96-Year-Old Grandma Goes Viral For Obscenity Filled Carnation Milk Jingle, Company Responds With Merch

This is the kind of content that's perfect for a slow Friday in December. What's better than a 96-year-old breathing life back into an obscenity filled Carnation Milk jingle from the 1940s?

Having that video go viral with millions of views and then having the company come out with some merchandise of the Iowa grandma. It's perfect for the holiday season.

Helen Ernst, with the help of her daughter, went viral last month with an old "street slogan" she remembered from her childhood "before television."

In the clip which has more than 17 million views on TikTok, the 96-year-old grandma says, "Carnation Milk, the best in the land. Comes in a tin with a red and white band. No tits to pull, no hay to pitch, just punch two holes in the son of a bitch."

The folks over at Carnation could have gone one of two ways with this viral clip. They could have leaned into it and or they could have made an attempt to shut it down.

Wisely, they leaned into it. That's a move the internet loves and a move that has to be good for the evaporated milk industry. The decision to lean into it isn't a surprising one given the company's history.

Grandma Helen Is A Certified TikTok Star

As the brand manager over at Carnation revealed with a quick history lesson, Grandma Helen's obscenity filled childhood "street slogan" was actually a submission into a slogan writing contest the company held in the 1940s.

The jingle didn't win the contest, but it did win over the hearts of the folks in the 40s and 50s. That includes the people running the evaporated milk brand at the time. They handed out a consolation prize of $1,000 to the original jingle writer.

After the history lesson, the brand manager said this to the Iowa grandmother, "We'd love to reach out to you, sponsor your Thanksgiving dinner this year, and give $5,000 - which was the amount of the original contest prize."

As if that wasn't cool enough, the folks over at Carnation then decided to team up with Grandma Helen and sell some merch. They weren't pushing the merchandise to line their own pockets either, which they could have every easily done.

Nope, Grandma Helen needed her sidewalk fixed.

I don't even know what evaporated milk is used for (don't worry my wife uses it all the time), but I kind of want to go out and buy some just to support them.