GE's bizarrely named "Tramatic" appliances of yesteryear

For some reason, GE once produced a line of housewares called "Tramatic" and advertised them with the slogan, "Tramatize your home!" No word on whether the homes ever got over the trama. Still and all, I like the lines and colors of these appliances!

Tramatize your home! (via Vintage Ads)

Previously:

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Anonymous

My grandparents had the oven in their kitchen. I remember the dials fondly and the satisfying CLICK when they would be turned on or off.
Anonymous

or maybe tram as in tramadol?
nixiebunny

Troma! Not trama, troma!
mr_josh

Observation: every single dishwasher since the beginning of dishwashers has advertised “no more pre-rinsing”. And guess what? It’s twenty-freakin-ten and we’re still forced to pre-rinse our bloody dishes! When will this madness end?
- thekevinmonster
  
  My dishwasher doesn’t require pre-rinsing, and it cleans the dishes. You just have to push the right buttons to make sure it scrubs them long enough.
Anthony

Wow, much different times in the appliance world before I started reviewing GE appliances on Appliance Buyers Guide
Xenu

If you put your baby in the dishwasher and your pets in the dryer, they will be traumatized.
Maggie Koerth-Baker

Why did that refrigerator design never catch on!? Why?! I want it so bad.
- Anonymous
  
  It’s about the worst possible layout from a thermal management perspective.
  
  Also, where do you put the coils and drip tray? Unless there’s a freon line to a separate compressor unit like the wall-mount A/C units they sell these days.
  
  You do see these sorts of fridges in commercial kitchens, though, often with glass fronts and full of desserts in diners.
dculberson

Those must have been some seriously expensive appliances. Some of the features (ie, combo washer/dryer, changeable face plate on the dishwasher, etc) are still expensive now. I would love to see what they cost and when and how that compares to average incomes.
TimDrew

Having used a few, it’s 2010 and I’m still not convinced that an effective combo washer/dryer is possible; to say traumating may be a bit of a stretch… but annoying, certainly.
- Cory Doctorow
  
  I have a 5.5kg Miele combo washer-dryer (condenser) in my kitchen that I swear by (we’d have gone for the much cheaper separates if there was anywhere to put a dryer). I can put a load in on the way out the door in the morning and come home to washed-and-dried clothes.
  - TimDrew
    
    hm- something to look into; could be an end to the trauma! (space limited here as well)
Machineintheghost

With a name like Fluckers, it has to be good…

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/75/75qjam.phtml
jeligula

Dig that logo: “GE. We bring Free Masonry to life.”
dole

Obviously the source of the phrase “save the trama for your mama.”
Anonymous

The only issue with washer dryer combos here in the U.S. is that because they are made overseas,where their electricity is 50 not 60 amps,the appliances that are shipped here need to be converted to 110 volts which makes them take three times longer to dry than a regular gas or 220 volt unit would. When GE,Whirlpool,Norge,Bendix,Westinghouse,Speed Queen,and Maytag made them from 1952 to 1972, they were available with either 220 V electric or 110 V gas models.Bendix pionered them and made them in Southbend,Indiana.Theirs as well as the Whirlpool (made the kenmores too)and Norge were the best made. You can still find them being used today mostly by collectors who are most familiar with their mechanisms.Currently, Wascomat,the comercial washer dryer manufacturer owned by Electrolux,has a comercial,coin-op model that takes about 1 hour from wash through dry!! being the owner of other companies i.e. Frigidaire, White Westinghouse, Gibson,Kelvinator and Tappan, They could easily make the comercial combos into domestic models which they have already done with their front loading energy star compliant washing machines made under the Frigidaire brand name.Now that the front loaders are the most popular washers on the market and the Frigidaire brand is made here in the U.S. (Agusta Georgia)there is no reason,other than price,they shouldn’t be marketed and would be very popular because you need not exchange from wash to dry and the time that would go by between the end of the washer cycle and your putting that load in the dryer could have been hours.Growing up,the lady kenmore gas combo we had worked thre to five times daily and lasted us with only two repairs from 1962 to 1985.A family of twelve.
bardfinn

“Drama” was, at the time, a widely-known and widely-used word amongst the target audience of this advertisement, but not Trademark!(tm)-able.

“Trauma” was not widely-known nor widely-used amongst the target audience of this advertisement.

In short, it was made to rhyme with “Dramatise”, not “Traumatise”.

Unfortunately, mere glyphs on paper don’t phonetically rhyme, only glyphically.