Special Ingredients: Food Ads for Thought

Here in America, we love our food. It’s practically our national symbol, as evidenced by all of the fat Americans (myself included) waddling around the country, looking for their next prey of Cheetos. We have all types of food items in such great abundance that we had to create the health industry to make sure we didn’t try to eat it all, a task that is less likely to succeed than peace in the Middle East.

It wasn’t always like this, of course. Centuries ago, food wasn’t a commodity, but rather a basic need, only outranked by water, and way ahead of sleep, shelter, and (surprisingly) sex. People didn’t argue over whether they were going to eat McDonald’s or Wendy’s, they were going to eat whatever they could get their hands on, and they called it by its name (deer bladders), not brand (Banquet deer bladder meal with mixed vegetables). In far too many parts of the world, this is still a fact of life.

Today in America, we have so much food that you, personally, can probably reach some from wherever you’re sitting right now, yet we still find it necessary to market it. It’s not what you eat, but where you eat it, or who made it, which determines your eating decisions. You could love hamburgers in general, but would refuse to eat one if you found out it was made at White Castle (you would be justified in this).The brand of the food has now effected our eating decisions, not necessarily the need or even the personal preference for that kind of food.

Not that I’m complaining. Okay, world hunger isn’t funny, but the food industry won’t stop their crusade for anything, not even for all of the starving children of the world. Food companies are fanatical about making their product stand out in our minds. They’re always vying for something so original, it makes you want to eat their product until your heart finally collapses from fatal quantities of cholesterol. They’re at such a frantic pace to quickly appeal to us that sometimes their ad messages are a little moronic, if not morbid.

My favorite food advertisements are the ones that depict food that wants you to eat it. Whether it be tomatoes, bags of popcorn, or hamburgers, we’re frequently bombarded with images of cartoon food characters that would like nothing more than for you to eat them, or at least the kind of food they represent. Whether they are severely masochistic or sadistic towards their food brethren, this imagery has always disturbed me.

I’ve always wondered what would happen if these food characters ever staged a world revolt and wiped out every living thing on the planet. That would be bad enough, but after the bloodlust settled down, they would look at each other and realize that now that everyone is dead, they still have the urge to fulfill their prime directive, which is to be eaten. They would probably resort to eating each other until there was only one left (likely an egg plant, because, let’s face it, nobody really eats those), and that one would then kill itself because it felt like it failed as a suicidal food stuff. Then all life on the planet would be deceased.

It’s amazing the kinds of things you think about when you’re waiting in line for food, hungrily staring at these images.

Eventually, food companies realized that this suicidal food concept was pretty morose, so they decided to poke fun at it and make animals of a particular meat promote the consumption of other animals. Chick-Fil-A is famous for this. Their company symbol is a group of semi-literate cows enticing customers to eat chicken instead of beef. This campaign was so popular that Chick-Fil-A started marketing shoddy cow-related products, like movie-parody wall calendars and kids’ meal toys, just to keep the gag running. You can say what you want about the chain, but at least their campaign makes sense.

I’m sure a few of you remember Burger King’s campaign for the Chicken Run movie. Their message was to “save the chickens and eat more beef,” and they offered discounts on Whopper hamburgers during that time. Again, this campaign, while emotionally manipulative (you have to wonder how many children were traumatized when they saw their parents disobeying the decree by eating chicken sandwiches), made logical sense.

Unfortunately, most corporate suits can’t keep a consistent thought in their head on a campaign-to-campaign basis, as evidenced by a later campaign wherein chickens advertised chicken sandwiches, a campaign that aired not too long after the heartfelt plea to save the chickens. In this commercial, animated chickens were clucking a marching song as they paraded through a barnyard, quite thrilled about something. While this was going on, the farmer, happily perched on a grain silo, was flipping through cardboard signs depicting the chicken sandwiches.

Again, we’re back to food wanting you to eat it, an unsettling notion, especially in the shadow of the Chicken Run campaign. Or I could have taken this commercial incorrectly. Maybe the chickens were staging a revolt, and the farmer was showing us his daydreams involving his intended fate for the chickens as he cowered on top of the silo. Maybe he told them that they would live out their lives as productive, egg-laying farm animals, and as they celebrated their ambiguous security, the farmer was showing the audience his real intentions, and taking delight in the prospect of double-crossing his loyal flock. In any case, this commercial is pretty sinister, which is troubling when we consider it was probably created to assure children that they were just kidding about saving the chickens, that they really want to be eaten. It’s also unsettling that this commercial bothered me so much.

None of this, however, is as sick and horrific as the cannibal spokes-characters. I haven’t seen this very often, but the first time I saw it, it managed to leave a pretty deep scar. I was at a local county fair, checking out the food vendors, looking for the one who didn’t demand an arm AND a leg for concessions, when I saw, painted on the side of a trailer, a scene of little pigs merrily roasting sausage over an open fire. PIGS EATING SAUSAGE. I want to know who thought that one was a good idea. At least I’ll remember it for the rest of my life. Actually, that’s great advertising.

Outside of mascots promoting the ingestion of their own kind, my other favorite kinds of mascots out the ones that are completely obsessed with their company’s product. I’m thinking cereal companies here, which seem to have a stranglehold on character-based products. Usually these characters do one of three things: try to steal the product from others, try to keep the product away from others, or are so dependent on the product that they go through serious withdrawals if they don’t get their fix, but are at least willing to share.

General Mills is probably the worst offender of the first two. The most famous is the Trix Rabbit, who, try as he might, can never get his fix from the mean, selfish, bully kids. Almost every time, he’ll come up with some clever scheme to get some Trix and always fails at the last minute. Then the kids always exclaim “Silly Rabbit! Trix are for kids!”

Sure, they’ve thrown him a bone on a few occasions and let him have some, but only enough to keep him hooked. At one point, they had customers vote whether or not the Trix Rabbit should have a bowl Trix. I, personally, did not vote, but I hoped that people would have some compassion and give him some cereal so he didn’t resort of slitting his wrists when presented with the hopelessness of it all. The people sided with the Rabbit, and he got enough Trix to face another day.

I’ve always found this campaign malicious, and I’ve wondered why the Rabbit didn’t buy some Trix for himself. Being on television, he should have been making enough to buy all the Trix he wanted. And if his exploits were being televised against his consent, he should have made money doing other forms of work. If you do a quick search on Google, you’ll find that the Trix Rabbit did at one point do a stint in porn, which should have made him a couple of bucks (unless this too was a nonconsensual candid shot).

If he’s really just unlucky and dirt poor, I elect that we, the generous Pocky Box community, pool our money together and buy him a box a Trix (my donation will be in the time it takes to handle all of the money the rest of you send in). If those damn kids try to take what is rightfully his, I personally will represent the Trix Rabbit in court and make sure those delinquents are locked away for armed robbery (they could be carrying a slingshot or something; you know those type of punk kids) and given the maximum sentence possible. If they try to claim that “Trix are for kids,” I’ll sue them for discrimination. If you want to send money for the Trix Rabbit’s case, or to buy him a box of Trix so we can get this case rolling, just mail to directly to me. I prefer cash.

Other than the Trix Rabbit, there are other cases of insane, cereal-obsessed cartoon characters, such as Lucky, the leprechaun from Lucky Charms fame. Here we see the opposite of the Trix Rabbit: Lucky is always coming up with schemes to keep Lucky Charms AWAY from kids. I’m not sure if this sends a positive message about the product, promoting greed and selfishness, but at least the kids are enthusiastic about getting the cereal, so it MUST be good. And they always get it in the end, because they’re kids, and they always get what they want.

Oddly, as passionately as Lucky is about keeping his cereal away from customers, whenever he is inevitably defeated, he shrugs with a smile and laughs it off. “Golly gee, I lost my Lucky Charms! Oh well, it’s not the end of the world, and now these little bastards will be hooked!”

The thing is, Lucky has a wide array of magical powers (because he’s Irish), so he should have no problem either making more Lucky Charms or defending what he’s got. I don’t think he’s ever once used his magic to attack his pursuers, he’s always just created a bumbling way to escape, which ultimately fails and results in the loss of his treasured cereal. If I were him, I’d summon a banshee to attack the kids or conjure up a horseshoe-firing Gatling gun to wipe those grain-grubbing brats off of the face of the Earth. Maybe that’s why I can’t get a gun license.

Of course, not all characters take their cereal needs this lightly. Look at Fred Flintstone, who took a job as the spokes-character for Fruity Pebbles after his TV career fell apart and his daughter took off with his best friend’s son after a nasty bout of wife swapping and incest (again, Google this for proof. Fred is a pervert). Fred is always trying to keep his bowl of Fruity Pebbles away from his best friend, Barney Rubble.

Now this is just a case of pure greed. If you’ve ever watched the show, you’d know Fred and Barney work at the same rock quarry, so they should be making about the same amount of money. Unless a major economic depression hit Bedrock and they both got laid off, and Fred was smart enough to save some money, just in case. Meanwhile, Barney, who wasted his money on drinking and gambling, is trying to mooch off of Fred, who is less than willing to share his wealth. In this case, I could cut him some slack; Barney probably begged for handouts for years and Fred finally decided to cut him off.

Sometimes cereal companies throw out old spokes-characters, possibly for morality reasons. Remember the Cookie Crook, the Cookie Crisp burglar and his faithful companion, Chip the dog? They’d always try to steal Cookie Crisp, and the stereotypical Irish police officer Officer Crumb would try to catch him. Due to the revolving door prison system, however, the Cookie Crook always gets out in time for the next commercial.

Eventually, the Cookie Crook and Officer Crump inexplicitly disappeared, with only Chip remaining to promote the product. I suspect that Officer Crumb eventually became extremely frustrated with the legal system, which forced him to constantly haul in the Cookie Crook, only to have him sprung out of prison within a month (probably on a technicality. The Cookie Crook probably claimed he couldn’t understand Officer Crumb reading him his rights because of his thick Irish accent). Instead of having the integrity of his position continue to be insulted, Officer Crumb decided to beat the Cookie Crook to death. Officer Crumb was charged with murder one and sent to prison for life, barring an appeal.

After the Cookie Crook and Officer Crumb disappeared, Chip, perhaps after witnessing the brutal death of his partner, turned over a new leaf and started giving Cookie Crisp to kids. Later, Chip disappeared, probably taken out by one of Crumb’s associates, leaving Cookie Crisp without a mascot. Fortunately, a suspicious wolf, also named Chip, took the slot, and followed in the criminal footsteps of his predecessors, then to a style more fitting of fellow-mascot the Trix Rabbit, where he tries to just get some Cookie Crisp from kids. Coincidence or witness protection?

Of course, we have mascots like Cap’n Crunch, Tony the Tiger, and Sonny the bird who are more than willing to get kids addicted to their respective products. While at its heart, this is nothing but a cold corporate sell, at least kids are given the idea that sharing is good, inasmuch as it nets you huge profits from your customers. But the mascots should only use when they can handle the product. Sonny, for example, routinely has severe spasms and fits of insanity (or as he claims, “going cuckoo”). At least the Cap’n and Tony just get a mild buzz off of there products. Maybe Coco Puffs is just a harder cereal.

Moving back into the realm of fast food, you just don’t see as many mascots, save for McDonalds and its immortal Ronald McDonald and the McDonaldland crew. Now, I have nothing but respect for these mascots. Since the early sixties, Ronald McDonald has virtually remained the same, and though some the McDonaldland cast has been cut over the years, they’ve still managed to maintain a presence for decades.

The characters don’t seem as obsessive about their product, either. Sure, Ronald will magically produce Happy Meals for children, but he doesn’t go on a head trip when he starts chomping fries. With the exception of the Hamburglar (I guess you can’t expect everyone in McDonaldland to be on the level), no one tries to steal anything or keep food away from wanting children. Okay, there were the Fry Kids, once called the Gobblins, who stole French fries, and a pirate named Captain Crook who stole fish sandwiches… okay, so McDonalds did have a sorted history, but at least they didn’t have food that wanted you to eat it!

Oops. Actually, they had on hand the McNugget Buddies, living chicken nuggets who promoted the product. Actually, I really liked these guys, especially the Happy Meal toys they had in the late eighties. Those were the best.

The McDonalds brand has spread further than any other mascot brand, reaching all the way into actual entertainment products. In addition to mascot Happy Meal toys (which every fast food place had at one point), there were cartoons (from a few different eras) and video games. Many of you Nintendo-era folks might remember MC Kids, a really good NES game wherein Ronald sent a couple of kids into a dangerous fantasy world to get back his magic bag, which was stolen by the Hamburglar. Take comfort in the fact that Ronald wasn’t the first mascot to send kids to do his dirty work (Mickey Mouse pulled the same crap).

The McDonalds mascots were huge, achieving success that other chains wished they could emulate. And so far, none have, with the possible exception of Burger King's the King, and only time will tell if he will stick around. It’s not for a lack of trying, though. Burger King had the Burger King Kids Club Gang, a group of stereotype-laden kids who were phased out because parents were none to pleased with the stereotypes, or rather the label-inducing monikers the characters possessed (for example, the kid in the wheelchair was called “Wheels,” and the Hispanic kid was named “Lingo.”). And who led this group of haphazard minorities and females? A white blonde boy. Oooooooooooo!!!

Personally, I think this campaign made the strongest effort to appeal to a wide range of people, even if there are some stereotypical undertones. The Burger King Kids Club Gang was a refreshing alternative to fry-toting clowns and anamorphic corporate shills. We invite deranged cereal addicts and food-stealing convicts into our homes to sell products to our children, but we have to draw the line with characters that have the potential to give kids an inaccurate generalization of minorities. That’s what the news media is for!

By the way, if you want to live the magic of the Burger King Kids Club Gang, check out any of the Burger King Kid’s Club releases of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on VHS. You’ll see a commercial that features the best melding of live action and animation this side of Who Frame Roger Rabbit?

Speaking of rabbits, a good portion of you born in the early eighties (you know, the greatest generation ever) probably remember the Noid from Dominos pizza. The Noid’s mission was not to steal pizzas, but to destroy them, making him more psychotic than his fellow product-swiping mascots, who at least stole products to use them. Interestingly, the Noid starred in a PC game and an NES game (which was an obscure Japanese game with altered graphics, just like Super Mario Bros. 2 was an alteration of Doki Doki Panic). It seems the Noid succeeded in his mission, at least in Toledo, where you’ll be hard-pressed to find a Dominos anywhere in the area. This arrangement is acceptable.

Thank God for Little Caesar’s, though, which remains as one of the few restaurants that still has a long-running mascot, though outside of his mental disorder that forces him to communicate solely by repeating the same word twice, Caesar isn’t a very interesting character. Sure, he has an entire family, put they’ve mostly been phased out, because they aren’t interesting either (and they posses the same mental disorder, which can get redundant. I’d hate to be at one of their family reunions). Still, the Caesars did have a line of really cheap kids “toys” (made out of cardboard), and the company has kept Little Caesar himself around, so at least he has longevity. And the pizzas are damn good when they want to be, which is rarely as of late.

Moving swiftly back to burgers, who can forget the Big Boy restaurants and their mascot of the same name? Around since 1936, Big Boy is an American symbol, a reflection of our very way of life: fat, food-crazed, and backstabbing weirdos. I’m sorry to bring some more personal baggage on this train of thought, but I’m still bitter about a recent renovation of my local Big Boy, wherein they stripped it of its neat fifties diner theme and replaced it with a drab, generic food hole theme. The worst offense was the renovation of the food quality, which in addition to being torn down a few notches overall, is absent of chicken parmesan, which was one of the best dishes ever. This shows you why I never go there anymore, back to that restaurant with that big, grinning creep.

Okay, get a grip. Besides these examples, not too many other restaurants had their own line of mascots that are larger than simple icons. Wendy’s has the passive Wendy image, though at one time in the eighties she was an actual character and had a bunch of forest creature friends (which, if memory serves me correctly, had their own Kid’s Meal toys and even a cartoon), but now the franchise has resigned itself to being largely mascot-less, much like every other fast food franchise.

Much like Taco Bell now. If you know me at all, you’ll know I have a deep-seeded obsession with the Taco Bell Dog. I can’t explain it, nor do I care to cure myself. The Taco Bell Dog rocks, so much so that I plan an espousing on him in a later article. Viva la Taco Bell Dog!

Okay, calm down… The Taco Bell Dog was Taco Bell’s mascot from the late nineties that rocketed to the status of pop culture legend. The concept was simple: a talking Chihuahua that advertised tacos, yet the concept became so popular that the Taco Bell Dog spawned toys, plushes, and t-shirts, some of which were available in stores. The commercials are considered by some (me) to be advertising genius.

Interesting, the Taco Bell Dog was an idea thought up by Joseph Shields and Thomas Rinks, who worked with Taco Bell on the blueprints for the campaign until Taco Bell called off the project. A few months later, the Taco Bell Dog appeared on TV, to which Shields and Rinks responded by suing and winning $42 million dollars from Taco Bell.

Personally, I feel Taco Bell had it coming, especially after they discontinued the campaign. Even though the Taco Bell Dog was securing his place in pop culture history, Taco Bell discontinued the campaign because of complaints from the Latin American community, and also wanted to move on to different campaigns because of falling profits. And how did the corporation phase out the icon? By replaying an old commercial and pointlessly re-dubbing voice actor Carlos Alazraqui’s performance with a generic, out-of-place, American-accented hack. In my opinion, $42 million wasn’t enough punishment.

Now would be a good time to end this thing.

This article has established several things. Firstly, it’s established that anyone can write able any pointless topic and still find an audience dumb enough to read it (you read this sentence, so, sorry, you’re in the club). You’ve also learned that food isn’t just food anymore, but a massive corporate negotiation, involving copyright laws, lawyers, and morally reprehensible characters who are either addicted to food, steal food from others, or try to consume their own kind. Maybe we’ve even learned that for all of the elaborate advertising food companies put out to draw us in, maybe, just maybe, we should eat what we want and not be concerned with the wills of corporate suits. Finally, I think we have learned, above all, that the Taco Bell Dog rocks, and Taco Bell needs to be sued for another $42 million, because I feel like it.