9 Surprising Origin Stories Behind Corporate Mascots

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 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 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 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 grew up with. In fact, Smokey is just the first of nine, so let's dive in. Ya Hey there, podcast 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 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

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, 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,

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 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 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

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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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,

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 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 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 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

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.

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

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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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

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 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 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

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 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, 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. 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 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 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