Most companies were sponsors of radio programs throughout the thirties and forties, but as the medium of television grew in popularity, advertisers decided to follow the market. When they made this switch, they decided that animated forms of advertising would reach children best because children were already watching cartoons. Post Sugar Crisp cereal spent a great deal of money to have Bill Tytla create an ad for them in 1949. You might remember Bill Tytla from his work on this or this or this. The ad quickly became a phenomenon with children repeating the slogan and talking about the ad featuring the three bears on playgrounds all over America. And the landscape of Saturday morning television would never be the same.
Let us visit now some of the greatest animated cereal spokesmen past and present.
Franken Berry and Count Chocula
A part of General Mills "monster breakfast cereal" line, these guys first appeared in 1971, and were later followed by Boo Berry and Fruit Brute.
Snap, Crackle, and Pop
These guys started out as radio characters and are supposed to be old gnomes of some kind. When they became animated children's characters, they were aged down of course. Here's an old ad featuring these guys:
Sugar Bear
First appeared in the sixties to advertise Post Sugar Crisp Cereal, which later became Golden Crisp. His voice was originally an impression of Dean Martin, and into the nineties he became even more of a hipster, what with his ironic love of cereal.
Sonny the Cuckoo Bird
Originally created in 1964, this manic bird is constantly trying to do things that with take his attention off his addiction to Cocoa Puffs. Here's one such instance from the early eighties.
Trix Rabbit
For the love of Christ, it's been 57 years since this guy first appeared to advertise Trix, can we please let this guys have some cereal?
Toucan Sam
What a terrific character. I remember begging my mom to buy me the cereal with a cut-out of Sam's nose on the back. All you had to supply was your own rubber band to tie to it, and you could "Follow your nose" just like Sam. Originally voiced by Mel Blanc when he appeared in 1963, he was later replaced by Paul Frees to give him a high class English accent. Currently he is voiced by Maurice LaMarche.
Mel Blanc
Paul Frees
Maurice LaMarche
Tony the Tiger
In 1952 an ad man at the Leo Burnett Co. named Eugene Kolkey, was set with the task of creating a new character to advertise a new cereal from the Kellogg's account called Kellogg's Sugar Frosted Flakes. What he created was possibly the best known and most beloved cartoon spokesman of all time: Tony the Tiger. Full disclosure, I may be a bit biased, as Tony was voiced for 5 decades by Thurl Ravenscroft--a man who inspired me and is one of the reasons I wanted to be a voice actor. I have a little Tony toy sitting on my desk right now. Although Thurl's depiction of Tony s the most recognizable, Thurl wasn'tthe original voice of Tony. He was originally voiced by brilliant character actor Dallas McKennon, who is known for many things--not the least of which is his safety spiel on the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Disney Theme Parks. When Thurl passed away in 2005, he was replaced by veteran announcer Lee Marshall.
Tony is still going strong today, although over the years he has changed in appearance from a simple cartoony tiger, to a more brawny, extreme sports athlete. He's appeared with many celebs in commercials--both animated and live action alike. Here's a little retrospective on Tony's career that I think is pretty good.Good? It's GGGGRRRRREEEEAAAT!
There are far too many cereal spokespeople to cover in just one post, But Tony, Sam, Sonny and the rest are stand-outs. But just in case you haven't had enough, maybe you remember Lucky the Leprechaun, Buzz Bee, Dig 'Em Frog, etc., etc., etc.
CG
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