Neither of them looks overweight, and if either does, it's the guy.
The husband is classic fit-fat. The wife is anorexic by today's standards.
The husband was a familiar cad in '70s television. I believe he even harassed Ann Romano on 'One Day at a Time'.
The wife looks familiar too.
Well, with women in ads, it's kind of the same concept as Lane Bryant using non-obese mannequins for their clothes--mixed with female psychology of the times.
We've gotten fatter in real life, but requirements for female actors and models got much more strict a while before this commercial.
Totie Fields based her whole act on being overweight - she was cosidered a big fat heifer in her day. Today, you see women much fatter than Totie ever was everywhere you go.
Gosh, I never realized how much Totie Fields resembles Barney Frank in drag, R6.
I recently re-watched an old made-for-tv movie from 1977 called "The Spell". It starred Lee Grant as the mother and Helen Hunt as the "skinny, pretty" sister. It was about a "fat girl" who got even with her witchy powers. Everyone, her gym teacher, her mother, her sister, the other schoolchildren, are disgusted by her.
Now she would be considered normal, and probably wear a belly shirt.
