Betty Crocker, Scaring Kids Since 1936

I don't know what started me down my Betty Crocker hunt today, but hunt I did, and this Web site with its images of the "official" Betty Crocker scared the bejeezus out of me. I think I started because it was about one of the first cookbooks I owned as a teenager and while basic, it served a good introductory purpose, but if someone had put this lady on the cover, I would have thought twice. No I wouldn't have needed twice to walk away from this Arsenic and Old Lace school of cookery.

The chick from 1955...maybe I would have let her cook for me, or even write a recipe, but the others look like Nazi dominatrixes or Stepford Wives. Vould you like your beating now or avter the peach melba?

But overall, my favorite is the 1996 "subtely multiethnic" Betty...what I like to think of as "Botox Betty."

Oh yes, you can darken her brows and eyes, and take away that Teutonic I vill cook for you but I vill never enjoy it!-look, but it seems that every Betty embodies the shame of her generation. Even here you can see her wanting to frown, or possibly drop a brow, but alas, it is not to be.