BrandlandUSA

By Garland Pollard

We made up a list of our Top 20 favorite brand mascots.

This list deliberately does not include human mascots for brands, including Mr. Whipple, the Maytag Man, Burger King and the Marlboro Man. They are human characters; we were looking for mascots.

Our list is below. It’s in a sort of order.

1. Charlie the Tuna. Tuna is better with him on the label. He’s a smart ass but kids love that.
2. Alka Seltzer’s Speedy. Why did Speedy go bye-bye?
3. Ronald McDonald and the Hamburglar. Actually, of the bunch, our fave was the Hamburglar.
4. Count Chocula and Franken Berry. Their ads were cool. Way cool. Go General Mills.
5. Kool Aid Kid. Who didn’t want him to bust through a fence at a boring crap birthday party.
6. Pets.com Sock Puppet. Sometimes, don’t you wish you could just be that smart-assed?
7. Punchy, Hawaiian Punch. Party surfer guy. I want to be that dude. PUNCH!
8. Tony the Tiger. Tony has a simple message. They’re GREEAT! And you are too Tony.
9. Pillsbury Dough Boy. I always wished he would sometime pop out of that tube. Why doesn’t Pillsbury sell one to cook?
10. Elsie the Cow. She might have been made into glue and cheese, but both tasted good to kindergardeners.
11. Buster Brown. Don’t remember the shoes being that interesting in the 1970s, but Buster was sort of interesting.
12. Joe Camel. We wish health Nazis and ambulance chasers hadn’t killed him off.
13. Kool Penguin. Ditto for the Kool Penguin. Kids still want to smoke today even if they don’t have cute penguins smoking menthol cigs.
14. Mr. Clean. He’s getting a workout lately.
15. Quisp kid. That rotor on the beanie is way cool.
16. Tropic-Ana. Pepsico should have never ditched her.
17. Reddy Kilowatt. Our old electric co-op promoted him. I almost wanted to stick a fork into a socket to see if he would come out.
18. Snoopy. Liked the cartoon (who doesn’t), but he’s also interesting as a life insurance salesman. Everyone fears life insurance salesmen, and Snoopy humanizes the genre. We just wish Snoopy would grace the top of the Pan Am building in New York, which is now the Met Life building.
19. Mr. Peanut. He was born in Suffolk, Virginia, and that’s good enough but he is WAY cool
20. Burger Chef’s Jeff. We wish he would come back. We always liked Burger Chef better than the others. Don’t know why.

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• June 21, 2009 -- Next Step For Major Brands on the Web
• June 21, 2009 -- Hey, I’m a Blow Up Mascot Making Company
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