As any collector knows, half the fun of collecting is sharing your collection. So you can imagine my delight when earlier this week I was contacted by a representative of WomansDay.com, the online version of that classic magazine, and asked if they could use a a picture from my Mr. Peanut presidents coloring book in a story about food mascot transformations! Of course, I immediately agreed and was excited to see the article debut online here.
I'm sure readers of this blog will be interested in the article, although there was a dearth of mascots of the food with eyes variety. In fact, only Mr. Peanut and Miss Chiquita (Banana) made the grade. Although Mr. Peanut has changed over the years, his transformation was not as radical as that of Miss Chiquita. In a metamorphosis worthy of Ovid, she went from a banana-shaped beauty to a rather bland "woman with eyes." Where's the fun in that?
If you have missed out on Mr. Peanut's transformation, then check out these two new commercials from Planters featuring the new, Robert Downey Jr.-voiced Mr. Peanut:
Both videos courtesy of Planter's YouTube channel
I'm still not sure how I feel about this. I like the animation a lot, but I just never imagined that he would sound like Robert Downey Jr. I guess I would have thought he would sound more sophisticated, which for me means a British accent. I think Cary Grant would have been a perfect Mr. Peanut. Or possibly James Mason.
Still, I'm happy to see Mr. Peanut gaining renewed popularity. In fact, over 226,000 people, myself included, "like" him on Facebook!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Congratulations on being included in the article! I have to say, I'm pretty impressed with the new animation. It's just nice that they chose to use him again, and that they didn't try to 'modernize' him too much. He's still very much a gentleman. I wouldn't have picked Robert Downey Jr. as the voice, either, but, I don't think I would have recognized the voice if it hadn't been mentioned in all the articles about Mr. Peanut.
I wouldn't have recognized his voice, either. I think a better choice would have been Kelsey Grammer.
Post a Comment