Serutan

Serutan was an early fiber-type laxative product which was widely promoted on U.S. radio and television from the 1930s through the 1960s. It was manufactured by the J. B. Williams Co., which was founded in 1885 and bought out by Nabisco in 1971.

The origin of the brand name was straightforward. The makers merely decided to spell "natures" backwards, and "Read it backwards" was the product's advertising slogan. This was to differentiate it as being a "natural" product as opposed to laxative brands which stimulated the colon by chemical action rather than sheer bulk of contents.

The product was almost uniformly promoted on programs whose core audience as shown by demographics was known to be considerably older than that of the typical television viewer. Serutan is especially associated with The Lawrence Welk Show and The Original Amateur Hour, both of which were also sponsored by J. B. Williams products Sominex, a sleeping pill and Geritol, a vitamin supplement. Serutan was the target of numerous jokes by Bob Hope and other radio comedians during the 1930s and 1940s .

Popular culture

A friend of the protagonist of J.P. Donleavy's The Ginger Man refers to himself as "The Absentee Duke of Serutan." "Serutan Approach" is also a trend within the positivist definition of Science.

In Harvard Lampoon's Bored of the Rings, the parody version of Saruman is named Serutan.

In National Lampoon's Doon, the parody version of Princess Irulan is named Princess Serutan.

Don De Lillo's Libra mentions the slogan in its first chapter.

In Exit The Body, a play by Fred Carmichael, Kate Bixley refers to the protagonist's husband, who writes a newspaper column under the alias "Dorothy Duckworth" and is attending a con vention for lonely-hearts column writers, as "The only female at the convention who doesn't take Serutan."

A running gag in the 1944-1945 season of the Jack Benny Radio Show was a series of commercials by Frank Nelson for "Sympathy Soothing Cream", which used the slogan "Sympathy spelled backwards is Yhtapmys." Several variations were introduced, most notably the rival brand, Sdrawrof cream (Sdrawrof spelled backwards is forwards).

In the 1952 Bugs Bunny cartoon Operation: Rabbit, in the final scene where Bugs had outwitted Wile E. Coyote, he returns to finally admit defeat. When he does, he says "Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Mud," before passing out. Bugs then tells the audience "And remember: MUD spelled backwards is DUM!", a parody of Serutan's slogan.

Listen to

• Red Ingle sings "Serutan Yob (A Song for Backward Boys and Girls under 40)"