June 28, 2018 • 17 mins
Why is the Michelin Man white when tires are always black? What do Tony the Tiger and Christopher Columbus have in common? And why did they give The Noid a video game? Will and Gabe tackle the strange world of corporate mascots.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Guess what gave? What's that? Will? Do? You know it's
been over seventy years since Smokey Bear started saying, and
we all know this phrase, only you can prevent forest fires? Wow,
is it really been that long? He's been at a while.
He has been at it a while. But you know,
I'd actually forgotten that it was only a few years
after Smokey was created that this real live bear cup
kind of became this living symbol of Smokey after he
(00:22):
was rescued. There had been this raging forest fire in
New Mexico, and unfortunately he was rescued and and thanks
to those who saved him, he recovered fully and ended
up being moved to the National Zoo in Washington, d C.
Now that's where people fell in love with Smokey And
it was during and after his recovery they started sending
him letters and even gifts of honey. And I think
(00:42):
this is hilarious and and just really cute that so
many people did that. But he got so many letters
that he even ended up with his own zip code.
It was two oh two five too, that was dedicated
to Smokey Bear. That's so great. How many letters are
we talking about? Though now apparently at the high of
Smokey popularity, we're talking thirteen thousand a week. Thirteen thousand
(01:05):
a week. I mean, that's like Beatles level fandom is
just unbelievable. Now, Smokey lived at the National Zoo for
twenty six years before he passed away, so I had
a good life. But you know, of course, the illustrated
Smokey we all know from the ad campaigns lives on.
So I've seen figures that claim Smokey is recognized by
as much as ninety five percent of American adults. So
(01:27):
thanks to the song by Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins,
most of us grew up knowing him as Smokey the Bear.
I don't know, did you refer to him as Smokey
the Bear as a kid? Gave me to me to
In fact, it's really hard not to say that, but
either way, he's a pretty cool mascot. And today's show
is all about mascots, we thought we'd share some of
our favorite stories behind several of the company mascots we
(01:48):
grew up with. In fact, Smokey is just the first
of nine, so let's dive in. Ya Hey there, podcast
(02:14):
listeners welcome, to part time genius. I'm Will Pearson and
today I'm joined by our good friend and researcher, Gabe Bluesier. Gabe,
how's it going going well? Thanks for having me on.
The man goes on vacation with his family. Hopefully he's
having a great time. But not to worry, there's still
another familiar face over there on the other side of
the soundproof glass, wearing the coolest pair of shades I
think I've ever seen him wear, and he's worn lots
(02:36):
of cool shades here. But you know, honestly, at first
I thought he was just being lazy with today's theme.
I didn't really get it. But then, Gabe, you know
what he did. He pulled out a snack pack of
Cheetos and I knew it. Yeah, sure, I get it.
He sees Chester the Cheetah. That's right, Chester the Cheetah. Anyway,
nice job, Tristan, All right, Gabe. So I kicked this
off with some facts about Smokey Bear. So which mascot
(02:58):
do you want to start with? Well, I thought I'd
start with one of the earliest brand mascots I can
think of, which is actually the michelin Man who made
his debut in Paris way back in eight and I mean,
you know this guy, right, well, of course he kind
of looks like a gooey mummy or that marshmallow Man
from Ghost marshmallow Man. That's what he looks. That's what
I always thought about. Well, I don't know about you,
(03:19):
but I always wondered why he was all white like
that because the company's founder, you know, he got the
idea for the character after noticing that a stack of
tires kind of resembled a limbless man. You know, maybe
if you squint so, but if that's the case, then
why not make him all black? Right? Well, as it
turns out, tires weren't colored black until nineteen twelve. Before that,
(03:41):
they were either beige or gray white. So while the
Michelin Man might look a little off to us today,
his look was right on target back in the late
nineteenth century, and in fact, in December of eighty eight,
the Michelin Man got his first and only speaking engagement
at a Paris cycle show, and the crowd loved him.
One of the company's co founders, Andre michelin He had
(04:04):
arranged for this large cardboard cutout of the character to
be set up at the michelin booth and then he
paid this cabaret comedian to crouch behind the cut out
and kind of banter with the crowd. Well, the performance
was such a hit that police actually had to come
break up the unruly crowd for a cardboard cutout. It
really kind of makes you wonder what the entertainment options
(04:26):
were at that point. You said that back in the
late eighteen nineties, Is that right? Yeah? And you know,
even though the michelin Man hasn't talked very much since
that event, he's had quite a lot to say in print.
And that's because when the company launched an Italian travel
magazine in n seven, the michelin Man was given his
very own column. And as it turns out, he can
(04:47):
be a pretty scary guy. Like in one article, he
praised his company's success while deriding his tire selling rivals
as quote ashen faced suitors with fixed smile, living symbols
of a shattered illusion. It's pretty intense, right, That is wild. Yeah,
So so he ended up with a column and an
(05:07):
Italian travel magazine. That's not something I'd ever guessed. And
I didn't know that either. About the h the tires,
that's pretty interesting. So they used to be beije or
or kind of a whitish color. I had no idea.
All right, well, I'm gonna actually stick with that Italian theme.
You talk about the Italian travel magazine, So we're gonna
go with a different mascot with a connection to Italy
as well. Now, I think we've talked about Tony the
(05:30):
Tiger on the show before, and the fact that he
wasn't the only frost in Flakes mascot at first, and
you know, Tony had to beat out Katie the Kangaroo
and a bunch of others to become the real star
that he is today. But what I didn't remember was
that during the nineteen seventies we actually started to get
to you know, didn't know his family a little bit more.
We didn't realize he had a family before, and so
TV viewers got to meet his mother. Her name was
(05:52):
Mama Tony. His wife was also miss his Tony and
his son, and he guesses, I'm gonna go out on
a living and say, Tony Jr. I think you picked
up on the pattern here, Gabe and his daughter was Antoinette.
So you can see the kind of clever connection there,
and it was this big, happy Italian family, and apparently
a family that was so appreciated for his heritage that
(06:15):
he appeared on the cover of the Italian edition of
g Q. That's Tony the Tiger on the Italian edition
of g Q. That's great, alright, So so what do
you have next for escape? All right? Well, you just
talked about probably one of the most likable mascots in history.
So I'm gonna go in the opposite direction and tell
you about one of the most annoying, and that would
(06:35):
be none other than the Noid, the role like claymation
character the Domino's debut in the eighties. And if you've
managed to avoid the Noid so far and you've never
seen him, he was this, uh, this creepy little guy
in the skin tight red onesie with these bent up
rabbit ears on top. And and the idea was that
he was a quote, a physical manifestation of all the
(06:58):
challenges inherent in getting a pizza delivered in thirteen minutes
or less. So you know, he literally put the nooied
in annoyed. That was the idea, And and Dominoes used
him in a string of commercials throughout the eighties and
and so this you know, obnoxious little mascot would show
up and crushed people's pizzas or mess up their orders,
and for whatever reason, the character he just really took off.
(07:20):
And in fact, he even got his own Nintendo game
called Yournoid, So that's how far this went. But uh,
then things took a dark turn for the character, and
on January nine, a man with a revolver stormed Domino's
Pizza in Atlanta, Georgia and took two employees hostage. So
there was five hour standoff with the police and during
(07:42):
that time, the gunman actually he still he forced the
hostages to keep making him pizza after pizza. It's it's
a nightmare. But thankfully the two employees they were able
to escape unharmed and their captor was was apprehended. But
here's the wildest part. The guy is name Lamarnoid. So
(08:03):
was this the reason that he decided to hold these
people hostage because of the mascot or what? Apparently, as
one police officer later explained, the staling had quote an
ongoing feud in his mind with the owner of Domino's
Pizza about the annoyed commercials. So apparently the whole ordeal.
It just came about because this guy thought Dominoes that
invented the nooid to personally make fun of him. Wow,
(08:26):
that's bizarre. All right. Well, the next mascot I want
to talk about might not have caused any standoffs in
any pizza locations or anything like that, but he definitely
annoyed a lot of people. Now, Gabe, you might be
too young for this. In fact, I kind of hope
for you and Tristan that you dodged this one. But
are you familiar with Microsoft Bob? Uh? No? I can't
(08:46):
say it rings any bells. Okay, Well, consider yourself lucky,
because Bob was created to help people get to know
Windows ninety five a little bit better. And so Bob
would take you through his house, which was actually your computer,
and he had all the he's weird and kind of
creepy friends to help you along the way. There was
this coffee drinking lizard, there was an angry parrot, and
all of these others. But it was actually kind of
(09:08):
funny reading about the focus groups that were used to
test out Bob and all these other characters before the
product came out. Now, the women in the groups reported
that the characters were too male, and that they felt
a little creeped out by them, as though they were
actually watching them. So you know, somehow the products still
made it to market despite this. Oh and there's one
last thing, one more reason that probably a lot of
(09:31):
people are very angry about Bob's creation, and that's because
he's responsible for the typing font that's probably caused more
anger than any other in history, and that's Comic Sands.
It was apparently created just for Bob, and Bob you know,
not surprisingly only lasted about a year. Yeah, wow, what
a legacy. No kidding, all right, Gabe, So what do
(09:51):
you have next? Okay, so I admit I was looking
for an excuse to talk about one of my favorite mascots,
which of course is Mr Pinot. I wouldn't have guessed that.
But the problem is he doesn't have that great of
an origin story. Like back in nineteen sixteen, the Planters
Company launched this contest to design a mascot for their brand.
(10:12):
And you know this this young schoolboy he submitted the
winning sketch and then a commercial artist added the trademark
top hat monocle when Kane and you know, it's pretty
standard stuff as far as origins go, right, Well, I
kept digging, and while I didn't find much on the
real Mr Peanut, I did find a pretty amazing story
about a Mr Peanut impersonator tried to become the mayor
(10:35):
of Vancouver before this is true. Now, the man behind
this was really an artist named Vincent Trasof and he
considered his performance art persona of Mr Peanut to be
a symbol of artists. And you know there's sometimes nutty
ambitions and and he really went all out with this campaign,
Like he wore the big bulky Mr Peanut costume, and
(10:57):
he went out on all these random public appearance is
and he would tap dance to pennies from Heaven. Apparently
that was his number. But for his campaign platform, he
even turned Peanut into an acronym which stood for performance, elegance, art, nonsense,
uniqueness and talent. I think I think nonsense is the
key part of that one there. Well, they're all hallmarks
(11:20):
of a peanut, Let's be honest. But well, tras obs
elect a nut for mayor. Campaign did bring international attention
to Vancouver's mayoral race. It was, I'm sad to say,
an unsuccessful bid. They ended up with a human mayor again. Uh,
you know, I can't believe it. With that that brilliant
acronym and all that. That's a that's really surprising. All right, Well, Gabe,
(11:41):
I think I might have stumbled into the most dysfunctional
family of company mascots. And this was by accident stumbling
into this. I had no idea that they were even
related before. So are you familiar with the board and
brand of milk? Uh? Yeah, I've seen. That's the one
with the cow on the front. Yes, And that cow
is named Elsie and she's been the scott for the
brand for something like eighty years now. But what I
(12:04):
didn't know is that her husband, Elmer, is the Elmer
of Elmer's Glue. How bizarre is this? Did you know this? No,
you're blowing now The story gets even weirder, So hanging
there for just a minute. So back in the forties,
Elsie apparently became this really popular mascot and the company
decided to start this series of magazine ads and they
(12:25):
were a bit more like comics, and the whole purpose
was to just make her more of a household name,
and in the comics you'd get to know her. You
get to know her family, and that included her incredibly
grumpy husband Elmer. And grumpy is actually an understatement here.
So in every single one of these comics, Elmer was
ticked off, sometimes waving guns, other times screaming, and some
(12:48):
of them he accused Elsie of things like regretting being
married to him. You wonder about these people in these
marketing meetings and you know, coming up with the ideas
of what their mascots are going to do, and you
just think, why did this take a turn in this direction?
But anyway, of course, later for some reason, when Borden
decided to launch a brand of glue, they decided that
who else should be their mascot but Elmer, and I
(13:10):
guess he was able to pull it together enough to
pose for the illustration. But seriously, it's worth looking at
these comics because they are that bizarre. Yeah, no kidding,
But I'm curious, like, why would dairy companies start making
glue in the first place? Like what's the connection there? Oh? Wait,
is it the whole like glue factory thing? Like was
it the hoops? That's pretty dark? That would that would
(13:33):
be a good guess, but it would have been the
case and at that point, and that that's the protein
and dairy milk. Of course, today the glue is made
with synthetic materials. Nothing involving the cows at this point,
but um, but yeah, that's where it all came from.
So just the bizarre story and stumbling into that one
was a lot of fun. All right, Well, we each
have one more fact to go, but before we get
(13:53):
to those, let's take a quick break. Welcome back to
Part Time Genius where we're talking company Mascot's all right, Gabe,
we each have one fact to go. What's your last
(14:16):
one for the day. Well, you just told us about,
you know, the disgruntled bull Elmer, and I actually went
with another four legged mascot who's kicked up his share
of controversy over the years as well, and that's Joe Cammell.
And you know, of course the character has always taken
a lot of heat for, you know, being a pretty
blatant attempt to get children interested in smoking. But I
(14:37):
have to say, as a kid, I was more confused
by Joe Cammell than anything else. Like, I've didn't understand
why a product for adults would use a cartoon character.
But more than that, I didn't understand why anyone would
think a camel was cool in the first place, like,
you know, in terms of trendiness and aesthetic appeal, and
camels don't have a little bit weird. I'm with you
(14:57):
on that, right, So I was all the more surprised
to find out that Joe Cammell actually got his start
in France, of all places. He was originally introduced in
the nineteen seventy four issue of a French youth magazine
called Pilot, and the campaign was so successful and its
goal to quote youth in the brand that in the
early nineteen eighties, cigarette execs in the US started recruiting
(15:21):
the so called Funny Camel for the Throne ads. And
not only did this US version draw from the French campaign,
it also apparently borrowed his cool look from a later
Canadian ad that had shown the camel wearing a leather
jacket while shooting pool and playing electric guitar, So they
went a little overboard with that. But despite him being
(15:41):
kind of the fonsie of camel's, Joe was used for
a decidedly uncool purpose, and that's peer pressure. According to
a secret memo that the ad campaign's co developer wrote
to the company's vice president. The camel ads were to
be quote directed towards using peer acceptance and influence to
motivate the target audience to take up cigarettes. So unco, Yeah,
(16:04):
that's definitely not cool. Well, you know what gave. I
feel like we need to close on a happier note
with our last fact here. And I've got good news
for you. I know you're a fan of cooking, and
so I found a new cookbook for you, and I'm
gonna have it waiting for you here in Atlanta the
next time that you're here. And it's called the Chiquida
Banana Recipe Book, and it's published by United Fruit Company.
(16:25):
This was back in nineteen seven, and it's kind of
weird to think about a time when bananas were considered
this exotic fruit and people didn't know exactly what to
do with them. And so now you have this cookbook
to tell you exactly what to do. But there are
a ton of suggestions for how to use bananas and recipes.
And I know you're a vegetarian gay, but I found
this recipe in here that that might make you change
(16:47):
your mind. And it's for ham banana rolls. With cheese sauce,
and I want to confess it almost makes me gag
a little bit just saying the name of that recipe.
But but what do you think you think it's worth
a try? Yeah, I mean, if anything's gonna get me
back on the meat wagon, that that's probably it. All right. Well,
for your bravery and willingness on that front, I think
(17:09):
that alone gives you the fact Off trophy. So congratulations, Gabe. Oh,
it's an honor. Thank you, will and thanks to Eves
jeff Cote for her help with today's research. We'll be
back with a full length episode tomorrow
Guess what gave? What's that? Will? Do? You know it's
been over seventy years since Smokey Bear started saying, and
we all know this phrase, only you can prevent forest fires? Wow,
is it really been that long? He's been at a while.
He has been at it a while. But you know,
I'd actually forgotten that it was only a few years
after Smokey was created that this real live bear cup
kind of became this living symbol of Smokey after he
(00:22):
was rescued. There had been this raging forest fire in
New Mexico, and unfortunately he was rescued and and thanks
to those who saved him, he recovered fully and ended
up being moved to the National Zoo in Washington, d C.
Now that's where people fell in love with Smokey And
it was during and after his recovery they started sending
him letters and even gifts of honey. And I think
(00:42):
this is hilarious and and just really cute that so
many people did that. But he got so many letters
that he even ended up with his own zip code.
It was two oh two five too, that was dedicated
to Smokey Bear. That's so great. How many letters are
we talking about? Though now apparently at the high of
Smokey popularity, we're talking thirteen thousand a week. Thirteen thousand
(01:05):
a week. I mean, that's like Beatles level fandom is
just unbelievable. Now, Smokey lived at the National Zoo for
twenty six years before he passed away, so I had
a good life. But you know, of course, the illustrated
Smokey we all know from the ad campaigns lives on.
So I've seen figures that claim Smokey is recognized by
as much as ninety five percent of American adults. So
(01:27):
thanks to the song by Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins,
most of us grew up knowing him as Smokey the Bear.
I don't know, did you refer to him as Smokey
the Bear as a kid? Gave me to me to
In fact, it's really hard not to say that, but
either way, he's a pretty cool mascot. And today's show
is all about mascots, we thought we'd share some of
our favorite stories behind several of the company mascots we
(01:48):
grew up with. In fact, Smokey is just the first
of nine, so let's dive in. Ya Hey there, podcast
(02:14):
listeners welcome, to part time genius. I'm Will Pearson and
today I'm joined by our good friend and researcher, Gabe Bluesier. Gabe,
how's it going going well? Thanks for having me on.
The man goes on vacation with his family. Hopefully he's
having a great time. But not to worry, there's still
another familiar face over there on the other side of
the soundproof glass, wearing the coolest pair of shades I
think I've ever seen him wear, and he's worn lots
(02:36):
of cool shades here. But you know, honestly, at first
I thought he was just being lazy with today's theme.
I didn't really get it. But then, Gabe, you know
what he did. He pulled out a snack pack of
Cheetos and I knew it. Yeah, sure, I get it.
He sees Chester the Cheetah. That's right, Chester the Cheetah. Anyway,
nice job, Tristan, All right, Gabe. So I kicked this
off with some facts about Smokey Bear. So which mascot
(02:58):
do you want to start with? Well, I thought I'd
start with one of the earliest brand mascots I can
think of, which is actually the michelin Man who made
his debut in Paris way back in eight and I mean,
you know this guy, right, well, of course he kind
of looks like a gooey mummy or that marshmallow Man
from Ghost marshmallow Man. That's what he looks. That's what
I always thought about. Well, I don't know about you,
(03:19):
but I always wondered why he was all white like
that because the company's founder, you know, he got the
idea for the character after noticing that a stack of
tires kind of resembled a limbless man. You know, maybe
if you squint so, but if that's the case, then
why not make him all black? Right? Well, as it
turns out, tires weren't colored black until nineteen twelve. Before that,
(03:41):
they were either beige or gray white. So while the
Michelin Man might look a little off to us today,
his look was right on target back in the late
nineteenth century, and in fact, in December of eighty eight,
the Michelin Man got his first and only speaking engagement
at a Paris cycle show, and the crowd loved him.
One of the company's co founders, Andre michelin He had
(04:04):
arranged for this large cardboard cutout of the character to
be set up at the michelin booth and then he
paid this cabaret comedian to crouch behind the cut out
and kind of banter with the crowd. Well, the performance
was such a hit that police actually had to come
break up the unruly crowd for a cardboard cutout. It
really kind of makes you wonder what the entertainment options
(04:26):
were at that point. You said that back in the
late eighteen nineties, Is that right? Yeah? And you know,
even though the michelin Man hasn't talked very much since
that event, he's had quite a lot to say in print.
And that's because when the company launched an Italian travel
magazine in n seven, the michelin Man was given his
very own column. And as it turns out, he can
(04:47):
be a pretty scary guy. Like in one article, he
praised his company's success while deriding his tire selling rivals
as quote ashen faced suitors with fixed smile, living symbols
of a shattered illusion. It's pretty intense, right, That is wild. Yeah,
So so he ended up with a column and an
(05:07):
Italian travel magazine. That's not something I'd ever guessed. And
I didn't know that either. About the h the tires,
that's pretty interesting. So they used to be beije or
or kind of a whitish color. I had no idea.
All right, well, I'm gonna actually stick with that Italian theme.
You talk about the Italian travel magazine, So we're gonna
go with a different mascot with a connection to Italy
as well. Now, I think we've talked about Tony the
(05:30):
Tiger on the show before, and the fact that he
wasn't the only frost in Flakes mascot at first, and
you know, Tony had to beat out Katie the Kangaroo
and a bunch of others to become the real star
that he is today. But what I didn't remember was
that during the nineteen seventies we actually started to get
to you know, didn't know his family a little bit more.
We didn't realize he had a family before, and so
TV viewers got to meet his mother. Her name was
(05:52):
Mama Tony. His wife was also miss his Tony and
his son, and he guesses, I'm gonna go out on
a living and say, Tony Jr. I think you picked
up on the pattern here, Gabe and his daughter was Antoinette.
So you can see the kind of clever connection there,
and it was this big, happy Italian family, and apparently
a family that was so appreciated for his heritage that
(06:15):
he appeared on the cover of the Italian edition of
g Q. That's Tony the Tiger on the Italian edition
of g Q. That's great, alright, So so what do
you have next for escape? All right? Well, you just
talked about probably one of the most likable mascots in history.
So I'm gonna go in the opposite direction and tell
you about one of the most annoying, and that would
(06:35):
be none other than the Noid, the role like claymation
character the Domino's debut in the eighties. And if you've
managed to avoid the Noid so far and you've never
seen him, he was this, uh, this creepy little guy
in the skin tight red onesie with these bent up
rabbit ears on top. And and the idea was that
he was a quote, a physical manifestation of all the
(06:58):
challenges inherent in getting a pizza delivered in thirteen minutes
or less. So you know, he literally put the nooied
in annoyed. That was the idea, And and Dominoes used
him in a string of commercials throughout the eighties and
and so this you know, obnoxious little mascot would show
up and crushed people's pizzas or mess up their orders,
and for whatever reason, the character he just really took off.
(07:20):
And in fact, he even got his own Nintendo game
called Yournoid, So that's how far this went. But uh,
then things took a dark turn for the character, and
on January nine, a man with a revolver stormed Domino's
Pizza in Atlanta, Georgia and took two employees hostage. So
there was five hour standoff with the police and during
(07:42):
that time, the gunman actually he still he forced the
hostages to keep making him pizza after pizza. It's it's
a nightmare. But thankfully the two employees they were able
to escape unharmed and their captor was was apprehended. But
here's the wildest part. The guy is name Lamarnoid. So
(08:03):
was this the reason that he decided to hold these
people hostage because of the mascot or what? Apparently, as
one police officer later explained, the staling had quote an
ongoing feud in his mind with the owner of Domino's
Pizza about the annoyed commercials. So apparently the whole ordeal.
It just came about because this guy thought Dominoes that
invented the nooid to personally make fun of him. Wow,
(08:26):
that's bizarre. All right. Well, the next mascot I want
to talk about might not have caused any standoffs in
any pizza locations or anything like that, but he definitely
annoyed a lot of people. Now, Gabe, you might be
too young for this. In fact, I kind of hope
for you and Tristan that you dodged this one. But
are you familiar with Microsoft Bob? Uh? No? I can't
(08:46):
say it rings any bells. Okay, Well, consider yourself lucky,
because Bob was created to help people get to know
Windows ninety five a little bit better. And so Bob
would take you through his house, which was actually your computer,
and he had all the he's weird and kind of
creepy friends to help you along the way. There was
this coffee drinking lizard, there was an angry parrot, and
all of these others. But it was actually kind of
(09:08):
funny reading about the focus groups that were used to
test out Bob and all these other characters before the
product came out. Now, the women in the groups reported
that the characters were too male, and that they felt
a little creeped out by them, as though they were
actually watching them. So you know, somehow the products still
made it to market despite this. Oh and there's one
last thing, one more reason that probably a lot of
(09:31):
people are very angry about Bob's creation, and that's because
he's responsible for the typing font that's probably caused more
anger than any other in history, and that's Comic Sands.
It was apparently created just for Bob, and Bob you know,
not surprisingly only lasted about a year. Yeah, wow, what
a legacy. No kidding, all right, Gabe, So what do
(09:51):
you have next? Okay, so I admit I was looking
for an excuse to talk about one of my favorite mascots,
which of course is Mr Pinot. I wouldn't have guessed that.
But the problem is he doesn't have that great of
an origin story. Like back in nineteen sixteen, the Planters
Company launched this contest to design a mascot for their brand.
(10:12):
And you know this this young schoolboy he submitted the
winning sketch and then a commercial artist added the trademark
top hat monocle when Kane and you know, it's pretty
standard stuff as far as origins go, right, Well, I
kept digging, and while I didn't find much on the
real Mr Peanut, I did find a pretty amazing story
about a Mr Peanut impersonator tried to become the mayor
(10:35):
of Vancouver before this is true. Now, the man behind
this was really an artist named Vincent Trasof and he
considered his performance art persona of Mr Peanut to be
a symbol of artists. And you know there's sometimes nutty
ambitions and and he really went all out with this campaign,
Like he wore the big bulky Mr Peanut costume, and
(10:57):
he went out on all these random public appearance is
and he would tap dance to pennies from Heaven. Apparently
that was his number. But for his campaign platform, he
even turned Peanut into an acronym which stood for performance, elegance, art, nonsense,
uniqueness and talent. I think I think nonsense is the
key part of that one there. Well, they're all hallmarks
(11:20):
of a peanut, Let's be honest. But well, tras obs
elect a nut for mayor. Campaign did bring international attention
to Vancouver's mayoral race. It was, I'm sad to say,
an unsuccessful bid. They ended up with a human mayor again. Uh,
you know, I can't believe it. With that that brilliant
acronym and all that. That's a that's really surprising. All right, Well, Gabe,
(11:41):
I think I might have stumbled into the most dysfunctional
family of company mascots. And this was by accident stumbling
into this. I had no idea that they were even
related before. So are you familiar with the board and
brand of milk? Uh? Yeah, I've seen. That's the one
with the cow on the front. Yes, And that cow
is named Elsie and she's been the scott for the
brand for something like eighty years now. But what I
(12:04):
didn't know is that her husband, Elmer, is the Elmer
of Elmer's Glue. How bizarre is this? Did you know this? No,
you're blowing now The story gets even weirder, So hanging
there for just a minute. So back in the forties,
Elsie apparently became this really popular mascot and the company
decided to start this series of magazine ads and they
(12:25):
were a bit more like comics, and the whole purpose
was to just make her more of a household name,
and in the comics you'd get to know her. You
get to know her family, and that included her incredibly
grumpy husband Elmer. And grumpy is actually an understatement here.
So in every single one of these comics, Elmer was
ticked off, sometimes waving guns, other times screaming, and some
(12:48):
of them he accused Elsie of things like regretting being
married to him. You wonder about these people in these
marketing meetings and you know, coming up with the ideas
of what their mascots are going to do, and you
just think, why did this take a turn in this direction?
But anyway, of course, later for some reason, when Borden
decided to launch a brand of glue, they decided that
who else should be their mascot but Elmer, and I
(13:10):
guess he was able to pull it together enough to
pose for the illustration. But seriously, it's worth looking at
these comics because they are that bizarre. Yeah, no kidding,
But I'm curious, like, why would dairy companies start making
glue in the first place? Like what's the connection there? Oh? Wait,
is it the whole like glue factory thing? Like was
it the hoops? That's pretty dark? That would that would
(13:33):
be a good guess, but it would have been the
case and at that point, and that that's the protein
and dairy milk. Of course, today the glue is made
with synthetic materials. Nothing involving the cows at this point,
but um, but yeah, that's where it all came from.
So just the bizarre story and stumbling into that one
was a lot of fun. All right, Well, we each
have one more fact to go, but before we get
(13:53):
to those, let's take a quick break. Welcome back to
Part Time Genius where we're talking company Mascot's all right, Gabe,
we each have one fact to go. What's your last
(14:16):
one for the day. Well, you just told us about,
you know, the disgruntled bull Elmer, and I actually went
with another four legged mascot who's kicked up his share
of controversy over the years as well, and that's Joe Cammell.
And you know, of course the character has always taken
a lot of heat for, you know, being a pretty
blatant attempt to get children interested in smoking. But I
(14:37):
have to say, as a kid, I was more confused
by Joe Cammell than anything else. Like, I've didn't understand
why a product for adults would use a cartoon character.
But more than that, I didn't understand why anyone would
think a camel was cool in the first place, like,
you know, in terms of trendiness and aesthetic appeal, and
camels don't have a little bit weird. I'm with you
(14:57):
on that, right, So I was all the more surprised
to find out that Joe Cammell actually got his start
in France, of all places. He was originally introduced in
the nineteen seventy four issue of a French youth magazine
called Pilot, and the campaign was so successful and its
goal to quote youth in the brand that in the
early nineteen eighties, cigarette execs in the US started recruiting
(15:21):
the so called Funny Camel for the Throne ads. And
not only did this US version draw from the French campaign,
it also apparently borrowed his cool look from a later
Canadian ad that had shown the camel wearing a leather
jacket while shooting pool and playing electric guitar, So they
went a little overboard with that. But despite him being
(15:41):
kind of the fonsie of camel's, Joe was used for
a decidedly uncool purpose, and that's peer pressure. According to
a secret memo that the ad campaign's co developer wrote
to the company's vice president. The camel ads were to
be quote directed towards using peer acceptance and influence to
motivate the target audience to take up cigarettes. So unco, Yeah,
(16:04):
that's definitely not cool. Well, you know what gave. I
feel like we need to close on a happier note
with our last fact here. And I've got good news
for you. I know you're a fan of cooking, and
so I found a new cookbook for you, and I'm
gonna have it waiting for you here in Atlanta the
next time that you're here. And it's called the Chiquida
Banana Recipe Book, and it's published by United Fruit Company.
(16:25):
This was back in nineteen seven, and it's kind of
weird to think about a time when bananas were considered
this exotic fruit and people didn't know exactly what to
do with them. And so now you have this cookbook
to tell you exactly what to do. But there are
a ton of suggestions for how to use bananas and recipes.
And I know you're a vegetarian gay, but I found
this recipe in here that that might make you change
(16:47):
your mind. And it's for ham banana rolls. With cheese sauce,
and I want to confess it almost makes me gag
a little bit just saying the name of that recipe.
But but what do you think you think it's worth
a try? Yeah, I mean, if anything's gonna get me
back on the meat wagon, that that's probably it. All right. Well,
for your bravery and willingness on that front, I think
(17:09):
that alone gives you the fact Off trophy. So congratulations, Gabe. Oh,
it's an honor. Thank you, will and thanks to Eves
jeff Cote for her help with today's research. We'll be
back with a full length episode tomorrow
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
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