ANIMATION IN ADVERTISING

Beginning in the 1950s, viewers were introduced to a dierent use of animation outside of regular television and cartoon programs. Breakfast cereal commercials, which often aired on Saturday mornings, became a common interruption to regularly scheduled shows. Storylines unfolded featuring some of the most successful cereal mascots, including Toucan Sam, Lucky the Leprechaun, and Sonny the Cuckoo Bird.

These characters cheered on the goodness of their cereals and many of them had their own unique slogans to do so. In fact, Tony the Tiger’s “They’re Gr-r-r-r-reat!” is a famous slogan in advertising history. Although the design of many of these characters evolved over the past six decades, they cemented their place in consumers’ psyche.