I think the ingredients for Wolf have changed over the years; I couldn’t stand it as a kid because of big lumps of very fatty meat but you don’t find that in the can these days. I think there’s also less cumin than there used to be.
Beef heart? I have several cans of Wolf in the pantry; none of the labels list that but I’ll have to keep that in mind next time I make a pot of chili [:p][:p][:p]. I’ve seen beef hearts in the meat sections of several supermarkets but never knew what to use it for.
I recently picked up a can of Austex chili — must’ve been 30 or 40 years since I had some of that. The label did list beef hearts just after beef. Not very good chili, imo, but mainly because of the mushiness of the product – not many nuggets of identifiable meat. Might be good for hot dogs though.
I don’t ever remember Chill Wills doing commercials for Wolf but he might have. The more recent campaigns, 10 or 15 years ago featured an actor who also did commercials for Houston Lighting and Power here for a long time. There was a write-up about him in the paper many years ago but I can’t remember his name. I’ve seen him also in some B-movies. I don’t think IMDB lists commercial credits [:(]. The guy I’m remembering was not that old; there was a large variety of scenarios – I don’t remember the one in a rocking chair.
INSTANT UPDATE: It proved to be a simple matter to search on Dogpile and come up with this guy: Bob Magruder, a Dallas based actor and announcer. Unfortunately there’s no pic and I confess to being a computer illiterate when it comes to playing the sample audio files. His voice print identifies him as ‘the benevolent authority.’