and the Lunchbox

Now that the school year has begun, the daily routine includes the early morning rush to catch the bus, the myriad of after school activities and the mound of dreaded homework assignments. Upon arriving home each night, many school children manage their schedule in order to finish a homework assignment in time to watch the newest crop of TV shows.

While Facebook, Twitter and the unlimited text messaging are ever present in the daily lives of our tech-savvy kids (whether the TV is on or not), the connection between old fashioned school lunchboxes and vintage TV shows remains of interest.

The history of the lunch box mirrors American TV history. During the early days of television, lunch boxes featuring TV stars accompanied the children of World War II veterans like me to the nation’s suburban elementary schools. The earliest lunchbox characters featured Hopalong Cassidy and Roy Rogers on the metal (and meal) carry-alls of the 1950s. 

By the latter part of the 1950s, the yellow dome-shaped, lithographed metal Walt Disney School Bus lunchbox grew in popularity. It depicted a bus filled with Disney icons including Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Pinocchio, Jiminy Cricket and Dumbo the Elephant. The mid 1950s Disney character lunch box appealed to the oldest and youngest of lunchbox aficionados. It appealed the parents who grew up with the Steamboat Willie cartoons and it intrigued their baby boomer children who dreamed of visiting California’s newest attraction, Disneyland, and meeting the characters immortalized on the distinctive lunchbox.

With a price tag of just $2.69 in 1956, the Disney School Bus lunchbox was among one of the most expensive items in Universal’s product line. Today, this vintage Disney lunchbox sells for $500 retail. Like all vintage lunchboxes, the collectible brings the highest prices during the weeks between Labor Day and Oct. 1.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the lithographed metal lunchboxes were still en vogue even though printed vinyl-over-cardboard lunchboxes were moving into the marketplace. Popular images included a Munsters lunch tote featuring the characters from the TV situation comedy about a family of lovable monsters.

Lunchboxes, of course, focused on cartoon characters like Scooby Doo and H.R. Puffnstuff. The form of the Scooby Doo lunch box mimicked the cartoon’s highly recognizable Mystery Machine VW microbus. Also, metal lunchboxes of the 1970s featured TV icons like the Partridge Family and the Fonz with his Happy Days gang.

Personally, my lunchbox didn’t have a TV character on its side, but rather an icon from the funny papers. My school lunchbox was a bright yellow plastic domed box with a highly recognizable image of Peanuts’ Snoopy asleep atop his dog house with his pal, Woodstock. While Snoopy only made rare TV appearances on CBS holiday specials, this lunchbox was one of the most popular totes for school kids during the Age of Aquarius.

If you have one of these lunch items from your past in your present basement or attic, condition will impact value significantly. Popular television character lunchboxes are a sign of the times as well as desirable collectible objects of Americana.