Here’s a nice one, too, starring Snagglepuss, who was the spokes-puss for Cocoa Krispies for a time. The writer at Leo Burnett, Kellogg’s agency, came up with a clever premise, where Snagglepuss explains how he got the job on the cereal package balancing a bowl on his finger.
His act started in the circus. He dropped the bowl, then himself.
Then he tried films, kind of a combination of the MGM lion in the Warners shield with the 20th Century Fox fanfare. Did Ed Benedict lay out this commercial? The security guard reminds me of a Benedict drawing.
Finally, Kelloggs hires him and powder-puffs him for his commercial. He keeps dropping the bowl. Not very, cocoa-lossal, Snagglepuss.
You’ll notice the voice credit to Daws Butler. This apparently was the result of Bert Lahr’s prickliness (need I explain that Snagglepuss’ voice is a take-off on Lahr’s?). Lahr got upset that commercials for Lestoil, a cleaning product, starred a cartoon duck that sounded like him. He sued Adell Chemical, the makers of the cleaner, and Robert Lawrence Associates, the New York company that made the commercials. The New York Times of May 29, 1962, tagged its story on the lawsuit with “Mr. Lahr...may also sue the Kellogg Company, manufacturer of cereals. The company is the sponsor of the ‘Yogi Bear’ program, a children’s entertainment. Mr. Lahr contends that a character in the cartoon program, Snagglepuss, also is using an impersonation of his voice without permission.”
Whether Lahr went ahead with a suit against Kellogg and/or Hanna-Barbera is unknown but, as you can see above, he did threaten one. If the credit to Daws was, in fact, because of Lahr’s threat in 1962, then this commercial wouldn’t have been seen on the Yogi show when it debuted the previous year.
Like the new entry..I wonder who did the voice of the Bert Lahr like cleaners's duck..I'm VERY familiar with the Snagglepuss ad and Daws Butler's credit on the ads..SC
ReplyDeleteI believe I've read that Sid Raymond did the duck's voice in the commercial that prompted Lahr to file suit.
DeleteOne of the Lestoil commercials is on YouTube. It's definitely Sid Raymond. Apparently, Lahr didn't object to his voice being imitated so much as he objected to people believing he was endorsing Lestoil.
Deletehttps://youtu.be/mezMXElut9g
I'm guessing this ad would have been from 1962-63, since I think Kellogg's was still using the elephant box for Cocoa Krispies when the Yogi show debuted, and only went to Snaglepuss after he became a break-out character with his own series of cartoons (I'm sure Bill and Joe were also hoping Kellogg's would find a cereal for Yakky Doodle to grace the box cover of after Yogi's show debuted, but the cereal maker was more sensible than that).
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting, but Bert Lahr's cowardly lion 'voice' in The Wizard of Oz presumably wasn't the way he spoke in 'real life', but an 'affected' manner of speech. If so, he wouldn't really be able to copyright it - or would he? Unless his 'real' voice was being impersonated to give the impression that Bert Lahr himself was endorsing something, then would he really have had a case? Or are things different in America?
ReplyDeleteI'm not in the U.S. so I can't tell you about their legal system but if you listen to Lahr on the Fred Allen radio show, it wasn't far off from how he sounded on The Wizard of Oz. That was his schtick.
DeleteAh, I see. I don't think I've ever heard him outside of the Oz movie. Though I would've thought that, unless it was for the purpose of fraud or deception (making it seem like Bert Lahr was personally endorsing something), then someone (or some company) doing a similar type voice for a cartoon animal wouldn't be subject to legal action. They could simply claim it was a parody or 'homage', with no intent to deceive. Of course, that might only apply to a one-time character, not a recurring one. Then again, I'm no lawyer.
DeleteTo completely digress from Snagglepuss, the commercial where Jinksie and the meeces do a Beatles spoof song for Raisin Bran can be found as a DVD extra on (of all things) MY FAVORITE MARTIAN Season Two!
ReplyDeleteDaws Butler and Don Messick are there, as they should be, with Messick also serving as his “narrator” character.
Kellogg’s was a sponsor of MY FAVORITE MARTIAN in its original primetime network run and, apparently by its inclusion here, the H-B commercials would run on that show as well.
If this was post-1962, as MY FAVORITE MARTIAN was, perhaps this was the last use of the characters in what we define as the “classic period”, before any original SatAM production by H-B!
That's a feather duster dude, not a powder puff. Just to get some of the dust off from being plopped so unceremoniously.
ReplyDeleteYeah, JC, you're right. It makes more sense to me for Kellogg's to get him made up for a Kellogg's commercial but powder puffs don't come with handles.
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