Channel Frederator Blog

via Tall Grass Radio

This was a 1962 Cheerios spot originally seen on “THE BULLWINKLE SHOW” by Jay Ward Productions. For all of the animated commercials made, there were perhaps none more popular, more influential or more memorable than the creations of Jay Ward Productions.

Known mainly for Rocky and Bullwinkle, Jay Ward spent nearly twenty-two years creating a number of animated campaigns for the Quaker Oats Company. His studio put together spots for Scooter Pies, Aunt Jemima, Mr. Chips Cookies and the popular Quisp and Quake cereals.

The characters of Quisp and Quake were created by Bill Scott who also created and was the voice of Bullwinkle. Jay Ward’s longest running series was the promotion of Captain Crunch. In 1962, Ward brought Captain Crunch, actually Cap’n Crunch thanks to an early voice over ‘flub’, to the television sets of America, a place where he remains today even though Ward’s association with the brand stopped in 1984. Through the years, The Captain fought the pirate Jean LaFoote in his efforts to steal the cereal cargo of the Captain’s ship, the S. S. Guppy. These commercials were amazingly popular, shooting Quaker from the back to the front in the breakfast cereal market. In fact, Quaker even had to build a separate production plant to concentrate solely on Captain Crunch and its eventual spin-offs.

Over time many advertisers preferred to go the live action route, relying more and more on special effects which often do utilize some form of animation and outrageous humor. Today CGI characters like the Geico Gecko and the AFLAC Duck are very visible icons for their respective brands.

With the emerging Internet and the continuation of the logical convergence of all media there are great opportunities for animated cartoon commercials. They still are one of the best ways to attract attention and gain mind share, and smaller studios can utilize this as a great creative and economical opportunity.

-Floyd Bishop