Remember my post about Kmart's raccoon mascot? Initially, Google AI Overview scoffed at my assertion that the nationwide retailer ever had a ring-tailed critter representing its stores' home improvement offerings. Eventually Google's AI technology saw the error of its ways.
Well, here's another look at raccoon mascot I've written about before: Rory Raccoon, who represented two Post Cereals over the years.
As noted back on this post, Rory Raccoon was one of the cartoon characters on the Linus the Lionhearted TV show (which my siblings and I watched). You might remember that each character on the show had his own segment and was a mascot for a Post cereal, such as Sugar Bear for Sugar Crisp, Linus for Crispy Critters, Lovable Truly the Postman for Alpha-Bits, etc.
Portion of a box back showing Rory and the rest of the Post characters
Rory Raccoon initially plugged Post Toasties, the Post equivalent of Kellogg's Corn Flakes. In the commercials, Rory matched wits with C. Claudius Crow, who was always trying to steal the cereal. This setup mirrored the Linus the Lionhearted segments, where the crow concocted various schemes to help himself to Rory's cornfield.
Here's one of the commercials. That's Jesse White (the Maytag Man) as C. Claudius Crow.
And here's a Rory Raccoon cartoon. This is one of the funnier ones, in which the conflict between Rory and the crow is escalated to actual warfare, with a retired U. S. Army general advising the raccoon in the use of military tactics.
Back when cereal boxes were fun, there was always something interesting on the back of the box. This vintage Post Toasties box had a neat little "How to Draw Rory Raccoon" lesson on the back.
Rory eventually was reassigned from Post Toasties to Sugar Sparkled Flakes, the equivalent of – what else? – Kellogg's Sugar Frosted Flakes.
Apparently the decision was made to get rid of Rory's odd (hunting?) hat. Several boxes featured Rory and his crow adversary in various colorful scenarios (as seem on this flattened box).
Eventually Linus the Lionhearted was pushed off the air by the FCC, who wasn't crazy about the idea of the cartoon characters on a TV show appearing in commercials during the program. With the cancellation of the program, many of the characters disappeared from the boxes of their respective cereals. There were a few survivors: Sugar Bear (on Sugar Crisp) and Lovable Truly (on Alpha Bits) and Rory Raccoon. As time went on, Rory stayed on the box, but without any headgear.
Years after the TV show ended, Rory was still on the box, but looking rather odd.
Anyway, today most of the Post Cereals that Baby Boomers grew up with are gone: Post Toasties, Alpha Bits, Rice Krinkles, Sparkled Flakes and Crispy Critters (which made a brief comeback in the 1990s sans Linus).
Only Sugar Bear (on Golden Crisp) survives to tell the tale of a time when the Post Cereals menagerie ruled the TV airwaves and the cereal aisle.
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Good news! The Linus the Lionhearted Show will be coming out this fall (supposedly) on a DVD set issued by MPI Home Video. You can read about its restoration here on the Cartoon Research website.
You can bet I'll be buying the DVD, and eating a bowl of Sugar Crisp Golden Crisp when I watch it!
Post Cereals has shown up as a topic on many of my blog, er, posts over the years.
Why? Mainly for sentimental reasons. My siblings and I used to watch the Linus the Lionhearted show, which featured the Post advertising cereal mascots in their own cartoon segments: Linus (for Crispy Critters); Sugar Bear (for Sugar Crisp); So-Hi (for Rice Krinkles); Lovable Truly (for Alpha Bits); and Rory Raccoon (for Post Toasties). Although we were mainly a Kellogg's family, Mom did buy a few Post cereals from time to time, mainly Crispy Critters and Alpha Bits.
Here's the introduction to the Linus show.
Need proof that I enjoyed the show? Here's a drawing I made of some of the characters back in 1965. (By George, my mother saved almost all my doodles from the time I picked up a crayon.)
Just like my drawing, Linus was overshadowed by his friends on his own TV show
But back in March 1964, the Linus show wasn't on the air yet. It wouldn't debut until September of that year. Perhaps in anticipation of the unveiling of the show, Post Cereals was aggressively marketing its cereals, doing battle with Kellogg's and General Mills.
And here's a good example of its marketing strategy: a coupon good for 12 cents off any two Post cereals. The almost 3/4 page ad ran in the Journal on March 4, 1964.
The ad is kind of neat as it is a roll call of all of the Post cereals at that time and how the packages looked.
Of particular interest is the Sugar Crisp box (below). It had a bear on it, but the beady-eyed bruin wasn't quite the well-known Sugar Bear that we all know.
The box would keep this look for a while even after Sugar Bear debuted on the Linus show. Eventually, the box was redesigned (below) to highlight the most popular character on the show.
Sugar Crisp (now called Golden Crisp, with Sugar Bear still on the box) is one of the few surviving Post cereals from the 1964 ad. Crispy Critters, Post Toasties, and Alpha Bits have all been discontinued.
Rice Krinkles is gone as well, but was reformulated into the Pebbles cereals – Fruity and Cocoa.
Even though these days I eat a lot of Post Shredded Wheat, as well as Cream of Wheat (since I got sick last month), I still keep a box of Golden Crisp on hand. I guess I'm just a kid at heart.
I buy a box of Post Grape Nuts about once a year. But just like Corn Nuts (which I love), Grape Nuts can be hazardous to your dental health.
Little did John Philip Sousa know that his iconic “The Stars and Stripes Forever” would be used to sell cereal
Over the recent July 4th holiday, a chance encounter with a John Philip Sousa march on TV reminded me just how deeply our memories are linked with television.
The tune was “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” and during one part of it, I found myself mouthing lyrics that included the words, “...and all sorts of craa-zy shaaaapes.”
“Where did that come from?” I wondered. I knew it was some old TV commercial that I had seen as a kid but I had no idea what product it was. But it showed how savvy the advertising agency was that produced the commercial, because it was still stuck in my subconscious a half-century later thanks to the iconic music.
I knew this was going to bug me until I figured it out.
I had a hunch that it might have been cereal. What other product came in a bunch of different shapes? And I was also guessing that there were other people out there who remembered the commercial as well.
It didn’t take too much Googling to find out what product it was.
The whole ‘crazy shapes’ thing was part of a temporary promotion in the mid-1960s during which pieces of cereal shaped like stars, planes, etc. were mixed in with the usual letter-shaped Alpha Bits pieces. It’s a strange idea that would seem to dilute the special quality of the brand – so maybe that’s why the gimmick didn’t last. (The cereal is still around, however.)
Courtesy TheImaginaryWorld.com
Anyway, there were a couple Alpha Bits commercials with the “Stars & Stripes Forever” music during the promotion, so it’s not surprising that it was imprinted on my brain. You can see them (and possibly get it stuck in YOUR head) in this YouTube collection of POST cereal commercials. There’s also one for the V-RROOM engine cartoon contest that I wrote about here.
I probably have dozens of other obscure cereal commercials rattling around in my brain (such as the one for the Quaker Puffed Cereals that used the 1812 Overture as background music). But it’s nice to know that I’m not ‘crazy’ when it comes to remembering this one.
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To hear “The Stars & Stripes Forever” in all its glory and learn the story behind it too, visit this link on the Marines website. Or, play it on YouTube below.
A few weeks ago (here), I mentioned that back in the 1960s I had entered a drawing contest sponsored by Post Cereals.
Well, of course I had to dig out my contest entry from storage, and do a little online research about the 1966 competition itself.
As it turns out, it was really more of a coloring contest. On the back of special Post Cereals boxes, a cartoon picture featuring one of the brand’s advertising mascots appeared, surrounded by copious amounts of white space. The idea was that kids would finish the drawing and color it all in.
Here’s the back of a Post Toasties box (courtesy of Ebay) with one of the pictures. This one features Billie Bird, one of the characters (voiced by Carl Reiner) on the Linus the Lionhearted TV show.
As you can see, a Mattel V-RROOM engine is one of the fourth prizes.
Anyway, my entry was from the back of a box of Alpha-Bits. Here’s what the front of a typical box (with Lovable Truly the Postman) looked like at that time.
I’m not sure why, but for some reason I redrew my entry instead of using the one on the box. Mom helped me with the words that I wanted to come out of Lovable Truly’s mouth: “I’m always in a hurry to get my Alpha Bits.”
Here’s my entry.
I have no idea why I made Lovable Truly’s hair blue, or gave him red shoes. I also strongly suspect that I was thinking of Lucky Charms when I drew the big bowl of cereal.
And here's the little note from Post telling me I was a Fourth Prize Winner.
As for my prize, I remember watching Dad fasten the V-RROOM engine to my bike. It was pretty noisy and I don’t think I used it very long.
On yesterday’s, er, post about Post Toasties, I featured a photo of an early 1960s box of the cereal. If you looked closely on the front of the box, there was a small photo with the caption “RORY RACCOON INFLATABLE TOY.”
Unless you’re a Baby Boomer, you might be wondering: who was Rory Raccoon?
He was one of the members of the cartoon cast of Linus the Lionhearted, a TV show with segments built around all of the main Post Cereals advertising mascots. Cast members and their cereals included Linus (Crispy Critters), Sugar Bear (Sugar Crisp), Rory Raccoon (Post Toasties), So-Hi (Rice Krinkles) and Lovable Truly the Postman (Alpha Bits).
Since we watched the show, we ate the cereals – mainly Crispy Critters and Alpha Bits. I even entered a Post-sponsored contest in which you had to draw Lovable Truly. I won one of the lesser prizes (a Mattel V-RROOM! engine for my bike).
Anyway, here’s a Post Toasties commercial featuring Rory Raccoon.
And here’s a full episode of the original show, with all of the commercials intact. You might want to pour yourself a Jethro-sized bowl of cereal to enjoy while watching it.
Linus the Lionhearted was pretty good show, which my siblings and I watched religiously (which was appropriate since it was on Sunday during part of its run). Unfortunately, it was eventually pushed off the air by the FCC, because the show’s characters appeared in commercials plugging their own cereals – a big no-no.
Anyway, Rory was voiced by Bob McFadden (mentioned here on the blog when he appeared at the Mary Lee Tucker benefit show in 1955). Rory's cartoons featured him protecting his corn field from a wiseguy crow voiced by Jesse White (the original Maytag man in commercials).
Post later moved Rory over to Sugar Sparkled Flakes, the sweetened version of Post Toasties.
Sadly, almost all of the cereals plugged on Linus the Lionhearted are no longer in production, except for Alpha-Bits (which is hard to find) and Golden Crisp (which still has cool Sugar Bear as a mascot).
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.
Sorry, but I think I’ll spend one last day in Hockeytown here on the blog.
On Friday I mentioned that I was a big fan of the Toronto Maple Leafs – so I just had to post this. It’s the October/November 1967 issue of Maple Leaf Gardens Hockey Magazine. This issue includes the program for the Saturday, October 21, 1967 game between the Leafs and the New York Rangers.
The magazine is a lot of fun to look at. It’s from a historic time period too, since the Leafs had just won the Stanley Cup in 1967.
To make it even more interesting, the 1967-68 season was the one in which the National Hockey League had just expanded from the “Original Six” (Toronto Maple Leafs, New York Rangers, Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings, Boston Bruins and Montreal Canadiens) to include the six new expansion teams: Minnesota North Stars, Pittsburgh Penguins, Philadelphia Flyers, St. Louis Blues, Los Angeles Kings and Oakland Seals.
Anyway, here’s the cover and Table of Contents. The cover features Ron Ellis, one of the Leafs from that era who, happily, is still with us.
I mentioned that the Leafs had just won the Stanley Cup the previous season (unfortunately it’s the last time they won it.) Well, here’s a spread celebrating that victory, with a great illustration of some of the team members holding the Cup. That’s the “Chief,” team captain George Armstrong, second from left holding the trophy; donut king and Hockey Hall of Famer Tim Horton is at far right.
There are plenty of ads featuring Leafs as shills for various companies. Here’s an ad with Hockey Hall of Fame goaltender (and former Cleveland Baron) Johnny Bower.
And here are the team lineups for the game that night.
Other ads in the program feature well-known Toronto and Canadian institutions, like radio station 1050 CHUM (and well-remembered DJ Jay Nelson), Mac’s Milkconvenience stores, and Le Coq d’Or Tavern.
I love this full-page ad for Shopsy hot dogs, with its great caricature of Sam Shopsowitz. Today, in addition to Shopsy hot dogs distributed through grocery stores, there's still a small chain of Shopsy deli restaurants in the Toronto area.
My favorite ad in the whole program is for the Canadian division of Post Cereals, featuring Sugar Bear and other mascots all suited up as Maple Leafs. Hey, that’s Linus the Lionhearted right next to the Honeycomb Kid.
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Although I began making regular trips to Canada back in the late 1980s, I didn’t make it to a Maple Leaf game there until October 1998. Unfortunately, that was the season that the Leafs moved to the Air Canada Centre from Maple Leaf Gardens, their longtime home of 50 years. I still took a photo of the Gardens anyway.
Today, the lower levels of Maple Leaf Gardens are home to a shopping center and a Loblaws grocery store. However, there is still an ice rink on the third level, which is used by Ryerson University.
On that same 1998 trip, I took a photo of the CHUM radio station sign at the station’s home at 1331 Yonge Street. Since then, the station moved to a new location and is now known as sports radio station TSN Radio 1050. The old building has been demolished and replaced by condos.
So naturally, when I saw the ad above for Post Sugar Crisp – which ran in the Lorain Journal on January 19, 1950, 66 years ago today – I knew I had to feature it on the blog. (Another introductory ad that was in the Journal on Feb 9, 1950 is at right.)
Post Sugar Crisp was brand new back then, having been launched in 1949, and featured three bears on the package instead of the beloved Sugar Bear still seen on the Post Golden Crisp box today.
You didn’t know that there were originally three bears? Then read my article all about the history of Sugar Bear, which appears here courtesy of the HKM Grapevine.
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The Bear Facts About Sugar Bear
After more than 50 years, this bear still can’t get enough
of that Sugar Crisp!
By Dan Brady
Some advertising mascots spring from the imagination fully
formed and go on to promote a product for decades. Other mascots, like Post Cereals’
Sugar Bear, take a little longer to evolve. The story of Sugar Bear’s creation
is an interesting one that bears repeating.
In 1949, Post launched one of the cereal industry’s very
first pre-sweetened cereals, a sugarcoated wheat puff called Sugar Crisp. It
was a spectacular success. Three identical cartoon bears named Dandy, Handy and
Candy appeared on the first cereal packages. The bears were featured in
magazine and newspaper ads in which the copy used their names to reinforce the
cereal’s attributes: “As a cereal it’s dandy! For snacks it’s so handy. Or eat
it like candy!”
The three bears created a sensation when they appeared as
puppets in some stop action animated TV commercials for Sugar Crisp, convincing
some of the rival cereal companies (like Kellogg’s) that they needed some
animal pitchmen as well.
As you can see, the original cellophane bag in which Sugar Crisp was sold eventually gave way to a foil-lined box (below) that helped prevent the cereal from solidifying into a sugary brick.
A 1954 box
During the 1950s, the in-house Post creative team tinkered
with the design of the bears on the cereal box. There were the original Betty
Boop-like bears with large wide heads, as well as another version in which the bears
were rounder and hairier. The bears on the cereal boxes seemed to alternate randomly
between the two versions throughout the decade.
Eventually Bob Traverse, the commercial artist who worked on
all of the Sugar Crisp boxes, got tired of creating layouts with three bears,
and conspired to send two of them into permanent hibernation. He gradually
reduced two of the bears to a secondary position on the box before eliminating
them entirely.
For the next several years, he explored different layouts with the single “Betty Boop” style bear.
A 1963 box
Finally, Traverse and his art director decided to redesign the single bear to look less wimpy.
The box in 1964
But this new, beady-eyed bear wasn’t quite Sugar
Bear yet, even though he appeared in some TV commercials.
It wasn’t until this “new bear” was planned to part of the Linus the Lionhearted TV show that he received a makeover by the advertising agency and became Sugar Bear.
Linus the
Lionhearted was a half-hour weekly cartoon that hit the airwaves in September 1964. It featured all of the Post Cereals ad mascots in their own animated adventures, including Linus, who was on
Crispy Critters, an animal-shaped cereal; Lovable Truly the postman (from Alpha-Bits); So-Hi (from Rice Krinkles); Rory Raccoon (from Post Toasties); and Sugar Bear.
Sugar Bear was given the personality of a jive-talking disk
jockey, as well as a Bing Crosby voice that was provided by nightclub comic
Gerry Matthews. The unflappable bear became an immediate hit on the Linus the
Lionhearted show, becoming more popular than Linus.
A 1965 box
Unfortunately, while the
show was a ratings success, the lagging sales of the Post cereals did not
justify the show’s expense. It continued in syndicated reruns until 1969, when
the Federal Communications Commission ruled that children’s programs could not
feature characters based on products. This meant the end of the line for Linus
the Lionhearted. A few years later, Linus and Crispy Critters were both
extinct, but Sugar Crisp continued to be popular.
A box from 1969 (From the Dan Brady collection)
Sugar Bear continued his cereal commercials for decades as
the last of the original Post cereal mascots. In the long-running spots, he
outwitted characters including Granny Goodwitch, a kindly witch (voiced by Ruth
Buzzi of Laugh-In fame), the Blob, a loose-limbed gangster, and a menagerie of
bullying foxes, tigers and other animals. Sugar Bear enjoyed a brief recording career with the Sugar Bears.
Sugar Bear’s signature tune – “Can’t get enough of that Sugar
Crisp” – had to be adjusted a few times: when the addition of extra vitamins changed
the name of the cereal to Super Sugar Crisp, and when the name of the cereal
was changed to the more nutritionally friendly Super Golden Crisp (strangely,
the cereal is still known as Sugar Crisp in Canada).
More than 50 years after his introduction, Sugar Bear is
still around. In one of his last TV commercials, he was seen
hanging out at a breakfast table with live action husband-and-wife Baby
Boomers, nostalgically cajoling them to try Golden Crisp again. He also received a makeover on the box when Post Cereals was spun off on its own.
The current box
Today, Golden Crisp is somewhat of a cereal anachronism, a
leftover from a time when Post seriously challenged Kellogg’s and its other
rivals. But although his beloved cereal is known now as Golden Crisp, Sugar Bear
retains his own sweet moniker.
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Can’t get enough of that Sugar Crisp history? Check out this massive collection of vintage Sugar Crisp commercials featuring our old pal Sugar Bear! There’s one with the three original bears as well.
