Swanson's original TV dinner of turkey, dressing, and vegetable sides was inspired by an excess of frozen turkeys that had been ordered around Thanksgiving in 1953.

The frozen TV dinner's origin story begins with a half-million-pound mistake. In 1952, C.A. Swanson & Sons overestimated the number of Thanksgiving turkeys the American public would consume.

The earliest TV dinners were slowly chilled and assembled in aluminum trays for oven reheating. These meals had an old-school charm that was oddly satisfying.

In April 1955, Swanson merged its more than 4,000 employees and 20 plants with the Campbell Soup Co., which ultimately dropped the famous TV Dinner label, thinking it limited their market.

These were made in Omaha by C.A. Swanson and Sons -- who may or may not have had the idea first -- but the company was the first to get the dinners into thousands of America’s freezers in 1953.