Millbrook Bread "Snoopy for President" Campaign – Sept. 1976

Remember when the act of running for President was sometimes done as a gag, or as part of an advertising campaign?

Older readers of this blog remember when comedian Pat Paulsen ran for President in 1968.

I even remember when Yogi Bear ran for President. 

His opponent was Magilla Gorilla (of the Green Banana party?). I even had this coloring book (below).

 

That was a dirty trick by Magilla. The big ape probably rented a bus and drove all the animals in Peebles' Pet Shop to the polls too.

Anyway, Snoopy of "Peanuts" fame got into the act too as part of a special promotion by Millbrook Bread. It was an aggressive campaign too, with multiple small ads placed in the same edition of a local newspaper. 

As an example, all of the ads below ran in the Journal on Sept. 20, 1976.

Despite all the 'bread' spent on his campaign, Snoopy lost to Jimmy Carter. 

However, the ever-popular beagle had the last laugh. The campaign stickers enclosed free in the packages of Millbrook Bread are highly collectible today, and graded like baseball cards. There are several on eBay right now.

I guess the little blank boxes were there so you could write-in your own local candidate, and the position they were running for (although dog-catcher would have been somewhat inappropriate).