Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Kooky Konfederos

So browsing around for Toucan Sam pictures the other day, I noticed that cereal cartoon characters used to be a lot cooler. You be the judge:

Tony the Tiger
Then
Now


Toucan Sam

Then

Now

They went from charming and lovable to looking like they're hepped up on steroids. Maybe that's what you get from all that vitamin enrichment. But one thing you have to say about cereal over the years is that it's become considerably less racist:

Fascinate yourself this gloomy morning looking through some amazing vintage pop icons from food, which pretty much all goes back to graphic designer Dan Goodsell, the creator of The Imaginary World and the co-author of the book, Krazy Kid's Food.

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is just part of a broader trend in changing cartoon characters from the 1970's to the present. Take a look at how the suspects in Clue have changed over time: The 1960's versions look a bit more in the style of 1970's cereal box characters, and the modern ones resemble each other in style and coloring.

www.theartofmurder.com Click on "Links and Information" at the top, then the "Through the years... Suspect Images" on the left.

12:41 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The irony of that Cheerios prize is that today, the copy of the Confederate money is worth about as much as real Confederate money was during Reconstruction.

12:51 PM  
Blogger The Goo said...

Clue is the greatest game in the history of creation.

It's interesting how Miss Scarlett became decidedly Asian in so many of the versions, but no other characters really changed race/ethnicity- but the later versions definitely seem to be moving toward that faux-anime trend that has infiltrated so many saturday morning cartoon designs.

And it's also really weird that there is no version with the characters from the movie... what's the about?

1:18 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You want to see the worst "updating" of cartoon characters ever? Check out the butchering of the Warner Bros. characters in the show Loonatics Unleashed. I've never seen it, and from these pictures, I hope to continue my good fortune.

http://www.starpulse.com/Television/Loonatics_Unleashed/Pictures/

I don't know why they never did a version of Clue with the actors from the movie. That would have been a good tie-in.

6:05 PM  
Blogger The Goo said...

WHOA. And I thought Babs Bunny was hyper sexualized.

7:32 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home