Poppin' Fresh, more widely known as the Pillsbury Doughboy, is an advertising
mascot
A mascot is any human, animal, or object thought to bring luck, or anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name. Mascots are also used as fi ...
for the
Pillsbury Company
The Pillsbury Company is a Minneapolis, Minnesota-based company that was one of the world's largest producers of cereal, grain and other foodstuffs until it was bought by General Mills in 2001. General Mills brands consist of Annie's, Betty Croc ...
, appearing in many of their commercials. Many commercials from 1965 until 2005 (together with some for
GEICO
The Government Employees Insurance Company (GEICO ) is a private American auto insurance company with headquarters in Chevy Chase, Maryland. It is the second largest auto insurer in the United States, after State Farm. GEICO is a wholly owne ...
between 2009 and 2017) ended with a human finger poking the Doughboy's belly. The Doughboy responds by giggling when his belly is poked. (''Hoo-Hoo''!, or earlier on, a slight giggle "tee hee").
History
The Pillsbury Doughboy was created by Rudolph 'Rudy' Perz, a copywriter for Pillsbury's longtime advertising agency
Leo Burnett
Leo Burnett (October 21, 1891 – June 7, 1971) was an American advertising executive and the founder of Leo Burnett Company, Inc. He was responsible for creating some of advertising's most well-known characters and campaigns of the 20th cent ...
. Perz was sitting in his kitchen in the spring of 1965, under pressure to create an advertising campaign for the Pillsbury's refrigerated dough product line (biscuits, dinner rolls, sweet rolls, and cookies). His copywriter,
Carol H. Williams, imagined a living doughboy popping out of a Pillsbury refrigerated dough can and wrote the campaign, "Say Hello to Poppin' Fresh Dough". Williams was inducted into the
American Advertising Federation Hall of Fame The Advertising Hall of Fame, operated by the American Advertising Federation (AAF), began in 1948 as a result of a proposal by the New York Ad Club and its president, Andrew Haire, to the Advertising Federation of America, the predecessor organiza ...
in 2017.
Character
Originally named "Jonathan Pillsbury", the dough boy was given a scarf, a chef's hat, and two big blue eyes to distinguish him from the rolls, as well as a blush and a soft, warm chuckle when poked on the belly. The Doughboy was originally designed by Milt Schaffer and brought to life using
stop motion
Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames i ...
clay animation
Clay animation or claymation, sometimes plasticine animation, is one of many forms of stop-motion animation. Each animated piece, either character or background, is "deformable"—made of a malleable substance, usually plasticine clay.
Tra ...
. Today,
CGI is used. The first
CGI commercial was broadcast in 1992 and was directed by
Tim Johnson who at that time was working for
PDI, which would be later owned by
DreamWorks Animation
DreamWorks Animation LLC (DWA, also known as DreamWorks Animation Studios and simply known as DreamWorks) is an American animation studio that produces animated films and television programs and is a subsidiary of Universal Pictures, a division ...
in 1995.
Animation
Perz originally conceived the Doughboy as an animated figure but changed his mind after seeing a stop motion titling technique used in the opening credits for ''The
Dinah Shore
Dinah Shore (born Frances Rose Shore; February 29, 1916 – February 24, 1994) was an American singer, actress, and television personality, and the top-charting female vocalist of the 1940s. She rose to prominence as a recording artist during ...
Show''. A three-dimensional Doughboy puppet was then created at a cost of $16,000. Voice actor
Paul Frees
Solomon Hersh "Paul" Frees (June 22, 1920November 2, 1986) was an American actor, comedian, impressionist, and vaudevillian. He is known for his work on Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Walter Lantz, Rankin/Bass, and Walt Disney theatrical cartoons during ...
was chosen to be Fresh's voice. Stop-motion animator
George Pal
George Pal (born György Pál Marczincsak; ; February 1, 1908 – May 2, 1980) was a Hungarian-American animator, film director and producer, principally associated with the fantasy and science-fiction genres. He became an American citizen after ...
was hired to animate him. The first Poppin' Fresh commercials aired in November 1965. Since then,
Pillsbury has used Poppin' Fresh in more than 600 commercials for more than fifty of its products. He also appeared in a Mastercard commercial, with the
Jolly Green Giant
Green Giant and Le Sueur (spelled Le Sieur in Canada) are brands of frozen and canned vegetables owned by B&G Foods. The company's mascot is the Jolly Green Giant.
Company and brand history
The Minnesota Valley Canning Company was founded in ...
, the
Morton Salt
Morton Salt is an American food company producing salt for food, water conditioning, industrial, agricultural, and road/highway use. Based in Chicago, the business is North America's leading producer and marketer of salt. It is a subsidiary of h ...
Girl, the
Vlasic stork,
Charlie the Tuna
Charlie the Tuna is the cartoon mascot and spokes-tuna for the StarKist brand. He was created in 1961 by Tom Rogers of the Leo Burnett Agency. StarKist Tuna is owned by Dongwon Industries, a South Korea-based conglomerate. Charlie is one of th ...
,
Mr. Peanut
Mr. Peanut is the advertising logo and mascot of Planters, an American snack-food company owned by Hormel. He is depicted as an anthropomorphic peanut in its shell, wearing the formal clothing of an old-fashioned gentleman, with a top hat, mono ...
, and
Count Chocula, as some of the ten merchandising icons, depicted as having dinner together. He even appears in ads for the
Got Milk?
Got Milk? (stylized as got milk?) is an American advertising campaign encouraging the consumption of milk and dairy products. Created by the advertising agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners for the California Milk Processor Board in 1993, it w ...
company and the
Sprint Phone Company, and the
GEICO
The Government Employees Insurance Company (GEICO ) is a private American auto insurance company with headquarters in Chevy Chase, Maryland. It is the second largest auto insurer in the United States, after State Farm. GEICO is a wholly owne ...
insurance company. He also made a cameo appearance in the 1987 claymation film ''
The Puppetoon Movie
''The Puppetoon Movie'' is a 1987 animated film written, produced, and directed by Arnold Leibovit. It is based on the Puppetoons characters created by George Pal in the 1930s and 1940s which feature the eponymous Puppetoon animation, and features ...
''.
After Frees' death in 1986,
Jeff Bergman
Jeffrey Bergman (born July 10, 1960) is an American voice actor and impressionist who has provided the modern-day voices of various classic cartoon characters, most notably with ''Looney Tunes'' and Hanna-Barbera.
Bergman was the first to repla ...
took over the role, until 2013.
Today, the high-pitched giggles are done by
JoBe Cerny
JoBe Cerny (born December 5, 1947), sometimes credited as Jo Be Cerny, is an American actor. He is best known as the current voice of the Pillsbury Doughboy, succeeding Paul Frees and Jeff Bergman, and as Procter & Gamble's silent spokesman, The C ...
.
Pillsbury family
In the 1970s, a Pillsbury Doughboy family was created and sold as dolls individually and in the form of various playsets.
Included in the family are:
*Poppin' Fresh
*Poppie Fresh (a.k.a. Mrs. Poppin' Fresh, Pillsbury Doughgirl). It is debated among collectors as to whether Poppie is Poppin's wife, girlfriend, or sister.
*Granpopper and Granmommer (grandparents)
*Popper (boy) and Bun-Bun (baby, girl)
*Flapjack (dog) and Biscuit (cat)
*Uncle Rollie
Trademark conflict
In May 2010, Pillsbury's lawyers served a cease and desist notice to My Dough Girl, LLC., a Salt Lake City, Utah cookie retailer. Some reported that an attorney for
General Mills
General Mills, Inc., is an American multinational manufacturer and marketer of branded processed consumer foods sold through retail stores. Founded on the banks of the Mississippi River at Saint Anthony Falls in Minneapolis, the company orig ...
instructed her not to talk to the press.
In popular culture
References
External links
Audio file(
MP3
MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...
format) of the Doughboy giggling
Character's official siteOfficial history of Poppin' Fresh from General Mills website
{{General Mills
Corporate mascots
Fictional characters from Minnesota
Fictional chefs
Fictional food characters
Fictional humanoids
Male characters in advertising
Food advertising characters
Mascots introduced in 1965