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 ...

for the

Pillsbury Company The Pillsbury Company is a Minneapolis, Minnesota-based company that was one of the world's largest producers of grain and other foodstuffs until it was bought by General Mills in 2001. General Mills brands consist of Annie's, Betty Crocker, Nat ...

, 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 Poppin' Fresh, more widely known as the Pillsbury Doughboy, is an advertising mascot for the Pillsbury Company, appearing in many of their commercials. Many commercials from 1965 until 2005 (together with some for GEICO between 2009 and 2017) ...

, 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 divisio ...

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, 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 ...

company and the Sprint Phone Company, and the

insurance company. He also made a cameo appearance in the 1987 claymation film '' The Puppetoon Movie''. 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 rep ...

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 or ...

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 site

Official 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