jerseyshorejohnny
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If Mr. Peanut Has to Go, Why Does the Gecko Get to Live?
It is character assassination: Planters is offing a beloved mascot on Super Bowl Sunday, but surely there are others more deserving
By Joe Queenan / Wall Street Journal
Jan. 31, 2020
The announcement that the Planters brand would kill off its mega-iconic Mr. Peanut during the Super Bowl initially prompted laughter in many quarters, with “Saturday Night Live” showing an image of the mascot after he had been “cream-ated.” Now, despite calls to pull the ad from the Super Bowl lineup out of respect for Kobe Bryant —because Mr. Peanut is depicted dying in a fiery accident—Planters insisted during the week that Mr. Peanut’s demise and funeral will go on as scheduled.
All this is terribly wrong, and not just because of Kobe Bryant. For 104 years, Mr. Peanut has served both his company and his nation well, with a mixture of elegance and panache that has rarely been equaled and never surpassed. Designed by a schoolboy in a 1916 contest, Mr. Peanut—with his trademark monocle, top hat and cane—has been one of the most esteemed mascots in history, even appearing in a World War I poster produced by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture.
Ostensibly descended from the British aristocracy, the implacably debonair Bartholomew Richard Fitzgerald-Smythe (the full name that Mr. Peanut’s young creator gave him) is one of America’s last links with a simpler, more innocent and infinitely more classy time when people knew how to behave themselves. And knew how to dress.
Cavalierly tossing Mr. Peanut onto the cultural junk heap in a tasteless Super Bowl commercial will merely confirm the public’s worst fears about corporate America. It will deepen the perception that the heartless suits and bean counters will sacrifice any employee, betray any principle, sell out any comrade-in-arms in order to turn a quick buck.
Would anyone miss Julius Pringles? The Kool-Aid Man? Charlie Tuna?
This is ageism at its very worst. This is senior abuse. After 104 years of busting your hump and working for peanuts, what is your reward? Your employer kills you off in front of the entire world. And then laughs about it.
What is most reprehensible about Mr. Peanut’s ignominious signoff is that many other corporate mascots really do deserve to be purged. No, I am not suggesting that Tony Tiger, Ronald McDonald or the cute-as-a-button Pillsbury Doughboy should go down for the count. Nor am I proposing that feisty Morris the Cat should be put out to pasture.
But haven’t we all had enough of that maddening gecko in the Geico commercials? Isn’t it time that the preening Burger King with his creepy pasted-on grin got eighty-sixed? While we’re on the subject, do we really need both the Energizer and the Duracell Bunny? (Yes, there are two.) And hasn’t the resolutely strange Mr. Clean overstayed his welcome?
What’s really needed here is a poll of the American public to see which mascot is most deserving of being ditched. Do Americans honestly care about the Michelin Man? In an increasingly vegan culture, couldn’t most of us do without Colonel Sanders? Would anyone miss Julius Pringles? The Kool-Aid Man? Charlie Tuna ?
Mascots come and mascots go, to a point. The public eventually gets sick of Spuds MacKenzie and the Aflac Duck in a way they never tire of Elsie the Cow or the Chicken of the Sea mermaid. Mr. Peanut falls directly into this latter class. Mr. Peanut is an archetypal fixture in the Great American Experiment. Kill off Mr. Peanut and you’re killing off part of the American soul.
One obvious solution presents itself here: Let someone else die in Mr. Peanut’s place. If it comes down to choosing between peanut-related mascots, I would much rather toss one of M&M’s goofy spokes-candies overboard than bid adieu to Mr. Peanut. For starters, you can barely tell those guys apart. Unlike them, Mr. Peanut is not a mere shell of a man.
It is character assassination: Planters is offing a beloved mascot on Super Bowl Sunday, but surely there are others more deserving
By Joe Queenan / Wall Street Journal
Jan. 31, 2020
The announcement that the Planters brand would kill off its mega-iconic Mr. Peanut during the Super Bowl initially prompted laughter in many quarters, with “Saturday Night Live” showing an image of the mascot after he had been “cream-ated.” Now, despite calls to pull the ad from the Super Bowl lineup out of respect for Kobe Bryant —because Mr. Peanut is depicted dying in a fiery accident—Planters insisted during the week that Mr. Peanut’s demise and funeral will go on as scheduled.
All this is terribly wrong, and not just because of Kobe Bryant. For 104 years, Mr. Peanut has served both his company and his nation well, with a mixture of elegance and panache that has rarely been equaled and never surpassed. Designed by a schoolboy in a 1916 contest, Mr. Peanut—with his trademark monocle, top hat and cane—has been one of the most esteemed mascots in history, even appearing in a World War I poster produced by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture.
Ostensibly descended from the British aristocracy, the implacably debonair Bartholomew Richard Fitzgerald-Smythe (the full name that Mr. Peanut’s young creator gave him) is one of America’s last links with a simpler, more innocent and infinitely more classy time when people knew how to behave themselves. And knew how to dress.
Cavalierly tossing Mr. Peanut onto the cultural junk heap in a tasteless Super Bowl commercial will merely confirm the public’s worst fears about corporate America. It will deepen the perception that the heartless suits and bean counters will sacrifice any employee, betray any principle, sell out any comrade-in-arms in order to turn a quick buck.
Would anyone miss Julius Pringles? The Kool-Aid Man? Charlie Tuna?
This is ageism at its very worst. This is senior abuse. After 104 years of busting your hump and working for peanuts, what is your reward? Your employer kills you off in front of the entire world. And then laughs about it.
What is most reprehensible about Mr. Peanut’s ignominious signoff is that many other corporate mascots really do deserve to be purged. No, I am not suggesting that Tony Tiger, Ronald McDonald or the cute-as-a-button Pillsbury Doughboy should go down for the count. Nor am I proposing that feisty Morris the Cat should be put out to pasture.
But haven’t we all had enough of that maddening gecko in the Geico commercials? Isn’t it time that the preening Burger King with his creepy pasted-on grin got eighty-sixed? While we’re on the subject, do we really need both the Energizer and the Duracell Bunny? (Yes, there are two.) And hasn’t the resolutely strange Mr. Clean overstayed his welcome?
What’s really needed here is a poll of the American public to see which mascot is most deserving of being ditched. Do Americans honestly care about the Michelin Man? In an increasingly vegan culture, couldn’t most of us do without Colonel Sanders? Would anyone miss Julius Pringles? The Kool-Aid Man? Charlie Tuna ?
Mascots come and mascots go, to a point. The public eventually gets sick of Spuds MacKenzie and the Aflac Duck in a way they never tire of Elsie the Cow or the Chicken of the Sea mermaid. Mr. Peanut falls directly into this latter class. Mr. Peanut is an archetypal fixture in the Great American Experiment. Kill off Mr. Peanut and you’re killing off part of the American soul.
One obvious solution presents itself here: Let someone else die in Mr. Peanut’s place. If it comes down to choosing between peanut-related mascots, I would much rather toss one of M&M’s goofy spokes-candies overboard than bid adieu to Mr. Peanut. For starters, you can barely tell those guys apart. Unlike them, Mr. Peanut is not a mere shell of a man.
