Kool-Aid Man
Encyclopedia
Mascot
The term mascot – defined as a term for any person, animal, or object thought to bring luck – colloquially includes anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name...
for Kool-Aid
Kool-Aid
Kool-Aid is a brand of flavored drink mix owned by the Kraft Foods Company.-History:Kool-Aid was invented by Edwin Perkins in Hastings, Nebraska, United States. All of his experiments took place in his mother's kitchen. Its predecessor was a liquid concentrate called Fruit Smack...
, a popular drink mix. The character has appeared on television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
and print advertising
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
as a fun-loving gigantic pitcher, filled with red Kool-Aid and marked with a fingerpainted smiley face
Smiley
A smiley, smiley face, or happy face, is a stylized representation of a smiling human face, commonly occurring in popular culture. It is commonly represented as a yellow circle with two black dots representing eyes and a black arc representing the mouth...
. He is typically featured interrupting children mid-conversation by smashing through walls and furnishings, brandishing a filled pitcher.
History
Before he was officially the Kool-Aid Man in 1975, he was the “Pitcher Man.” The Pitcher Man was created in 1954 by Marvin Plotts, an art directorArt director
The art director is a person who supervise the creative process of a design.The term 'art director' is a blanket title for a variety of similar job functions in advertising, publishing, film and television, the Internet, and video games....
for a New York-based advertising agency. General Foods
General Foods
General Foods Corporation was a company whose direct predecessor was established in the USA by Charles William Post as the Postum Cereal Company in 1895. The name General Foods was adopted in 1929, after several corporate acquisitions...
had just purchased Kool-Aid from the drink’s creator Edwin Perkins the year before, and Plotts was charged with drafting a concept to illustrate the copy message: “A 5-cent package makes two quarts. " Working from his Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
home on a cold day, Plotts watched as his young son traced smiley face patterns on a frosty windowpane," recounts Sue Uerling, marketing and communications director for Hastings Museum of Natural and Cultural History. This inspired Marvin Plotts to create a beaming glass pitcher filled with flavorful drink: the Pitcher Man. From there on the joyful pitcher was on all the Kool-Aid’s advertisements.
In 1975 Kraft Foods created the character’s first costume with arms and legs. He also became more of an action figure in commercials — performing extreme sports and busting through brick walls. Kool-Aid Man is famously known for shouting, “Oh, Yeah!” as he is summoned by thirsty children with the phrase, "Hey, Kool-Aid!". Commercials of the era also featured a catchy jingle, always ending with the Kool-Aid Man's phrase.
By the early 1980s, the Kool-Aid Man had gained substantial popularity. He was the subject of two Kool-Aid man video games
Kool-Aid Man (video game)
Kool-Aid Man is an Atari 2600 and Intellivision video game based upon the television commercial character Kool-Aid Man. A second, unique video game cartridge was also made for the Intellivision.-Overview:...
for the Atari 2600
Atari 2600
The Atari 2600 is a video game console released in October 1977 by Atari, Inc. It is credited with popularizing the use of microprocessor-based hardware and cartridges containing game code, instead of having non-microprocessor dedicated hardware with all games built in...
(1983) and the Intellivision
Intellivision
The Intellivision is a video game console released by Mattel in 1979. Development of the console began in 1978, less than a year after the introduction of its main competitor, the Atari 2600. The word intellivision is a portmanteau of "intelligent television"...
systems (1993). He was also given his own short-lived comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
series, The Adventures of Kool-Aid Man. This ran for three issues under Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
from 1984-'85 and continued with issues #4-7 under Archie Comics
Archie Comics
Archie Comics is an American comic book publisher headquartered in the Village of Mamaroneck, Town of Mamaroneck, New York, known for its many series featuring the fictional teenagers Archie Andrews, Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge, Reggie Mantle and Jughead Jones. The characters were created by...
, with art by Dan DeCarlo
Dan DeCarlo
Daniel S. DeCarlo was an American cartoonist best known as the artist who developed the look of Archie Comics in the late 1950s and early 1960s, modernizing the characters to their contemporary appearance and establishing the publisher's house style...
, from 1988-'89.
Starting in the late 1980s, the character was given dialogue, and his mouth would be digitally manipulated to "move" while the voice actor spoke. Sometime in the 1990s, the live-action character was retired. From that point until 2008, the character became entirely computer-generated; other characters such as the children remained live-action. In 2000, a new series of commercials were created for Kool-Aid Fierce and Jon Carr was chosen to play Kool-Aid Man. A more recent Kool-Aid commercials featured a new and different live-action Kool-Aid Man playing street basketball and battling "Cola" to stay balanced on a log.
Hastings Museum in Hastings, Nebraska
Hastings, Nebraska
Hastings is a city in and the county seat of Adams County, Nebraska, United States. It is the principal city of the Hastings, Nebraska Micropolitan Statistical Area, which consists of Adams and Clay counties. The population was 24,907 at the 2010 census...
, which opened the first permanent Kool-Aid exhibit in 2002, has Kool-Aid Man’s original costume on display. Made of fiberglass
Fiberglass
Glass fiber is a material consisting of numerous extremely fine fibers of glass.Glassmakers throughout history have experimented with glass fibers, but mass manufacture of glass fiber was only made possible with the invention of finer machine tooling...
, the costume featured a more prominent face, skinnier body and no clothing. Now, he is made of inflatable nylon and is dressed in a shirt, jeans and shoes.
Cultural appearances and parody
The Kool-Aid Man had made several appearances in the TV series Family GuyFamily Guy
Family Guy is an American animated television series created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series centers on the Griffins, a dysfunctional family consisting of parents Peter and Lois; their children Meg, Chris, and Stewie; and their anthropomorphic pet dog Brian...
.
- In the episode "Death Has a ShadowDeath Has a Shadow"Death Has a Shadow" is the first episode of the animated series Family Guy. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States after Super Bowl XXXIII on January 31, 1999. The episode is based on series creator Seth MacFarlane's original pitch to Fox, The Life of Larry, and is a remake of...
." In it, he bursts through a wall in a courtroom and shouts, "Oh yeah!". Where upon seeing he created a scene and no one in the room spoke, he slowly backs out of the large hole he had made in the wall.
- In the episode "PeteroticaPeterotica"Peterotica" is the twenty-fourth episode from season four of Family Guy. The episode originally broadcast on April 23, 2006, and was written by Patrick Meighan and directed by Kurt Dumas. The title of the episode is a portmanteau between "Peter" and "Erotica". The plot follows Peter's brief career...
", he is shown sitting in his living room when a man crashes through his wall, causing him to realize how it felt to be the target. Later in the episode, after Peter fell off a train and rolled into the same wall again, the Kool-Aid Man moans in disbelief.
- In "Prick Up Your EarsPrick Up Your EarsPrick Up Your Ears is a 1987 film, directed by Stephen Frears, about the playwright Joe Orton and his lover Kenneth Halliwell. The screenplay was written by Alan Bennett, based on the book by John Lahr...
", after Stewie Griffin panics about the existence of the Tooth Fairy, Brian Griffin and then Chris Griffin fail to calm Stewie down and then Glenn Quagmire makes an attempt. Then the Kool-Aid Man is seen in a pair of boxing gloves at the back of the line behind Cleveland Brown, Mayor Adam West, Herbert, The Evil Monkey, Kilobot and Dr. Elmer Hartman, all of whom are armed with weapons ready to "console" Stewie one-by-one.
- In "Stewie Kills Lois", once Peter is found guilty for murder in the first degree, some people shout "Oh no!" and Kool-Aid Man once again bursts through the wall screaming "OH YEAH!". The judge then complains, considering it has happened twice prior.
- In "The Hand That Rocks the WheelchairThe Hand That Rocks the Wheelchair"The Hand That Rocks the Wheelchair" is the twelfth episode of the ninth season of the animated comedy series Family Guy. It originally aired on Fox in the United States on March 6, 2011. The episode follows high school student Meg as she attempts to look after her handicapped neighbor, Joe, after...
", Evil Stewie lures him out by pretending to impersonate other people going "Oh No!". When he bursts through the wall, Evil Stewie shatters him. He then drinks the Kool-Aid that spilled all over the floor.
- In "Back to the PilotBack to the Pilot"Back to the Pilot" is the fifth episode of the tenth season of the animated comedy series Family Guy. The episode originally aired on Fox in the United States on November 13, 2011...
" we see the kool-aid man waiting to break through the courthouse like in the very first episode of Family Guy.
External links
- http://www.kool-aiddays.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=26&Itemid=41/
- http://www.x-entertainment.com/articles/0861/
- Jamie Knobler, "Kool-Aid: 75 years of smiles", The Loquitur, September 9, 2002
- Nancy Foster, "Pitcher this! – The Life and Times of an American Icon", Hastings Tribune, August 11, 2005