Cigar Cipha

The Muriel cigar has a great classy story behind it, which for a smoker like me, was a surprise. Smokers have become so accustomed to being the social outcasts of the twenty-first century that we have forgotten the days when cigars and cigarettes were the absolutely latest and sexiest fad around. The Muriel cigar story harks back to the time when a good quality cigar would set you back only ten cents and you were not thrown out the door and harshly condemned for lighting up!

A Muriel cigar is one of the better known and more affordable American cigars on offer today. It has an unusual tip and can be purchased in a range of flavors, such as chocolate and fruit flavors as well as the traditional tastes. It has been manufactured since the nineteenth century, originally by P. Lorrillard and Co. of New Jersey. It changed ownership when Consolidated Cigar bought it in 1959 and now belongs to Altadis USA.

The original adverts for the Muriel cigar show a mummy, daddy and baby cigar cavorting across the boxy black and white TV screens of the 1950s. These were the times of programs like The Ed Sullivan show and I love Lucy. There are a few websites that will give you access to old clips of the sexy Muriel cigar, singing and tap-dancing much as Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire did in their movies. These adverts gave rise to one of America’s first TV advertising icons and the dancing mummy cigar would sing “I’m today’s new Muriel, the fine cigars …”.

In the 1960s, keeping pace with the increasing sophistication of television media, Edie Adams, Miss Television 1950, took over as the face for Muriel cigars. With a provocative pout and a throaty voice that would have done Mae West proud, she would invite the viewer, “Hey big spender, spend a little dime on me”. Of course, as in the best traditions of advertising the double entendre was meant in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way.

Edie Adams was a very popular actress and singer in her day and the company sponsored a series which she hosted called “Here’s Edie” in the late 1960s. By the 1970s Susan Anton, a model, had taken over as the face of the Muriel cigar. However, Edie or Mrs Ernie Kovacs’ mystique was irreplaceable as she was so sexy she made even non-smokers want a cigar!

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