Redartz: Hey gang, we get a double category topic today. Anyone who watched Saturday morning or after school tv (or really, any tv) in the 60's, 70's or 80's will likely recognize some of these characters. Advertisers of the era seemed to rely heavily on the appeal of animated characters to sell products to all us impressionable kids. It must have worked, because the practice was ubiquitous. Paricularly in cereal and candy advertising, animated characters filled the commercial breaks in those great Saturday morning shows. It makes sense, you should have Count Chocula on screen prompting you to get up and pour another bowl to get through the next show!
How many of these do you remember?
Poppin' Fresh, the Pillsbury Dough Boy: He always seemed to 'pop up' on those Peanuts holiday specials, and was on nightly in prime time. He was so 'pop'ular that they made a series of rubber dolls of him and his family.
Tony the Tiger: The great Thurl Ravencroft gave voice to him for many years, way back to when they were advertised as "Sugar Frosted Flakes".
Lucky, the Lucky Charms Leprechaun: He still can be seen frolicking across the television landscape trying vainly to protect his stash of Hearts, Moons, Stars and Clovers.
Milton the Toaster: Spokes- appliance for Kellogg's Pop Tarts. Do they still even make the 'plain' ones without frosting?
Sonny the Cuckoo Bird: Seen for decades in a strangely obsessive pursuit of Cocoa Puffs, which apparently put him into one heck of a sugar high.
Wallace the Waffle Whiffer: Sort of kin to the Cuckoo Bird, Wallace had a thing for Aunt Jemima Frozen Waffles. Or at least their smell...
Quisp: This small propeller-headded alien, along with his rival Quake, starred in countless commercials from the brilliant Jay Ward studios (who gave us Rocky and Bullwinkle, and George of the Jungle). Quisp lasted quite a lot longer than Quake did. I can still hear his voice...
The Quik Bunny: Whether chocolate or strawberry, if you drank Nestle's Quik you knew the Bunny. And apparently the Bunny knew Superman...
The Michelin Man: Friendly fellow made, it seemed, from pneumatics. If you ever watched tv sports in the 70's you surely saw him. He certainly appealed to me, but I was not really in the market for tires at age 12.
The Hydrox "Drox": HB, this one's for you. Everyone knows Oreos, but Sunshine Hydrox was available also; if much less familiar. Maybe that's why they came up with this smiling glob of cream filling, to invite hungry kids to indulge in Drox devouring...
The Hamm's Beer Bear: Another case of odd advertising. Not too many kids were imbibing Hamm's, but many were attracted to the mischievous bear in his scenic mountainous commercials.
Bud Man: Another character pushing the suds. He seemed to show up all over the place on Saturday Sports shows, and on gas station walls.
Kool-Aid Man: Refreshing thirsty kids everywhere, while wrecking the walls of countless homes and buildings. Oh yeahhhh....
Loveable Truly, the Alpha Bits Postman: The younger among you may not recall him, but he delivered the message to eat up those bowls of Post Cereal through the 60's into the early 70's. He actually appeared in a full-length Saturday morning cartoon series: "Linus the Lionhearted", along with a cast comprised of all the Post cereal characters. Wasn't long after that the FCC put a stop to such things.
Hope you recall these ; and also hope you remember some others that aren't presented here. If so, by all means, share your thoughts with the BitBA assembled.
27 comments:
I recognize the Michelin Man and Tony the Tiger (but in the UK the cereal was called Kellogg's Frosties, not Frosted Flakes).
Another "commercial creature" who springs to mind is the Honey Monster who advertised Sugar Puffs (now re-named Honey Monster Puffs). His famous catchphrase was "Tell 'em about the honey, Mummy".
“Can’t get enough of that Sugar Crisp.....”
-b.t.
I remember most of these, but you left out my favourite ... Toucan Sam! I think all the Kellogg's cereals had mascots back then; I used to have some stickers with the different characters, but I don't know what happened to them.
I think Sunshine's Hydrox may have been the inspired product of some horrific cult--! The Drox is, like, a little dollop of sentient ectoplasm, and geeze, eating one of them becomes like. . . oooooo, never mind-- I hate to even go there! (Been listening to too many ghost-story podcasts!)
Boy the cereals just provided an ENDLESS stream of mascots. . .
Kellog's Sugar Smacks had Quickdraw McGraw as it's mascot for a bit-- then they settled on that frog for a looooong time, IIRC. (Also took "sugar" out of the name).
Super Sugar Crisp had "Sugar Bear" for a long time (voiced as a Bing Crosby soundalike), whose name later changed to "Honey Bear".
What about the poor Trix Rabbit? "Silly Rabbit!"-- that whole decades-long campaign was an unfortunate study in class privilege and arbitrary selfishness, when you think about it. . .
Toucan Sam was voiced to sound like Rex Harrison, yup?
Cocoa Krispies had a tough time finding a long-term mascot. I surely loved cave-people Kell & Ogg, though. Delightful stop-motion characters, I believe. . .
Snap, Crackle, and Pop. . .
The Keebler Elves. . .
Oh! Cap'n Crunch himself! (Christmas Crunch w/ Crunchberries was an odd little childhood tradition for us. A box never lasted the whole day. . . )
One could also reminisce on the original versions of ALL THE CHARACTERS that inhabited McDonaldland, as well. 'Cause man, they ALL started out as bad-guys in their first appearances. Hamburgler, Captain Crook, The (Evil) Grimace, The Fry Gobblins. . .
HB
HB - you stole my thunder, LOL. I was going to say that Cap'n Crunch was perhaps the most popular kid's cereal and the Cap'n a well-known on-screen huckster for the only cereal I ever ate that literally ripped the roof of my mouth into shards that would hang down!
My brother and I would be eating it and pushing the shards with our tongue comparing notes on how torn up the roof our our mouths was, LOL.
I actually had the fun of hiring "Tony the Tiger" to do a voice over for a video we were making (work related) in 1995. Nice guy to talk to!
During those sessions "Mr. Magic Hands" himself, Marshall Brodin (Brodien?), was in the studio as well.
(Man! Talk about a pair of guys etched into my young mind!!!)
Marshall made all those commercials that certainly aired at Xmas time promoting the various decks of cards, magic hats, etc. for doing "magic." He was also Wizzon on Bozo Circus. Had quite a few "stories" of the Circus LOL.
Ah, advertising - using cartoons to get kids hooked on sugar and chemical additives at a young age for the benefit of large corporations. Delightful.
Like Colin, I recognize Tony the Tiger, and Bibendum - or the Michelin Man as he's generally called by us English speaking savages - but otherwise... nada.
Heres one that springs to mind which'll be unfamiliar to you lot over there on the other side of the Atlantic -
www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdnUo1q2E90
"Its frothy man"
Huh. This Lucky Charms Leprechaun... is that really still shown on tv in the US in this day and age, in the twenty-first century? Tsk tsk.
-sean
Colin and Sean- interesting that you only recognize Tony the Tiger and the Michelin Man. As widespread as those cereal ads were, I'd have thought you'd know more of them. Of course you had some we don't recognize; "Honey Monster"? Incidentally, did you folks have Count Chocula and Frankenberry 'over there'? Speaking, that is, of monster cereals.
Oh, and Sean- yes, the Lucky Charms Leprechaun is still seen with some frequency. At least they deep sixed some of the worst offenders years ago; anyone remember the Frito Bandito (I know you do, Charlie)?
Mike W- yes, Kellogg's had mascots for everything. And I'm sure some of you, such as HB, recall when they used Hanna Barbera characters to hawk their cereals. And Bugs Bunny sold Kool-Aid. Oh, the manipulation...
HB- never connected Toucan Sam with Rex Harrison, I admit. Intriguing. As for Cocoa Krispies, remember Snagglepuss residing on the boxes?
By the way, it's a relief to know that the Grimace was originally known as the Evil Grimace. I thought maybe I imagined that (which led to much concern about my frequency at the Golden Arches).
Charlie- you actually got to talk to Thurl? Man, how cool is that. Did he give you a "Greeeeaaaaaaattttt!"?
And as a Cap'n Crunch devotee, did you ever try the Cap'n's Peanut Butter Cereal? With the elephant in the commercials so reminiscent of George of the Jungle's elephant 'doggie'...
I'm also all fan-boy'd that Charlie go the meet/work with Thurl Ravenscroft! Wow--!
It also never sunk in to me that the Lucky Charms leprechaun might be culturally offensive-- d'oh. . .
I do remember Snagglepuss as the Cocoa Krispies mascot-- and that character still followed the "vocal mimic" tradition--- his voice was a copy of Bert Lahr's ( the Cowardly Lion in Wizard of Oz).
Did Sugar Pops/Sugar Corn Pops/Corn Pops have a memorable mascot? Was it maybe Huckleberry Hound--?
HB (who has not been THIS hungry for gross kids' sugar cereal in decades-- no kidding_
PS-- Who wants to talk about King Vitamin--hmm?
HB- another connection I never made - Snagglepuss and Bert Lahr! Just not paying attention, I guess.
King Vitamin? My Mom bought it for us, perhaps thinking it was healthy. Tasted like chemicals. Were you a fan?
B.t.w QUisp and QUake were the bomb! Maybe like Capn Crunch but not shredding the roof of your mouth?
My sis got me a carton of Quisp 9 years ago for my 50th Birthday, LOL! It was GREAT!
Wasn't there a fig newton character?
Redartz, HB - to be honest I had my tongue slightly in cheek on the leprechaun thing.
Sure stuff like that - and, say, Chris Claremont writing Banshee - makes me groan, but in the greater scheme of things it doesn't seem worth getting worked up about (not least because it seems rooted in a kind of Irish-American sentimentality rather than animosity).
-sean
CH47-- "Big Fig" was that character ("Here's the tricky part--!)
Sean-- Ha-- or EVERY policeman in a Warner Brothers cartoon! ("Ahhh, so ee's hoidin' in th' STOVE, izzee?") Sounds like more of a parallel to how we Americans react to a difficult attempt at an American accent/dialect on older British television shows. . . ya just groan and then laugh. . .
HB
I remember watching the LINUS THE LION-HEARTED show way back in the Olden Days. My fave of the cereals they were shilling for was Rice Krinkles — basically “Not Fruity, Not Cocoa” Pebbles. Probably weren’t as yummy as I remember but oh boy did I love them.
I vaguely remember King Vitamin. Another cereal from my childhood that had a similarly “Super-artificial, chemical” flavor was Kaboom. Just bloody awful.
I used to love Peanut Crunch. But I loved ALL varieties of Cap’n Crunch. Crunchberries was probably my favorite. Last time I tried some, it tasted HORRIBLE.
-b.t.
Hydrox's big claim to fame was that it was Kosher: Oreos used lard, so if you were keeping Kosher, Hydrox was your only choice. Of course once Oreos also became kosher, Hydrox disappeared ...
The funny thing is that people think of Hydrox as an Oreo ripoff when it was really the other way around.
Red, no we didn't have Count Chocula and Frankenberry - I am aware of them but only since I started reading Bronze Age Babies. By the way, Honey Monster wasn't animated - there was a man inside the Honey Monster suit (at least I think there was...UNLESS HONEY MONSTER WAS REAL!!!)
Joecab-- What's neat about the Hydrox/Oreo competition is that they really did have distinguishably different tastes-- both of them quite good. They were different enough that you might be more in a mood for one instead of the other, even. Hydrox did have the advantage of being less expensive, though. . .
HB
Seems like that Quisp guy is one of my earliest memories!
You guys talking about McDonalds got me thinking of Burger Chef and their cartoon mascots Burger Chef and Jeff. There was a Burger Chef a couple of blocks from where a grew up so it was a short bike trip away.
Hydrox? It sounds like a Marvel super-villain who has power over water.
A few years ago my local supermarket (Tesco) was selling kosher baked beans which was the only kosher food I've ever seen. But those kosher beans are gone now (certain foodstuffs sold in Tesco seem to appear and then quickly disappear again - I've previously mentioned the brief availability of Hostess Twinkies).
I'd never heard of Kool-Aid until a few years ago when I first heard the phrase "keep drinking the Kool-Aid". I must have read this phrase on the comments of the US political blog Young Turks which I followed regularly during the 2016 presidential election.
I'm still sorry Burger Chef couldn't hang on-- it was a dark-horse favorite of the fast-food burger chains for me 'cause it was the only one that had a "fixin's" bar in the early days-- meaning a tomato-loving teenager could pile 'em HIGH on even the simplest burger on the menu. And I believe they were also a flame-broiled operation, like Burger King. Ahhh me. . .
Colin, you probably have since become aware that the "Drink the Kool-Aid" reference is (to my thinking) a just-on-the-edge-of-inappropriate euphemism that refers specifically to the horrific mass-suicide/murder of Jimmy Jones' cult in Guyana in 1978. I'm sure I've used it myself now and then, but it can still disturb me when I stop and think on it a bit. Man-- I bet it's been an albatross around the Kool-Aid folks' necks ever since. . .
HB
HB you hit on the head with Burger Chef's fixin's bar. I still remember it was .25 for a plain burger then you could go to town with the condiments!
. . . Killraaven: And now I have a hankering for Burger Chef. We're eating a LOT of Vegan fare these days, so it's very easy to get lost in a meat-based reminiscence. . .
(I. . . MAY have swung by Popeye's today for a clandestine chicken sandwich while running some errands. . . )
HB
Joecab- Hydrox were kosher? Wow, we learn something every day around here...
Colin and HB- yes, I agree that "drink the Koolaid " probably arose from Jim Jones. And yes, "Koolaid " probably spent a fortune on PR to counteract the negative publicity.
To all those sharing some love for Burger Chef- a resounding "Me too ". They were heavily promoted on local kid's tv back in the 70's. For good reason. Oh, and HB- a bit of synchronicity! I made a Popeye's run today too. I have a weakness for the Blackened Ranch dip. So HB, are you then a fan of their fabled Chicken Sandwich?
Not that anybody cares but Young Turks is a YouTube channel, not a blog as I stated. D'OH.
HB, it was ONLY YESTERDAY that I became aware of the Jim Jones/Kool-Aid connection when I thought to actually google Kool-Aid.
Red-- Oh man, I am NOW-! As much as I truly loved Chk-fl-et (sic) early on, I've refused to give them my custom for several years now, because-- y'know-- aggressive support of anti-LGBT groups (and denying it), support of Christian religious extremism in Africa, etc-- and I hadn't found a place w/ a comparable sandwich. I might like Popeye's better, in fact--! (Probably not gonna be sampling much else on their menu, though--- still trying to limit fast-food intake---).
HB
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