Food Mascots - Yesterday and Today

It's tea season in our house and I noticed something missing from Celestial Seasons' Sleepytime tea package: the Sleepytime Bear's family.

You know the Bear: dozing in front of the fire, cat in his lap. Used to be you saw Mrs. Bear and the kids on the side panel, headed off to be while dad dozed. Now the whole family has gone mysteriously missing and Mr. Bear has acquired a big blue radio -- a touch that just screams midlife crisis.

This change in personnel got me to thinking about other iconic food mascots and the makeovers they've received. Today we'll start with the women, with pride of place going to that fictional earth mother, the dark goddess of America's ready-made food unconscious, Aunt Jemima. The original Aunt Jemima was a character in a minstrel song; owner Charles Rutt bought the name and likeness and then went one step further. In 1890 Rutt hired Nancy Green as a spokeswoman -– a living, breathing trademark -- and her 1893 appearance at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago rivaled only that of the fabled belly dancer known as Little Egypt.

Green was killed in a car accident in 1923 and after 10 Jemima-less years the company hired Anna Robinson, "a large gregarious woman with the face of an angel," who traveled across the country making in-store appearances until her death in 1951. Other Jemimas followed (they were needed to work the Aunt Jemima restaurant in Disneyland) but her illustrated image has morphed slightly over time, the do-rag having been replaced by pearls and a lace collar.

You won't find Betty Crocker on the boxes of cake mix bearing her name anymore: She's been replaced by a red spoon. Betty was born when the Washburn Crosby Company (later part of General Mills) started receiving letters seeking baking advice. Crocker was the name of one of the owners and the name Betty was "warm and friendly" (just ask Archie).

Betty's look has morphed over time. The original 1936 illustration took images of the women in the Home Service Department and "blended their features into an official likeness." That BC was replaced seven times -- looking younger, older and even more ethnic (1996) with each iteration. Her pearls came and went, the triple strand of 1965 being replaced by a single in 1980 (signs of a coming recession?).

Like Aunt Jemima, Betty Crocker answered the call of a country in motion, one that couldn't always ask mom for advice when the cake wouldn't rise. Different actresses voiced Betty on the radio show "Betty Crocker School of the Air," and her 1950 cookbook was a bestseller. Not bad for a fictional character. JT Leroy, take note.

Like Walt Whitman, Sara Lee contains multitudes. The corporation bearing that name includes State Fair (maker of corn dogs), Zwitsal (Dutch baby food) and the pure pork sausage bearing the name of Jimmy Dean -- who, like Sara Lee, is a real person.

When bakery entrepreneur Charles Lubin introduced a line of cheesecakes, he decided to name them after his 8-year-old daughter. Though Sara Lee never had a management role in her father's company (which was purchased by Consolidated Foods in 1956), there was pressure: "He said the cheesecake had to be perfect because he was naming it after me," she said. The fact that consumers didn't really know what the real Sara Lee looked like made it easier to say, "Nobody doesn't like Sara Lee." No matter how much it made copy editors cringe.

The Morton Salt Company, incorporated in 1910, had something to promote: Their salt never clotted in humid climates, or as its original ads put it, "Never cakes or hardens." Sexy, no? The challenge of finding a better way to convey the wonders of Morton's non-caking salt was given to the NW Ayer & Co. ad agency which in its presentation included the image of the original Morton Salt Girl: in the pouring rain, salt pouring out of the box she carried. "Even in rainy weather it flows freely" was converted to the old expression, "When it rains it pours."

Since 1921 the girl has been updated five times, settling finally on the 1968 version, "with a hairstyle and outfit so classic they may last forever" (Molly Wade McGrath, Top Sellers USA). Earlier iterations have been signs of the times: the 1941 model has a kind of gum-chewing, Andrews Sister insouciance, while the 1956 Morton Salt Girl could be Buddy Holly's Peggy Sue in her pigtails (though it was Elvis who recorded a song called ""When It Rains, It Really Pours"). And while the current girl is no longer looking at the consumer, you don't have to be Humbert Humbert to notice that her skirt has only gotten shorter.

When the bottlers of White Rock spring water sought a White Rock girl, they went straight for the classics: At the 1893 World's Colombian Exposition (which must have been lousy with ad men) White Rock executives were struck by the painting "Psyche at Nature's Mirror" by Paul Thumann; she was a natural!

Why Psyche, who lovers of Greek mythology will remember was a mortal who became a god when she married Eros? "She stands for the pure vital refreshment of all White Rock products," according to the company's Web site. More importantly, "Her story represents the pre-existence of the soul suffering in this life, going astray but remaining faithful to her ideals." Sounds just like advertising.