Still shaking and baking after all these years

Jennifer Wilder and Natalie Dent’s proverbial 15 minutes of fame has stretched into overtime for the past 50 years.

They still get asked about the iconic Shake ’n Bake commercial they made in 1975, when they were in the first grade.

Their story has been spread across three generations in the small community of Reynolds, about 35 miles southwest of Macon. It has secured a permanent spot on the shelf of local lore, along with the annual strawberry festival and the city’s status as the hometown of the late William Fickling Sr., who made Macon the cherry blossom capital of the world. 

Taylor County folks also revere their legendary high school girls’ basketball teams, who won five state championships and 132 straight games between 1967 and 1972 — the longest unbeaten streak (girls’ or boys’) in state history.

Natalie and Jennifer’s classic line — “And we helped!’’ — resonates among the catchiest of that television era, along with “ring around the collar,’’ “please don’t squeeze the Charmin” and Alka Seltzer’s “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.”

In the commercial, the father is at the supper table with his wife and two young daughters.

“Fine chicken, honey,’’ he says as he bites into a drumstick. “Real crisp. Moist and tender, too.”

“Mommy didn’t fry it, Daddy,’’ the twins tell him.

“But it’s crispy, like fried,’’ the dad says. 

“It’s Shake n Bake,’’ the twins chime in unison. “And we helped!”

Their drawls were as sweet as the strawberry fields back home. The commercial came at a time when Jimmy Carter, a peanut farmer from 48 miles down the road in Plains, was running for president and  “Southern” was becoming the unofficial national dialect.

Natalie is a retired special education teacher from Fitzgerald who now lives in Florida. Jennifer is a longtime educator at Taylor Elementary School and still lives in Reynolds.

She said people are always pestering her and her sister to repeat the line “And we helped!”

“Natalie and I never bring it up,’’ Jennifer said. “It always comes from others. They will ask someone, ‘Do y’all know they were the Shake ’n Bake twins? Did you know there’s a celebrity here?’’’

Although it remains a point of pride for their parents, Frances and Bobby Bell, the family has also gained a measure of notoriety from having two sets of twin girls. Jennifer and Natalie were born in 1967 when their father was in pharmacy school. The Bells moved to Reynolds in 1969, and twins Christy and Michelle were born three years later.

Bobby and Frances will celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary next year. Bobby is retired from his work as owner and pharmacist at Roberta Drugs.

Sarah Ann Fountain, a friend from Reynolds, was living in Atlanta in March 1975. Her roommate worked for a talent agency and was searching for twin girls for a speaking part in a commercial.

Natalie and Jennifer were recruited with no previous acting experience. Their youthful ambition was to become gymnasts.

“I hauled them back and forth to Macon Junior College for gymnastic classes,’’ Frances said.

On the way to Atlanta for the audition, Frances stopped at a store in Griffin and bought them matching pairs of peach-colored overalls.

Jennifer and Natalie were selected for the parts. It took eight hours to shoot the commercial at a private home near the Governor’s Mansion on West Paces Ferry Road.

Frances recalled there were strong storms and tornadoes in Atlanta the day of the filming. The girls remembered the glare of the hot studio lights. It melted the butter and made the milk warm that Jennifer was to drink.

“We were fussing over who got to be Sally and who got to be Susie,’’ Jennifer said, laughing. “I shook the bag, and Natalie put it in the oven. I was Shake, and she was Bake.’’

(Their “mother” was actress Victoria Lynn Johnson, who later became a Penthouse magazine “Pet of the Month”  and was Angie Dickinson’s nude body double in the movie “Dressed to Kill.’’ The Bells swore they later spotted their “dad” modeling underwear in the Sears catalog.)

When the commercial began airing in 1976, the Bell family would rush into the living room to watch. It was in the days before cable television was available in many rural communities. VCRs had just come on the market, and VHS and Betamax tapes cost between $1,000 and $1,400.

“We only got two TV stations in Reynolds and, on a good day, we got three,’’ Frances said. “We had an antenna on the roof, and we would have one of the girls climb up and turn it.’’  

The Bells first thought the commercial would be test-marketed only in the South. But a family friend, who was a Delta Air Lines pilot, called Bobby during his layover in Bangor, Maine, to tell him he had watched it in his hotel room.

Their classmates would sometimes tease the twins about the way they were portrayed in the commercial.

“Mama said the next time they laughed at us to tell them that we laughed, too,’’ Jennifer said. “We laughed every time we went to the bank.’’

Royalty checks earned them about $17,000 over the next few years. They used it to buy new bedroom furniture. The rest was saved for their college education and other expenses.

It would be years before the family was able to view replays of the commercial. Now, Frances is amazed at how quickly people can call up the 28-second clip on YouTube.

For the record, Shake ‘n Bake was never a staple in their pantry.

Said Jennifer: “My mother fried chicken the way you’re supposed to fry chicken!”

Ed Grisamore is a longtime columnist and short-order cook. Fried chicken tenders are one of his specialties — but he also doesn’t use Shake ’n Bake. Write to him at gris@maconmelody.com.