Ultimately, it was the Swanson company that transformed ... or enjoying one themselves. “The best fried chicken I know comes with a TV dinner,” Barbra Streisand told the New Yorker in 1962.

Swanson was the original TV dinner classic, but it's not the freezer aisle mainstay it used to be. Here's where it went, and ...

The Swanson ... dinners had double the amount of meat, and fried chicken ones came with four pieces. To further strengthen the masculine vibe, sports figures were drafted to appear in TV ads.