In the mid-80's, Charles Schulz's legendary Peanuts characters were licensed to General Mills for a series of commercials to promote Cheerios. The basic theme was the same in just about all of the ads. One of the kids is short on energy due to not having Cheerios for breakfast.
Following is a compilation of the spots.
John Stephenson is the announcer.
3 comments:
Lack of energy? That's what Pig Pen is going to get scolded for? Not the fact that he doesn't bathe?
Anyway, I remember these spots. Charles M. Schultz had resisted turning "Charlie Brown" into a TV series for years, despite numerous requests by CBS for him to do so. When it finally happened in the 1980s, Mr. Schultz complained that writing/drawing the comic strip and working on the TV show at the same was far too much work for himself and his creative team, which is probably why "The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show" ended after only 2 seasons.
What I heard was that the network asked him to do the show, and Charles Schultz refused for the reasons you stated. But then the network came back with another proposal: they would base the show on Peanuts comic strips that had already been published, so Schultz wouldn't have to write anything new, and he agreed.
In other words, Schulz's strips were adapted for television. Too bad the show didn't fare as well as the specials.
There's a whole series of Peanuts bits for Cheerios, in which one of the kids winds up lacking energy. Charlie Brown not only was in that position himself, but he did a bit where he & Franklin were going surfing, and Franklin's the one needing an energy boost.
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