MAD had a joke about it in a Super Special (#36) from 40 years ago. I was 11 when I read it and it was many more years before I fully got the joke (quite possibly because of Ice Storm).
“Quick! To the archives!” (Hope it’s OK I uploaded this)
I did a little more digging, and the original appeared in 1972 (Issue #153). (But, more to your point, that has no bearing on how prevalent this actually was.)
