Saturday Commercial Break #7: Keebler Elves

Today's installment in the Saturday Commercial Break series is from Keebler cookies in 1985. Ernie and the rest of the Keebler Elves are up in the tree-house baking up some of their new Soft Batch cookies. Mmmm!

This was uploaded to YouTube by sheaguevara.

Feel free to post a comment and share your memories of the Keebler Elves. See you again next week.

Saturday Commercial Break #6: Hardee's

This week's Saturday Commercial Break is from Hardee's restaurants in 1972. The man behind the counter is enthusiastically telling customers about the Hardee's Huskee Jr. burger.

This was uploaded to YouTube by alecwally23.

I'd love to find some '70s Hardee's commercials with the old characters named Gilbert Giddyup and Speedy McGreedy. If anyone knows of any, please let me know.

Happy St. Patrick's Day 2008

On behalf of my pal Uncle O'Grimacey and myself, we'd like to wish you all a very Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Here's a vintage plastic cup from the 1970s. These were given away in McDonald's around St. Patrick's Day when they were serving up Shamrock Shakes.

The beloved Uncle O'Grimacey, pictured here, was the Irish uncle of Grimace, and he would usher in the Shamrock Shakes season with all the pomp and circumstance that one would expect around McDonaldLand.

If you can still get Shamrock Shakes in your area, or if you've spotted Uncle O'Grimacey, let me know!

Saturday Commercial Break #5: Frosted Flakes

For today's commercial break, let's enjoy an oldie from Kelloggs Frosted Flakes cereal, starring Tony the Tiger. Tony was voiced by Thurl Ravenscroft, who gave us one of the most recognizable commercial slogans -- They'rrrre Grrrrreat!

This commercial appears to be from the 1960s and was uploaded to YouTube by Freenbean.

Saturday Commercial Break #4: Charlie Tuna

This week's Saturday Commercial Break is from Starkist Tuna, featuring everyone's favorite sea-dwelling hipster -- Charlie Tuna.

In this 1970s spot, uploaded to YouTube by daftmahatma, Charlie is planning a vacation and a new way to impress the folks at Starkist.

Stay classy, Charlie!

Saturday Commercial Break #3: Cheetos

For this week's installment in the Saturday Commercial Break series, I've selected a great animated Chee-tos spot from the mid 1970s. It features one of my favorite advertising characters -- the sophisticated Chee-tos Mouse. In this adventure, he's taken his sailboat out to sea and, of course, brought along some delicious snacks.

You might enjoy my previous blog post regarding the Chee-tos Mouse here.

If you're wondering, yes, they used to spell Chee-tos with a dash, but they don't do that anymore. Here's a link to the official Cheetos website.

This commercial was uploaded to YouTube by TVNETWORKS.

Please post a comment and share your memories of the Cheetos Mouse.

Saturday Commercial Break #2: Nestle Quik and Atari

Continuing in my new weekly series, this Saturday's commercial features the Nestle Quik bunny and friends playing some Atari video games. This was uploaded to YouTube by retroist.

I think this would be from the early 1980s or maybe late 1970s. Mix up a tall glass of Nestle Quik and have a great Saturday!

As always, I'd love to hear your comments about this commercial and memories of Nestle Quik or Atari. See you again next Saturday.

Saturday Commercial Break #1: Cocoa Krispies

Hey blogfriends! I'm starting a new weekly series today called Saturday Commercial Break.

Each Saturday I will highlight a classic TV commercial, transporting us all back to Saturday mornings filled with bowls of Super Sugar Crisp cereal, Hong Kong Phooey cartoons and Incredible Hulk pajamas. [ Insert your own cereal, cartoon and pajama type for the full effect! ]

As always, I welcome your comments and memories you wish to share.

[ These commercials will all be embedded from YouTube and should display if you've got Flash installed in your browser. Click the play button and ZING, off you go! ]

On with the show... this is it!


Saturday Commercial Break #1: Cocoa Krispies

Here's a commercial from the late 1970s featuring Tusk Tusk the elephant, trumpeting the wholesome goodness of Kellogg's Cocoa Krispies cereal. This was uploaded to YouTube by lloydbentman.

Enjoy the commercial break, and please post a comment with your Cocoa Krispies memories or your opinion of this commercial. Stay tuned for next week!

McDonald's Valentines

Happy Valentine's Day!

To celebrate the day, I thought I'd share some old Valentines. McDonald's used to give these away over several years in the 1970s. Here are four Valentines from 1974 (or maybe 1973), making this the earliest set that I've found.

Here we have:

• Ronald McDonald
• Captain Crook
• Officer Big Mac
  
• Evil Grimace

In the early days of McDonaldLand, Captain Crook had green hair, as shown on this card. Shortly afterwards the green hair was cut to make him look more like an average pirate that you'd see on the street back then.

Also of note is the Evil Grimace. Our furry friend Grimace used to have four arms and was originally a bad guy called the "Evil Grimace". This is one of the last promotions that I've found with the four-armed version. After this, they dropped the "Evil" from his name, dropped two of the arms and made him into the more friendly-looking Grimace that most of us know.

Here are the cards. Enjoy!

The Whitman Kid

Kids from the '70s and '80s especially should recognize this logo from Whitman Publishing Company. Without knowing if this guy had a proper name, I'm just going to call him the Whitman Kid.

The Whitman Kid ruled over the kingdom of children's books, box puzzles, frame-tray puzzles and comic books produced by Whitman Publishing Company. He appeared prominently on those products from 1968 until approximately 1990. Their "Tell-A-Tale" book series was one of my personal favorites.

The Whitman Kid is a friendly looking kid, always with a big smile and that trademark W atop his head. What I enjoy about the design, besides the beauty of its simplicity, is the fact that the colors often changed. The Whitman Kid was a chameleon of sorts with the logo colors changing to match other colors in the book or puzzle cover.

Here's a custom logo that I put together for fun. I scanned in the logo from an old book and then cleaned up and colored it in Paintshop Pro.

Some historical information:

Hammerung-Whitman Publishing Company, as it was originally named, began in Chicago and was bought in 1915 by Western Publishing Company. "Whitman Publishing Company" then became a subsidiary of Western Publishing Company, which later also acquired the popular Little Golden Books line. The Whitman Publishing name was basically gone in the early 1990s in favor of the Golden Books brand name. More on the wacky company history can be found here: Western Publishing Company.

Now back to the good stuff!

Prior to the Whitman Kid's arrival circa 1968 (or possibly late 1967), Whitman puzzles, books and such had this simple logo.


The Whitman Kid is one of those cool character logos that probably many people find familiar, though placing him in context might not be easy for the average person. I think he's just one of those logos that we've all seen on products we enjoyed as kids. I'm just hoping in this blog post to give him a little more visibility and credit for being there for us kids in the '70s and '80s.

I don't know if he was used extensively in other promotions or premiums, but I was thrilled to come across this "Happy Helper" metal tab button in a box of assorted vintage toy "parts" I acquired last year.

YES! I want to be a Happy Helper, too!

As I mentioned, in my research I've found the Whitman Kid on products from 1968 through 1990. So far, I'd say he disappeared along with the Whitman name in the early 1990s. He had a good 20+ year run!

Well that's about it. This is my homage to the Whitman Kid. Please contact me if you have more information about him, including pictures, alternate logos and especially other premiums.

PS -- There is still a Whitman Publishing Company which focuses on Coin Collecting. It was indeed part of Western Publishing company too. Another group bought the coin division from Western and then assumed the Whitman name since the children's division was going with the Golden Books brand name. Confusing, eh?

Until next time, I'll leave you with a few more of my custom creations of our good friend. Let's all be Happy Helpers out there!