Yes, that's correct -- today is National Waffle Day in the United States! This day marks the date of the first U.S. patent for a waffle iron. Cornelius Swarthout gets credit for that.
In celebration, I scanned in a few images from a 16mm commercial reel I have. It's a spot for Aunt Jemima frozen waffles from the late 1960s or early 1970s. Our old friends Wallace the Waffle Whiffer and Professor Goody are at it again!
Wallace smells waffles cooking and starts to react...
Entranced, Wallace flies right through the window at Professor Goody's house...
Professor Goody thinks about sharing his delicious waffles...
Oh the anticipation...
Professor Goody tries to set some ground rules...
I don't think Wallace was really paying attention...
Oh the joys of YouTube! I recently discovered this commercial for Aunt Jemima's frozen waffles starring Wallace the Waffle Whiffer! I had not seen this particular one before, so it was such a treat to find. A number of commercials were made, but only a few have surfaced so far.
I referenced this in one of my Jay Ward books. The commercial is titled "Hammock" and was produced in 1971.
Enjoy this special Saturday Commercial Break which was posted to YouTube by thesixtiesguy.
Why not enjoy a delicious plate of Aunt Jemima frozen waffles from your grocer's freezer?
I just made a few design updates to the blog, most noticeably a new picture of Wallace the Waffle Whiffer.
The old picture was a screengrab from a commercial on a VHS tape. I enlarged it, then painted over it using PaintShop Pro, giving the Waffle Whiffer a fresh new look.
Here are the old and new pictures.
I also am displaying less previous blog posts on the main page to make it load faster. But you can always see previous posts in my blog archive.
You can read more about Wallace the Waffle Whiffer here in my blog archive.
[ Well, I'm back in the blogging business after a break, though I have been posting pictures on my Flickr site. Grab a plate of waffles and enjoy! ]
What better way to start the new year than a little post about that beloved, polka-dotted, cereal muncher known as The Crunchberry Beast.
The Crunchberry Beast represented Quaker Oats Crunch Berries cereal from approximately 1968-1985 as part of the Cap'n Crunch cereal family. His appropriately simple name reflected his all-consuming passion -- the eating of the Crunchberries.
Our unusual friend had yellow skin with big red spots, a long snout, buckteeth, corkscrew tail and a tuft of bright red hair.
By all accounts and recollections, "C.B." -- as he was often called by Cap'n Crunch -- was a rather energetic and hyperactive little guy, getting mostly enthused when there was some scrumptious cereal to be had.
He seemed to have a lot to say, but generally used very few words. His typical utterance was something like "boop boop boop boop boop!", spoken in a cereal-crazed frenzy.
As the story goes, C.B. was living a peaceful life on Crunchberry Island. One day Cap'n Crunch and friends arrived, discovered the Crunchberry Trees, and later C.B. himself. C.B. quickly joined the crew and set sail for further cereal adventures on the S.S. Guppy.
While Crunch Berries cereal was first on the market around 1967, the original cereal boxes featured only the Cap'n and a Crunchberry Tree, but no Beast. (Actually he wasn't even in the first Crunch Berries TV commercial.)
Starting in the early 1970s, C.B. took his rightful place on the box alongside the Cap'n.
Here's a box from the late '70s.
The Crunchberry Beast was another fantastic character from the minds of Jay Ward and Bill Scott. Jay Ward created the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon, among others, and such memorable advertising characters as Cap'n Crunch, Quisp, Quake and of course Wallace the Waffle Whiffer. Bill Scott provided the voices for many characters including Bullwinkle and our pal the Crunchberry Beast.
Here's a list of some cereal premiums featuring the Crunchberry Beast:
"Beast Inside" iron-on patch
"I'm Lost" bumper sticker
"State of Confusion" pennant sticker
unicycle glass sticker
padlock and key
farm animals stamp album
Book of Fun & Games
Crunch Money dollar
cardboard dominoes game
4 different posters
storyscope watch and story disks
glow-in-the-dark puzzle
a few smaller stickers
movie viewer strip
Unfortunately, C.B. did not make the cut for some of the cooler plastic premiums like the balloon racers, surfers or spaceships. Those would have been great. I think his only individual appearance in plastic was this super-cool padlock and key set.
I'll interject here to say that Crunch Berries cereal was quite delicious during my prime cereal-eating years of the late '70s! One of my all-time favorites, it was the standard Cap'n Crunch taste with just the right amount of strawberry-flavored bites mixed in. Quaker added some different colored berries in the post-Beast years, and I can't say that I really approved of the change.
Here's a commercial featuring the Crunchberry Beast foiling Jean LaFoote's plot. (This is embedded from YouTube, and should be playable here if you have Flash installed in your browser.)
Here are some pictures of premiums I've acquired over the years.
Well the Crunchberry Beast was retired around 1985, along with most other Cap'n Crunch characters, besides the Cap'n himself. Bill Scott passed away in 1985 and Jay Ward's contract with Quaker Oats was over, after a long and tremendous run.
The Crunchberry Beast was such an effective advertising character, at least for this author. I put away a lot of his cereal, and remember him fondly over 20 years later. And every now and then I get that sugar-charged excitement in finding a new collectible that I hadn't seen before, like the dominoes set I recently discovered!
C.B. lives on, of course, in the many vintage collectibles and classic commercials that have survived. I imagine he's off in animation land munching some crunchy cereal right about now, and telling tales about his many adventures on the S.S. Guppy.
Here's my new blogger profile picture. I've attempted to convert the two Waffle Whiffer commercials from VHS tape to digital format MPEG. There are some bugs to work out for the process, but the result is some nice screenshots from the commercials, such as this one.
This picture just about says it all. The waffles are baked to golden brown perfection, popping out fresh from the toaster. A dazed looking Wallace is completely mesmerized by the smell.
Let me start this blog with a picture of my blog's namesake, Wallace the Waffle Whiffer. Wallace was a hyperactive bird-like character created by Jay Ward and Bill Scott (of Rocky and Bullwinkle fame) for Aunt Jemima frozen waffles in 1968. Wallace would torment the other character, Professor Goody, until the kind professor had no choice but to share his delicious waffles with Wallace.
Several commercials were produced, though only a few have come to light in the digital age. One has Professor Goody hiding in a submarine eating his waffles, and another has him holed up in a bell tower. Wallace has a powerful sniffer and always finds his way to those scrumptious waffles. Wallace was voiced by Bill Scott (Bullwinkle, Super Chicken) and Professor Goody was voiced by Daws Butler (Quisp, Cap'n Crunch).
I am not aware of any product packaging or premiums ever made regarding these characters. Perhaps they only existed in the realm of TV commercials. If you have more information to share, please let me know.
The slogan for the commercials was "Is there a Waffle Whiffer at *your* house ?"
This picture shows Wallace and Professor Goody eagerly awaiting waffles to be served.
![[:::] Waffle Whiffer Zone](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6dZCYRXloObo9nOsb4WaeCO8i5HyQZYflfDzuASPI6-Ad1wD-5BNilKWFmKGm53W6cR-Gqr22s6uymJZjP5kda1l5ilXC0e2sql-tIYBehNZDUUJZx9Xo3ebTADqHQQM8x0M6tA/s1600-r/wwz-2sm.png)
