The Giant Tiger Mascot

One of the funnier aspects of the regional Giant Tiger chain (for me anyway) was their appropriation of the most famous and beloved cartoon tiger used in advertising to moonlight as their mascot.

I'm talking of course about Tony the Tiger.

I can't imagine that Kellogg's would have approved, but nevertheless Tony the Tiger himself appeared in many Giant Tiger ads that appeared in the Lorain Journal during 1967 and 1968. The first time I saw it, I imagined that it was just some lowly paste-up artist's idea of a gag. (After all, I was a paste-up artist at one time and I would have thought it was an amusing thing to do.) But then I saw that Tony's appearance in the ads was a regular thing that went on for quite a while.

There was even a logo arrangement with Tony right next to the company's name (see above).

No doubt Kellogg's provided newspapers with clip art sheets for use when laying out one of their cereal ads; perhaps in this case, the Giant Tiger artist – fighting a last-minute deadline – thought,"Oh well, a tiger's a tiger!" and then slapped the Gr-r-reat One onto the ad.

Anyway, about a year ago, I happened to be scrounging around in a thrift store in Cleveland (appropriately enough called the Unique Thrift Store) where I found this scrap of paper in the records section (below). It reveals that maybe at one time, another tiger prowled around in the Giant Tiger ads.