Junk Food Mascots: The 90s Upgrades!

Shit got noisier, faster, and more colorful during The Last Great Decade. But that's because it had to: the salt got saltier, the sizes got super, and the corn syrup got more glutinous. To match that, advertising took the plunge into the neon pool of Pop Art and Wacky Pomo, creating marketing that would reach out of the TV, grab us by the ankles, and dangle us by our Air Jordans as they commanded "Hey! Come get this sugar, home skillet!" Not even the Noid would've survived this technicolor jungle, his clay ass woulda been dried and crushed into Baby Bottle Pop dust and snorted into the big red nose of some demented clown. This was the era of IN YOUR FACE and these brave soldiers got way up in there. 

- Paul

The Craver

Honeycomb Cereal

"The Addict" is more like it. The "Honeycomb Hideout" was sorta the star of the previous campaign (or maybe it was the robot who lived there) but those still embraced the "Yeah Yeah Yeah" jingle that went all the way back to the 1950s. All of that crumbled in the wake of this meth head with matted hair and a speaking syntax that matched the baby from that Dinosaurs show. His energy blended right into the mania of the times - as a result, he left little impact on me, but looking at him now from a distance, I kinda hated that asshole.

The Polar Bears

Coca-Cola

Coke has never had any truly pronounced spokespeople (they never needed one) - many famous bands and artists sang their jingle, but apart from a few plugs from Max Headroom, their main character was, statistically speaking, Santa Claus. So the North Pole seemed like a smooth transition in 1993 when they kicked off their "Always Coca-Cola" campaign that would ultimately become one of the most synonymous hallmarks of the decade. At the forefront of the campaign was computer animated polar bears that drank Coke, lumbered around, and groaned a lot. They materialized as everything from stuffed animals to cookie jars and we all just took it as it came. In this case, I wasn't entirely thrilled with it then, but I love it now. 

Polly the Parrot

Polly-O String Cheese

This bird that sells cheese has actually been with the brand since the 1940s. But when Kraft bought the company in the 80s, the parrot took a backseat to character actor John Capodice, who gracefully handled the task of pushing their "new" product: String Cheese! (It's the best part of the pizza!) Flash forward to the 90s when cheese products aren't just popular, they reign fucking supreme. Polly-O doesn't need to sell it, they need to represent, and suddenly the bird is the word: give Polly a backwards hat, some bling, and induct him as the fourth member of House of Pain. This is how a proper society functioned.

The Simpsons

Butterfinger

I say "The Simpsons" but really it was Bart. And I say "The 90s" but technically this crusade started in 1988, which means the cartoon was still only confined to The Tracy Ullman Show. I can only speak for myself when I say that I didn't take notice of these commercials (or of Butterfinger) until the family got their own series -- and at that point we were prepared to buy any and every thing that had even the most mild correlation to the show. But even after the mania died down, they stuck with the Nestlé company for the entirety of the decade, also appearing in ads for at least two kinds of Butterfinger Ice Cream, as well as the now-cult favorite Butterfinger BBs. After 2001, they no longer heartily endorsed this event or product.

Reba McEntire

Fritos

In 1994, Cheetos had Chester Cheetah, Doritos had Chevy Chase, and Fritos had... Reba? The task bestowed upon her was to bestow upon us Fritos Scoops (which was totally a huge deal) and then the new Fritos Texas Grill flavor. But this wasn't just some commercial cameo - she appeared on actual bags of the stuff, as well as shirts and hats and supermarket displays. Meanwhile, Frito-Lay sponsored her tour schedule for years to come, so that she could spread the word across the land about the night the lights went out in Georgia, and also corn chips. 

Gidget

Taco Bell

Not since Clara Peller asked "Where's the Beef?" did a fast food representative generate so much buzz (or merchandise) - seriously, I don't think Ronny McD ever even had this much juice. I feel like it was around this time (1997) when that brief era of Chihuahua Culture began (I doubt it was from Ren & Stimpy), but for me, this was about as cute and clever as it was ever gonna get; the absurdist angle was refreshing to find in mainstream advertising (compared to those Budweiser frogs this was high art) but like with anything else that generates "surprise popularity" they drove it right into the ground hard and fast.