The proof was in the pudding, in the sense that the show did save Pepsodent toothpaste, at least for a while. Sales increased more than twofold between 1929 and 1930. Emboldened, Templin doubled down on his bet, sponsoring in 1931 The Rise of the Goldbergs, another fifteen-minute serial, this one about a Jewish family living in the Bronx.

Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, loc. 325