Cartoon - a flat drawing of a brand character with stylised drawing, with often flat, bold colouring, and a highly flexible formal relationship with the world as we know it. This extends in particular, to the parts of the body and here the artist can take great liberties. The character can actually be a drawn version of the product. There is the graphic fun and ingenuity.

How do you make a paper towel a delight to be with ?

 
 TOP ROW


Double Diamond's boozy businessman seen issuing the phrase, "A Double Diamond Works Wonders". July 1956


Hastings Steel Vent Piston Rings' Hastings , February 1947. "Tough But oh So Gentle."


Planter's Mr.Peanut , May 1962
   
Brown's Mr Nibs , representing Nibroc Paper Towels, Sept.1952
 


BOTTOM ROW
 
Pete Penn representing Pennsylvania Motor Oil,
March 957 detail 10 x 16cms.
 
 One of the Classics of the Genre, Speedy of ALKA-SELZER with his lick of hair, flat pill hat and weird, weird feet. Produced in America by Miles Products, October 1959 16 x22cms. The character was overdubbed for the TV in England by an actress (Mrs.Nicholas Parsons if I remember rightly) who also had to impersonate the fizzing of the tablet.
 
 and now the daring Chiquita Banana, stereometric version of Carmen Miranda, January 1948, 9 x 24cms. Here the ultimate destiny of the Brand Character is to clear out of the copy and coupons to reign suprme in the cinema ads. (40, 60 and 80 second films). Advert for the Movie Advertising Bureau. United Fruit produced four out of every five bananas consumed in the States, starting with the first consignment in 1870. The creation of Chiquita was a case study of successful branding. In the words of Everybody's Business , my Bible in such matters (Harper & Row, edited Moscowitz Katz and Levering, NY 1980),"No one had thought of putting a brand name on each banana." using special pressure sensitive labels. "I'm Chiquita Banana and I'm here to reveal...." was her saucy little song. Madison Avenue as expected played up the phallic possibilities in the 1950's until they had their collars felt by LIFE magazine's readers who complained in their thousands of the smutty copy.