Crazy About Crazy Horse

Back in the summer of 1965, my family hitched the Apache pop-up camping trailer to our Olds F-85 and headed Out West to South Dakota for our vacation. I wrote about it in a five-part blog series beginning here.

My siblings and me (wearing bolo tie) in a picture from that trip

We saw a lot on that Western trip, with Mt. Rushmore, Deadwood, the Badlands and the Corn Palace being the main places of interest. But Crazy Horse – the Lakota war chief who defeated Lt. Col. Custer and the 7th Cavalry at the Battle of the Little Bighorn – figured prominently in two attractions we saw. (That's why yesterday I mentioned that the movie Chief Crazy Horse was of interest to me.)

The first one was Crazy Horse Pageant at Hot Springs, South Dakota. Here's the ad that ran in the This Week in South Dakota's Black Hills and Badlands tourist weekly for July 11, 1965.

As described in the tourist book, "The Crazy Horse Pageant is different from any Indian pageant you've ever seen... any place. It tells the story of the great Sioux nation in both its finest hour and its darkest moment – and of its greatest leader, the visionary Crazy Horse, and it tells it from the viewpoint of the Sioux.

"The Sioux nation was the only military force ever to fight the U. S Army to a standstill. Military experts regarded the Sioux as "the finest light cavalry in the world" and Crazy Horse was the most skilled fighter of them all."

As for the pageant, the tourist book noted, "No effort has been spared to make the pageant as authentic as humanly possible.

"The setting is a natural amphitheater on the Fall River which is almost an exact miniature of the Little Big Horn.

"The Crazy Horse Pageant is a memorable and moving experience and there is no other like it in America. It is perhaps the happiest marriage of historical accuracy with high drama which had ever been done."

The other Crazy Horse attraction was, of course, the Memorial. We visited the studio of the sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski, who envisioned and designed the world's largest mountain carving as a tribute to Crazy Horse. 

Here's our photo taken at the studio of a miniature version of what the sculpture will look like when finished. 

And here's the mountain itself, as it looked at that time.

There's been some progress in the intervening sixty years.

There's still a lonnnng way to go, though. One of my favorite books, The New Roadside America, humorously described it like this: "When complete, it will be bigger than the Sphinx! The head of his horse alone will be bigger than all of the white men on Rushmore. Completion due date? The middle of the twenty-third century."

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I suspect that Chief Crazy Horse's fame inspired the creation of the character Chief Crazy Coyote, who heckled and harassed Huckleberry Hound in several classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons.

Bank on Huck and Yogi – O'Neil's Christmas Ad 1960

Back in November 1960, the Emmy-award-winning The Huckleberry Hound Show was in its third season, and the marketing push associated with the popular Hanna-Barbera program was in full swing. 

Above you see that locally, even O'Neil's was in on the cartoon act. The highlight of the Christmas-themed ad for the store were plastic 'Juvenile Bubble Bath' figures in the shape of Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear. As the ad (which ran in the Journal on November 30, 1960) notes, the non-breakable plastic containers "convert to coin bank when super bubbly, bath crystals are gone."

(Yogi would leave his buddy Huck and star in his own TV show a mere two months after the ad appeared).

It's not too surprising that O'Neil's carried the plastic banks/bubble baths, which were manufactured by Knickerbocker. The company had been very aggressive in coming up with different ways to market the Hanna-Barbera characters. The O'Neil buyer may even have seen the trade ad below.

And the Lorain Journal did its bit to drum up interest in the character banks. The item below ran in the paper on September 21, 1960.

The banks were as unbreakable as advertised. Today they are fairly ubiquitous on eBay.

Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear (two of my all-time favorite cartoon characters) have appeared on this blog several times, with three posts devoted to Yogi Bear's Jellystone Park Camp-Resorts.

1961 Ohio State Fair with Huck, Yogi & Charlie Weaver

I was thinking the other day how it might be nice to go to the Ohio State Fair this year. It's been quite a while since I've been to one. Then I discovered that the Fair is already in progress, running from July 24 to August 4th. So the first weekend of it has already come and gone.

I'm still used to the Fair running much later in the summer. I was down at the 1976 Ohio State Fair for the entire run, first as a member of the All-Ohio State Fair Band, and then for a few additional days playing in the All-Ohio State Fair Stage Band. During that whole time I stayed with the other high school musicians in the barracks at the Rhodes Center (originally called the Youth Center).

Being in the All-Ohio State Fair Band was one of the most memorable and enjoyable experiences of my life. (I wrote about it back here and here.) So I'm a little sentimental about the Fair.

Anyway, back in 1961, the headliner at the Ohio State Fair was none other than comedian Cliff Arquette, better known as his alter-ego Charlie Weaver. 

In later years, he was one of the stars of the TV game show Hollywood Squares. But in 1961, he was known for his regular appearances on the Tonight Show hosted by Jack Paar.

Also riding high in popularity in 1961 were Hanna-Barbera's cartoon stars Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear, who also appeared at the Ohio State Fair that year. Each was the star of his own TV show at that time. I'm curious as to what kind of show they put on. It was probably something like this appearance in April 1961 in Los Angeles. 

(Gee, I would have thought Yogi was taller than Huck. He looks about as big as Boo Boo.)

The article (below) which appeared in the Journal on August 22, 1961, describes the upcoming Ohio State Fair.

What's nice that year is the Journal honored the area high school musicians that were heading down to the Fair for the All-Ohio Boys Band. 

As you can see, the Band used to consist of all boys. The first year I applied (1975) was the first year that girls were in the Band – and I didn't make it that year. Thank goodness I did during my last year of eligibility.

As I noted in my two posts about my time as a member of the Band, it was the first time away from home for me and many of the other high school musicians. At first we were all a little homesick. But by the time of our last concert on the lawn of the Rhodes Center, kids were bawling that it was all over.

Kellogg’s of Battle Creek Vintage Postcards

Remember watching TV shows in the 1960s that were sponsored by “Kellogg’s of Battle Creek?” Everyone in America knew the name of the city in Michigan where the cereal giant was located.

The Kellogg’s cereal plant was a major tourist destination for many years. Consequently, it ended up on postcards. Here’s an ample sample from through the years. (I’ve included some postmark dates.)

It’s interesting seeing how the plant evolved.

1912

The visitor’s entrance became the focal point of the postcard beginning in the late 1950s. 

1959

1961

1965

Being a cereal fanatic, I would have loved to have taken a tour of the Kellogg’s factory in Battle Creek, Michigan. But the public tours ended in the 1980s, out of concerns that trade secrets were being stolen.

I did visit Battle Creek with my younger brother in 1998, however, to visit the Kellogg’s Cereal City attraction located downtown. We made a side trip to drive around the huge Kellogg’s manufacturing plant, even though we couldn’t get inside. We also wanted to find and photograph the Tony the Tiger and son statue.

What we found was a little depressing. The former entrance to the plant – through which thousands of visitors streamed over the years, eager to see their favorite cereals being manufactured – was now an overgrown mess.

The statue of Tony the Tiger and Tony Jr. were still there on the grounds, but I had to photograph them through a chain link fence.

So what does the Kellogg’s plant and office complex look like today? Incredibly, most of the buildings shown in the vintage postcards are no more, except for some associated with production. The building where the visitor entrance was located was gone by the early 2000s.

The office building was the last to go. Here’s a vintage postcard of it.

And here’s a Google Maps view of it, off in the distance, circa 2012.

And finally, here’s a photo (courtesy of the Battle Creek Enquirer) of its demolition, along with neighboring Kellogg's buildings, in 2016.

Today, the Tony the Tiger and Tony Jr. statue are located near the new entrance to the factory. You can just barely see them near the base of the flagpole in these Google Maps drive-by photos.

Here’s a closer look.

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Kellogg’s sponsored The Huckleberry Hound Show, The Yogi Bear Show and Quick Draw McGraw. So it’s not surprising that the Hanna Barbara cartoon menagerie was featured on postcards along with the Kellogg’s advertising mascots.

A Corny Conundrum: Kellogg’s Corn Flakes or Post Toasties?

I have many antiques scattered around my place, including a vintage box of Post Toasties dating back to the early 1960s. That’s a photo of it above; it sits on top of my refrigerator. Hopefully there’s no 1960s vermin inside, waiting to get out.

Seeing the box, however, led me to pose this question to you, my readers: which corn flakes did your family prefer – Kellogg’s Corn Flakes or Post Toasties?

William K. Kellogg is credited with the idea of toasting flakes of corn for a breakfast cereal in 1894, while he was in the employ of his brother John Kellogg at the Battle Creek Sanitarium. The cereal became so popular there that William Kellogg launched the now famous company to sell Kellogg’s Corn Flakes to the general public.

Post Toasties, on the other hand, was a rival toasted corn flake cereal created by C. W. Post (who coincidentally had been a patient at the Battle Creek Sanitarium).

Courtesy Hakes.com

Through the decades, the two corn flakes battled it out in the cereal aisle.

Kellogg’s was unquestionably the leader in breakfast cereals. Over the years, the company marketed its hugely popular flagship product using a variety of tactics, including using an attractive “Sweetheart of the Corn” on the box and in ads, like the 1919 one below.

Even Hanna-Barbara cartoon stars like Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear were enlisted to promote the cereal in the late 50s and early 60s (when Kellogg’s was sponsoring their programs).

Meanwhile, Post was merely a division of General Foods. Consequently, its cereals did not have the advertising budget of Kellogg’s, and were not marketed as aggressively or successfully.

While Kellogg’s sponsored the Hanna-Barbara programs, Post threw its money behind The Bugs Bunny Show. (Within a few years, however, Post had its own cartoon menagerie, which I’ll discuss tomorrow.)

The Post Toasties cereal box seemed to be in a constant state of redesign. Post couldn’t decide whether the Toasties name was strong enough on its own, or if it was necessary to stress that they were corn flakes.

1950s design

1960s design

1970s design

But while very similar products, the two corn flake rivals were slightly different in taste, texture and shape, with the result that consumers might prefer one over the other.

Kellogg’s Corn Flakes are light, crispy and somewhat fragile. They seem to break apart more easily than Post Toasties, which were thicker and more rounded on the edges.

Note that I spoke of Post Toasties in the past tense. Yes, the second oldest original Post Cereal (only Grape Nuts are older) was discontinued back in 2016.

So which did my family eat? We were more of a Kellogg’s or General Mills family than Post, so Kellogg’s Corn Flakes was probably one of the cereals Mom kept on hand for her and Dad. It wasn’t until decades later – when Dad was retired – that Post Toasties were the preferred corn flake in the Brady household.

Anyway, be sure to leave a comment as to which corn flake your family preferred, so I can draw some corny conclusions.

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Cereal continues to be a favorite topic on this blog, with past posts devoted to Rice Krispies and Sugar Crisp.