Green Giant is a vegetable company owned by General Mills. It is symbolized by two mascots, frozen vegetables,[citation needed] and also sells canned vegetables both under the Green Giant and Le Sueur brands. In Canada, where an important part of the population speaks French, the company sells canned vegetables under the Le Sieur brand instead of Le Sueur because "sueur" means sweat in French and it was not good marketing introducing sweat in food advertising. Le Sieur means "the Sir" in French and thus was a more appropriate name. The Green Giant brand is also licensed out by General Mills for fresh produce, which is managed by Potandon Produce (potatoes and onions specifically) and The Sholl Group II (all other fresh produce).
The company was founded in 1903 in Le Sueur, Minnesota, as the Minnesota Valley Canning Company selling sweet creamed corn. The name Green Giant was introduced in 1925 to help market the company's peas, and in 1950 the company adopted the Green Giant name. By 1930, Minnesota was the corn center of the world and Minnesota Valley had emerged as one of the country's largest producers of sweet corn. The Green Giant soon had five canneries in Minnesota in addition to the original facility in Le Sueur. In 1979, the company merged with another Minnesota company, Pillsbury, which was ultimately acquired by General Mills. At the end of 1994, Pillsbury/Green Giant sold six canneries to Seneca Foods including the original cannery in Le Sueur, which is now shut down and even the front offices were torn down in 2006.
The Jolly Green Giant is the mascot of the Green Giant food company. Created by Leo Burnett, the Giant first appeared in advertisements in 1928; the name originally came from a variety of unusually large pea called the "Green Giant" that the company canned and sold. The original TV commercial, first aired in 1953, features a small green puppet as the (Jolly) Green Giant (though the commercial itself was in black-and-white) stalking through what appears to be the Valley, through the use of stop-motion animation. He stops outside a small farm and holding out his hands, in which two Green Giant canned products are seen spinning into view: in his left hand, a can of his famous Niblets, and in his right, a can of peas. He then holds them out as the camera slowly backs out. A variation of this commercial features a scene that takes place in a family setting. In this, the mother character in the commercial implies that if one eats Green Giant products, one will become a Green Giant. The young boys featuring in the advert, however, are not scared by this, but seem rather excited. We can see this as they continue to devour their great Giant sweetcorn somewhat more quickly.
The images of these commercials are forever burned into my memories of growning up watching television
GREEN GIANT : TELEVISION COMMERCIAL GENERAL MILLS FOODS (1965) 1:30 USA
Alpha-Bits, also known as Frosted Alpha-Bits, is a breakfast cereal made by Post Cereals, which contains frosted alphabet-shaped corn cereal bits. Post Cereals also started producing Marshmallow Alpha-Bits in 1990. Alpha-Bits cereal was invented by a father of seven named Thomas M. Quigley who worked for Post Cereals. The cereal was introduced in 1958, and was taken off the market in 2006. However, Alpha-Bits reappeared for sale in January 2008 with a new formulation, touting "0% Sugar!" as a "Limited Edition" cereal. The old recipe was reintroduced later in 2008.
Beginning in 1964, the mascot for Alpha-Bits was a postman (Post Man) named Loveable Truly, who was originally voiced by insult comic Jack E. Leonard in a Southern accent. Loveable Truly was also a character in the 1960s cartoon show Linus the Lionhearted on CBS, along with other Post Cereals mascots at the time (including Sugar Bear of Golden Crisp, then called Sugar Crisp). Since then, mascots have included the Alpha-Bits Wizard, who appeared near children in kitchens. In Canada, the last Alpha-Bits mascot was Alpha, a computer who "makes bits". He continues to be used as of 2010. The Canadian Alpha at first resembled IBM PCs, but recent versions have begun to look like Macintoshes. In the 1980s there was yet another mascot named Alfie the Alpha-Bits Cereal Wonder Dog. Michael Jackson and the Jackson Five starred in a series of Alpha-Bits musical TV commercials in 1973.
In 1970, the Monkees project was pretty much completed. Peter Tork was the first to leave, followed by Michael Nesmith, and Micky Dolenz and Davy Jones soldiered on as a duo for as long as they could.Colgems, their record label, was also floundering. Although it had success with the "Oliver" soundtrack, its fortunes were directly tied into the Monkees, and with that project reaching its near end, it was time to make a somewhat daring move to try to revive sales All because the Monkees TV show was becoming a staple of Saturday morning TV on CBS. Incredibly, while the first generation of Monkees fans generally were now listening to heavier sounds, kids born in the mid to late 1960s were making the Monkees TV show a hit all over again, albeit on Saturday mornings. This gave Colgems hope that a new album, "Changes," could revive the act, now down to a duo. While it didn't do the trick (see previous post), Colgems was not yet done with a major marketing ploy to keep the Monkees in the spotlight, at least with little kids. One of the Monkees original sponsors on NBC was Kellogg's, but they had moved onto other things by 1970. However, one of Kellogg's major competitors, Post Cereal, needed its own marketing ploy to at least keep in the game with Kellogg's. Post Cereal, like the Monkees franchise, needed a boost, and out of this marriage came ...
Cereal Box Records.
These records--found on the backs of cereal boxes--had been around since the late 1950s. I believe I remember seeing Mousketeers and Alvin and the Chipmunks cereal box records around this time, and this marketing tool was also used in intervening years, and not just on cereal boxes. For one, the Dave Clark Five promoted its film "Having a Wild Weekend" by having a cardboard record available on packages of Fresh Start Medicated Cleansing Gel. Anyway, Post started to sponsor the Monkees TV show on Saturday mornings, and three of its cereals were involved in the cereal box record campaign: Rice Krinkles, Alpha Bits and Honey Comb. These three sets of records each contained four individual songs, meaning that there were a total of 12 Monkees cereal box records available. All kids had to do was have their moms buy them the cereal, carefully cut out the record on the back, and place them on their turntable. What they got were low-fidelity tunes that these kids' older brothers and sisters probably had already, but the marketing ploy was a hit. In fact, the next to last Colgems LP was actually a mail order item accumulating all of the cereal box records tunes on a single LP (more about that LP in the near future). Although short-lived, the Monkees cereal box records established them as the first human rock group (remember the Chipmunks had them too) to be featured in a series on these records, and this was so successful that later bubblegum acts like the Jackson 5, Bobby Sherman and the Partridge Family had their own cereal box records--and so did another cartoon creation, the Archies.
Cereal box records continued to be used as a marketing ploy into the late 1970s or very early 1980s. At around this time, soundsheets emerged, and, later, when CDs replaced vinyl as the listening format of choice, cereal box records became artifacts of a different, simpler time. As for the Monkees cereal box records, there were three designs.
Design No. 1, which was found on the Rice Krinkles records, featured Micky, Davy, and Mike and a green label with guitar logos between each head in spiral. The four songs on these records were 1. The Monkees (Theme) 2. Teardrop City 3. Papa Gene's Blues 4. The Day We Fall In Love.
Design No. 2, which was found on Alpha Bits, featured a large Monkees logo in the middle, with Davy, Mike and Micky's heads around logo on a black label. The songs included in this series were 1. Last Train To Clarksville 2. I Wanna Be Free 3. Forget That Girl 4. Valleri.
Design No. 3, found on Honey Comb cereal, is my favorite, a red and white Monkees logo and musical notes on a purple background. The tunes in this series included 1. I'm A Believer 2. Pleasant Valley Sunday 3. (I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone 4. Mary, Mary.
You knew what song you were getting because in lieu of an actual catalog number, the number of the song was pressed into the cardboard. Each of the records played at 33 1/3 RPM. - from Colgems
POST CEREALS : TELEVISION COMMERCIAL POST CEREALS (1970) USA 32 SECONDS
Here, for your listening pleasure, are a few of these cereal box records. Remember, the fidelity is horrible at best, and unfortunately, some of these have not survived very well, and they do skip. But as artifacts of a different time, they are among the most fun records that I own.
Count Chocula and Franken Berry were both introduced in 1971. Boo Berry Cereal appeared in 1973 followed by Fruit Brute in 1974. Yummy Mummy appeared more than a decade later in 1988 - completing the the group known as the General Mills Monster Cereals.
The following description of Franken Berry is from 1972 marketing material promoting the cereal for Halloween:
"A spoonful of spooky fun in every bowl, Franken Berry is a whimsical way to start the day. Made with whole grain corn, Franken Berry combines strawberry-flavored cereal with colorful marshmallow shapes to create a delicious cereal that kids and adults can enjoy. Each serving of this playful, monster-themed cereal is low in fat with no cholesterol or saturated fat. It's also a good source of calcium, whole grain, and 9 other essential vitamins and minerals."
FRANKEN BERRY / COUNT CHOCULA : TELEVISION COMMERCIAL GENERAL MILLS 1971 31 SECONDS USA DOWNLOAD / MPEG 2 / 30.2 MB
Quisp is a sugar-sweetened breakfast cereal from the Quaker Oats Company. It was introduced in 1965 and continued as a mass-market grocery item until the late 1970s. Sometime afterward, the company sold the item sporadcially, and upon the rise of the Internet began selling it primarily online. Quisp was initially marketed with a sister brand, Quake. Its joint-product television commercials were produced by Jay Ward, a major producer of animated television series.
Quisp and the similarly marketed cereal Quake were originally released in 1965 in the United States by the Quaker Oats Company and generally advertised together (during the same commercial) with their character mascots competing against each other. The successful ads were cartoons created by Jay Ward, and used some of the same voice actors as in Ware's of Rocky and Bullwinkle animated series, including Daws Butler as the voice of Quisp (an alien) and William Conrad as the voice of Quake (a miner). The commercials often asked children to choose which cereal was better, and to compete over taste or premiums. The competition reached its peak in 1972, when a series of commercials asked children to vote for which cereal should remain on the shelves. Quake had a makeover in 1969, slimming down and changing his miner hat for an Australian bush hat and Australian accent,[citation needed] but that was not enough. Quisp was the winner and Quake was discontinued. The character Quake, however, reappeared as a sidekick of an orange kangaroo named Simon in an orange-flavored cereal called Quangaroos. In 1976, Quaker Oats ran another contest, this time asking children to choose between Quisp and Quangaroos. Quisp won again and Quangaroos was discontinued. Quisp did not outlast its competitors for long. In the late 1970s, Quisp was discontinued due to low sales. It was brought back in the mid 1980s, then again in the 1990s and in 2001, where it was relaunched as the "first Internet cereal". Consumers were encouraged to visit the Quisp Web site to view animated endings to cartoons on the back of the cereal box. The online Flash animation was produced by John Kricfalusi and Spümcø, featuring Quisp and his sidekick Quunchy (voiced by Corey Burton and Matt Danner, respectively).
From then on, Quisp remained in limited distribution, with Quaker Oats distributing the product in "guerrilla displays" that would appear in a store and last until the product sold out. Even in the late 2000s, it could occasionally be found in grocery and discount chains such as Dollar General, Marc's and Food Lion.[citation needed] Through at least summer of 2009, Quaker Oats sold Quisp directly to the public through an online store. In August 2010, Super Target stores started selling Quisp. The Quisp website featured a graphic stating, "Quisp Has Come Back to Earth! Find him at Super Target." but there was no marketing campaign, only wallpaper graphics, a retro-themed flash cartoon and a t-shirt offer on the cereal box. From Wikipedia
When I was a little kid my mother rarely let myself and my two sisters eat sugary cereals so when we did, it really was a special treat. Quisp was my favorite, I think I was attracted to it because of the outer space theme of the advertising and the packaging. In retrospect I think this cereal tasted no different that Cap't Crunch , (just different shapes). - Jon Behrens
QUISP CEREAL : TELEVISION COMMERCIAL JAY WARD 1966 QUAKER OATS COMPANY 1 MIN USA DOWNLOAD / MPEG2 / 30.9 MB
The Polaroid Model 20 "Swinger" was a popular Land Camera produced by the Polaroid Corporation between 1965 and 1970. At $19.95 USD it was the first truly inexpensive instant camera, a fact that helped fuel its enormous popularity and made it one of the top-selling cameras of all time. The Swinger was especially successful in the youth market due to its low price, stylish appearance, and catchy "Meet the Swinger" jingle in a television advertisement featuring a young Ali MacGraw. The Swinger featured an extinction exposure meter tied to the aperture which displayed the word "YES" in a window below the viewfinder when the exposure was set correctly. Earlier models also displayed the word "NO" when not properly adjusted, while later units used only the YES indicator. The Swinger also included a built-in flashgun for AG-1 flashbulbs. The Swinger used Polaroid's 20-Series roll film, which was the first Polaroid roll film to develop outside the camera.
Variants included the Model M-15 "Swinger Sentinel" (the Swinger II in non-US markets), which was a cheaper Swinger without the built-in flash, and the Model 3000 "Big Swinger", which used 100-Series pack film instead of the old-style picture rolls. The Swinger name was also used on several international-market Polaroid cameras in the 1960s and 1970s
