counter medicine was a reminder that there were
people out there who could not be trusted—who, if
given a chance, would be happy to do others harm
through devious means. Although the immediate
fear of product tampering soon receded, the sense
that the world was a fundamentally dangerous place
became an artifact of American culture.
In time, the use of tamper-proof and tamper-
evident packaging moved beyond the pharmaceuti-
cal industry to include many other products that
were susceptible to malicious tampering or even
inadvertent contamination by careless shoppers.
Many prepared foods—particularly baby foods, which
were seen as particularly vulnerable because of the
helplessness and innocence of their intended con-
sumers—soon received various forms of protective
packaging. Cosmetics formed another group of con-
sumer products that began to be enclosed in various
forms of shrink-wrap or protective bands, rather
than simply being marketed in loose-lidded boxes,
as it became obvious that careless “sampling” of such
products could pass infections. By the end of the
1980’s, it had become unthinkable to purchase many
of these items from open shelves if their protective
packaging was not firmly in place.
Further Reading
Dean, D. A.Pharmaceutical Packaging Technology.Ox-
ford, England: Taylor and Francis, 2000. Detailed
explanation of how tamper-proof and tamper-
evident packaging is produced. Somewhat tech-
nical, but a good source of in-depth information.
Jenkins, Philip.Decade of Nightmares: The End of the
Sixties and the Making of Eighties America. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2006. Helps place the
development of tamper-proof packaging within a
larger cultural context that goes beyond the obvi-
ous impetus of product tampering.
Useem, Michael.The Leadership Moment: Nine True
Stories of Triumph and Disaster and Their Lessons for
Us All.New York: Three Rivers Press, 1998. In-
cludes among its nine studies that of the Tylenol
murders and how Johnson & Johnson restored
the reputation of its brand by aggressively pro-
moting tamper-proof packaging to prevent simi-
lar incidents.
Leigh Husband Kimmel
See also Business and the economy in the United
States; Medicine; Tylenol murders.
Tanner ’88
Identification Cable television political satire
series
Date Aired from February 15 to August 22, 1988
Tanner ’88accelerated the blurring of presidential cam-
paigns with television entertainment, as it highlighted the
performance aspects of political life.
Although the practice of fake documentary is as old
as filmmaking itself, withTanner ’88, two of Amer-
ica’s best satirists, Garry Trudeau, the creator of the
comic stripDoonesbur y, and Robert Altman, the di-
rector ofM*A*S*H(1970) andNashville(1975),
joined forces with Home Box Office (HBO) to pro-
duce a truly original project. In the eleven-part se-
ries, an imaginary candidate, Jack Tanner (played by
Michael Murphy), ran for the Democratic nomina-
tion for president of the United States. Tanner and
his fictional staff and family appeared in narratives
scripted by Trudeau set in real political environ-
ments, from New Hampshire to the floor of the
Democratic National Convention in Atlanta.
Along the primary route, actual candidates—Pat
Robertson, Bob Dole, and Gary Hart—interacted
briefly with Tanner, whom they may or may not have
recognized. In one lengthy conversation, Governor
Bruce Babbit, who had dropped out of the running,
counseled Tanner to oppose the “silver screen of un-
reality” and “take a risk,” advice both ludicrous and
heartfelt. Ironies multiplied as the show progressed,
as Tanner—whose campaign slogan was “for real”—
struggled with his pragmatic staff and idealistic
daughter to find his voice in the artificial world of
campaign politics. This world was populated by pre-
tentious ad makers, confused pollsters, vacuous
speech coaches, and gossip-hungry journalists. The
most jarring sequence in the series occurred when
Tanner visited an actual inner-city meeting of De-
troit parents whose children had been murdered;
their expressions of authentic grief and frustration
momentarily cut through the satire.
Mid-campaign, HBO reran the six previously aired
episodes ofTanner ’88in one block, introduced by
real television journalist Linda Ellerbe. Viewers were
urged to “choose from a group of presidential candi-
dates, one or more of whom is not a real person.”
Tanner won the straw poll, receiving 38 percent of
the approximately forty-one thousand votes cast, fol-
lowed by George H. W. Bush (with 22 percent), JesseThe Eighties in America Tanner ’88 943