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On the show September 26th, a caller wanted to know the origin of the term "Biz Bag" for something to be discarded.
I too remembered the '70s commercial with the family sorting the really stained clothes ("We Biz Bag!") from the ones needing only normal laundering ("We Biz Bag not!"). Comedian Doodles Weaver made reference to it in his version of "Eleanor Rigby", triggered by the image of "Father Mackenzie wiping the dirt from his hands" to switch songs and sing "You load sixteen tons, what do you get? Filthy! Ready for the Biz Bag!"
There are a couple of clips of the song on YouTube; here's one. The Biz Bag reference comes near the end of the song.
Seems odd, that Biz Bag has gone from being items worth extra effort to salvage to items not worth bothering with. The Biz Bag has almost become the Burn Bag. I say "almost" because the Burn Bag contains high-value items to be destroyed to maintain security, rather than items that are merely refuse.
Never ran into "biz bag" but have heard of "burn bag" (in the sense deaconB cited).
Back in 2001, when we were preparing for a possible evacuation from a desert brush fire, we assembled what we called our "bug-out bag." Stole the term from an episode of MASH. Fortunately, we didn't need to bug-out.
M*A*S*H was set in Korea, and the unofficial theme song of the was was said to be "Bug-out Boogie", supposedly forbidden, but still known in every unit. Nobody seems to know who wrote the lyrics, but the melody came from the 1950 Hank Snow song, "Movin' On" A 1951 Herald-Tribune military correspondent said “Men talked of ‘bug-out gas’ and ‘bug-out jeeps’ and ‘bug-out routes’.” And Hank Snow's song was about a guy bugging out from an unhappy relationship.
Whether the heat comes from chicom artillery, from a pretty little lady in Tennessee, or a desert brush fire, being ready for a hejira is a good idea. As Robert Heinlein repeated wrote, a motion to adjourn is always "in order".
Woot.com has bugout bags as their featured item today. $69 marked down to $39.
I never saw bugout bags offered for sale before. I didn't think it qualified as a bugout bag until you filled it with the stuff you considered essential if you needed to bug out.
Hear the patter of running feet
It's the old First Cav in full retreat
They're moving on;
they'll soon be gone
They're haulin' ass, not savin' gas
They'll soon be gone.
Over on that hill there's a Russian tank
A million Chinks are on my flank
I'm movin' on,
I'll soon be gone
With my M-1 broke,it ain't no joke
I'll soon be gone.
Million Chinks comin' through the pass
Playin' burp-gun boogie all over my ass
I'm movin' on,
I'll soon be gone
I'll soon be gone
I'm haulin' ass,
not savin' gas
I'll soon be gone.
"Lordy, Lordy, won't you listen to me,
The colonel said 'Stand!'
But it ain't gonna be,
'Cause we're buggin' out,
Yes, we're movin' on . . ."
We're haulin' ass,
not savin' gas
We'll soon be gone.
Here's papa-san comin' down the track
Old A-frame strapped to his back
He's moving on;
he'll soon be gone
he's haulin' ass,
not savin' gas
He'll soon be gone.
Here's mama-san comin' down the track
Titty hangin' out, baby on her back
She's moving on; she'll soon be gone
From her tits to her toes,
she's damn near froze
She'll soon be gone.
I sung this song for the very last time
Gonna get Korea off my mind
I'm moving on;
I'll soon be gone
I done my time in the shit and slime
I'm movin' on.
Thank you, Ron Draney, for confirming my childhood memory of that dumb "Biz Bag" commercial!
This comes from the Biz website: "BIZ was the first enzyme based pre-soak and color-safe bleach that moms have trusted to remove stains from the family's laundry, for more than 40 years. First invented in 1968 by Procter & Gamble researcher Charles McCarty, Biz was first introduced nationally as a "pre-soak" or "color-safe bleach" and later repositioned as a "detergent booster" ... You may recall hearing "Put it in the Biz Bag", which meant a garment was too dirty for washing with detergent alone. As a promotion, Biz distributed large laundry bags to hold the dirty, stained laundry that needed to be soaked in Biz."
What's odd is that while Biz was invented in 1968, the Doodles Weaver song with the line "Ready for the Biz Bag!", according to Wikipedia, was recorded in 1966(??)...I think it may be a mistake, though -- rateyourmusic.com has the album ("Feetlebaum Returns!") coming out in 1974.
The BIZ website is disingenuous. Otto Rohm demonstrated proteolytic enzymes were useful in laundering fabric in 1913, and Rohm and Haas, a major supplier to the specialty chemical industry, has been selling it for over a century now.
Currently, amylase and proteolytic enzymes are in the formula of about 2/3 of all liquid detergents, and about 1/3 of all powders. You *really* don't want to inhale those enzymes; I'm surprised lawyers allow clients to put it in powders.
Cheer, a non-ionic surfactant, was introduced in 1950, and when they reformulated it in 1952, they included enzymes. Tide, the original "washday miracle" used an ionic surfactant. Tide was high-sudsing, worked best in hot water, and was "best on American soil." Cheer's non-ionic surfactant was low-sudsing (which was important with front-loading washers), and it wasn't so good on plain dirt, but it was great on grease.
Which leaves stains like ketchup. Amylase and proteolytic enzymes would "eat" the stains away. When the Rachel Carson crowd complained about phosphates causing algae blooms in rivers, the laundry detergent manufacturers scrambled.
Tri-sodium pyrophosphate was key to Tide's power. It was not only helpful in cleaning, but in hot water, it helped keep soil in suspension. The anti-redeposition factor put an end to "tattletail gray",and they still haven't anything that really replaces it. (Not only that, but it was mostly nitrates, not phosphates that caused te algae to bloom - and to replace the phosphate, manufacturers added more nitrates.)
So laundry detergents added more enzymes. Anything to boost the power of their detergent. And P&G started to sdell Biz, which not only had high levels of amylase and proteolytic enzymes, but it had fairly high levels of TSPP, at least at first. When they took the TSPP out of Biz, their sales really sagged.
In the late 1970s, I worked in the Drackett R&D labs when they were trying to make a safe bleach, along the lines of Biz. P&G aggressively patents everything they work on, but there were NO patents blocking our safe bleach development; all the patents had expired. Drackett bought a small Chicago company that made MiracleWhite, a laundry detergent booster that was basically liquid phosphate, and made smaller products like Ego laundry detergent, that were only marginally profitable.
Bristol-Myers eventually sold Drackett's big brands, like Windex, Drano, endust, Behold, Renuzit, Mr. Muscle and O'Cedar, to other companies and got out of household cleaners. All their other products were higher-margin items (Playtex, Mead Johnson, Weight-Watchers) and they didn't see high-volume low-markup products as worthwhile. Then they sold themselves to Squibb, and retired with cushy golden parachutes. In theory, management works for shareholders, but in practice, management works for management.
But in any case, there was nothing new about Biz. It was just a shell game scamming consumers and legislators.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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