How did Quaker Oats come up with Cap Crunch?
In 1962, the folks at Quaker Oats wanted to devise a new breakfast cereal. Extensive marketing research had told them that children wanted something really sweet and that would stay really crunchy, even in milk. Wanting a really memorable advertising campaign, they called upon the offbeat humor of Jay Ward, the creator of Rocky and Bullwinkle. The result was one of the most enduring, zaniest and silliest casts of characters in American advertising history: Cap’n Crunch and his crew. Designed with a free hand by Allan Burns of Ward’s studio, and voiced by the familiar bunch who brought us such classics as Fractured Fairy Tales, Rocky and Bullwinkle and Dudley Do-Right,, these commercial spots are far more clever and funny than most ads, especially ads aimed at children.
