Day to Day offers an appreciation of Gerry Thomas, the inventor of an American cultural treasure: the TV dinner. Thomas died this week at the age of 83.
ALEX CHADWICK, host: And this news item today.  Inventor Gerry Thomas has died at age 83.  You      may not recognize his name, but you sure know what he did, changing      American culture in way we're still struggling with.  A little more than      50 years ago, Gerry Thomas invented the TV dinner.  He was working for      Swanson & Sons in Omaha.  They had tons of frozen turkeys they couldn't      sell.  Gerry Thomas came up with the idea of a meal featuring turkey      frozen in a ready-to-heat aluminum tray.  Patrick Kiger writes about pop      culture.</s>Mr. PATRICK KIGER (Writer): Thomas, as the story goes, dreamed up this      idea when he was traveling.  He was a salesman.  He saw the trays from      Pan Am, international flights.  They had just recently developed a dining      tray for the long flights.  And he saw that.  That made him think of      eating rations back on the battlefield in World War II.  Eating a small      meal like that was difficult because the stuff all got mixed together,      and he saw the little compartments on the trays.</s>ALEX CHADWICK, host: Before the TV dinner, families actually used to sit around a      dinner table eating meals that took Mom hours to produce.  Members of the      family felt connected, they knew about each other's lives.  Almost      immediately, Patrick Kiger says, Gerry Thomas was blamed for changing      that.</s>Mr. PATRICK KIGER (Writer): He went through a period where he was getting a lot of hate      mail from men basically because they said that we were ruining family      life.  Men said they would divorce their wives if they served our      dinners.  They wanted them to fix their meals from scratch.  But, you      know, he saw that that wasn't going to happen, basically, and that was      his response as well.  You know, such is life, basically.  This is the      way the world's going to go.</s>ALEX CHADWICK, host: The original TV dinner took about 25 minutes to cook or      reheat. It's much less now.  And that may be Gerry Thomas' greatest      legacy.</s>Mr. PATRICK KIGER (Writer): The TV dinner was part of the beginning of the, you know,      now, I-want-it-now kind of culture in a way.  Again, something that he      probably didn't really envision happening.  But in some ways, it sort of      was the beginning of our collective impatience with--you know, we want      everything in two minutes; if we can get it in two minutes, we want it in      a minute.  And then it's going to keep getting smaller and smaller.</s>ALEX CHADWICK, host: Writer Patrick Kiger.  Gerry Thomas invented the TV dinner for      Swanson's.  He died in Paradise Valley in Arizona at the age of 83.</s>ALEX CHADWICK, host: I'm Alex Chadwick.  Stay with us on DAY TO DAY.