You guys know how much I love TV dinners! 😊 That’s what frozen dinners were called when I was growing up. They came in little tin pans you heated up in the oven. We had no microwaves back then.  The commercial for them showed families watching TV with each family member having their own little folding table to sit their dinner on while they watched TV together and ate! Those little tables were called TV trays. 

I grew up doing that and still do it all summer while 2mama is out at camp and whenever she is out of town or has other plans for a meal. She doesn’t like them. But you will always find a bunch of TV dinners in our freezer! I came across a track on a ZZ top album called TV Dinners and found the lyrics on-line (copied below). It makes me hungry!

The song was on their 1983 album, “ELIMINATIOR” (By the way, that was the name of my car when I started dating 2mama, so was basically our “first” car–a 1969 Mercury Cougar—the Eliminator! Our 1^st date car, for sure!) Here is a photo of one just like ours, yellow and all. It says ELIMINATIOR at the end of the black racing stripe behind the door. (I’m pretty sure she thought I was cool.)

But I digress. 😊

Check out the album cover that is attached. They put a TV Dinner on the cover! Nobody, but die-hard ZZ Top fans, remembers the song TV Dinners, but note the song, Cheap Sunglasses, which is still popular today, was also on that album.!

This women is eating on a TV tray table exactly like what we had growing up. I ate many a meal on one of those! 😊

Here are the words to ZZ Top’s TV Dinners:

TV dinners, there’s nothin’ else to eat
TV dinners, they really can’t be beat
I like ’em frozen but you understand
I throw ’em in and wave ’em and I’m a brand new man, oh yeah

TV dinners, they’re goin’ to my head
TV dinners my skin is turnin’ red
Twenty year old turkey in a thirty year old tin
I can’t wait until tomorrow and thaw one out again, oh yeah

TV dinners, I’m feelin’ kinda rough
TV dinners, this one’s kinda tough
I like the enchiladas and the teriyaki too
I even like the chicken if the sauce is not too blue

And they’re mine, all mine, oh yeah
And they sure are fine
Gotta have ’em, gimme somethin’ now

TV dinners, there’s nothin’ else to eat

TV dinners, they really can’t be beat

I like ’em frozen but you understand

I throw ’em in and wave ’em and I’m a brand new man, oh yeah

© 1982 Songwriters: ZZ Top: Frank Beard / Billy Gibbons / Dusty Hill

I’m not sure TV dinners were the best or the healthiest thing, but, man, it was fun sitting around with the family watching Ed Sullivan and eating dinner together.