The most memorable pairing of Holmes and Watson is still Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, who played the roles on film and radio. Rathbone was razor sharp, cut glass and full of energy – Bruce was pleasingly bumbling (the actor’s unpublished autobiography is worth a look – Bruce was a true Englishman abroad, in the best possible sense). On the radio, Petri wines sponsored their adventures in a rather natty piece of product placement, in which one Harry Bartell would visit the now ‘retired’ Dr Watson, a man now happily ensconced in California with his puppies and tobacco.
Bartell was a radio announcer referred to as ‘young fella m’lad’ by the good doctor, and was 26 when the series began (he lived to the ripe old age of 90). Any conversation would bend itself round to how nice it would be to enjoy ‘some of that wonderful Petri port’ – even Watson would often remark that it was close to impossible for Bartell to talk about anything else. How old Watson was by then is something of a mystery – he and Holmes had been shunted forward in time to frame and support the war effort, and the cases he referred to in the show were usually from around the 1890 mark.
So what happened to Petri wine itself – the family business that ‘took time to bring you good wine’? You can still dig up some memorabilia on eBay, but the operation was eventually acquired by Heublein, Inc, another family business that went on to become a huge food and wine distributor, and bought up the rights to Smirnoff. popularising it in the US. (They also did some early alcopops.) Heublein was bought in 1982 for $1.4 billion by what would become (in 1985) RJR Nabisco, who then punted it on to Grand Metropolitan in 1987, which would merge with Guinness to make Diageo in 1997.
It was only at this point that Heublein would be seriously downsized by its British owners. For more on the history of Petri wine before all this palaver occurred, see the following text. (Or, for a more potted version: here.) Intriguingly, the Petri trademark was last listed as being owned by Franzia wines, part of The Wine Group – a company with no apparent links to Diageo.
For more on advertising in vintage radio – Jack Benny hustling for Lucky Strikes – see here.
News hour, with Jerry Caesar 