The honor of being the "Worst Product Spokesperson Ever" doesn't come easy, but I'd have to say that at (or very near) the top of the contender list would be... The Joker - seen here in one of those ubiquitous 1970s Hostess Fruit Pies ad from SUPERMAN # 301 (DC Comics, Cover Date: July, 1976) and other titles of the period.
But, tasty as those fruit pies are, the law still prevails!
But what is it that makes The Joker the "Worst Product Spokesperson Ever" ?
...Try THIS!
I'm guessing Hostess "stopped the check" after that remark!
...And the cop's final line just makes it all the more... um, "sweet"!
9 comments:
Worst? Actually maybe one of the best ever, in my opinion! It's genius to have a disagreeable figure like the Joker dislike an agreeable product like Hostess Fruit Pies. You wouldn't want someone like that praising Hostess fruit pies. It would not have had the effect that Hostess intended. Children's watchdog groups would have probably have been on Hostess's case over it. It would have been a marketing blunder on par with that German hockey team's decision to be sponsored by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. (Yes, this really happened. It was bizarro: https://www.wbur.org/onlyagame/2018/07/06/german-ice-hockey-gaddafi-sponsorship). (Okay, okay, so with the Joker being a popular fictional villain, the backlash would probably have paled in comparison with the backlash the team faced by being sponsored by a real-life villain, but indulge my analogy for a second. Gaddafi is perhaps the closest thing the world has seen to a real-life Joker).
Having the Joker dislike Hostess fruit pies gives this ad a refreshing vibe, in that it's so different from the typical unerringly cheerful and uncritical comments normally associated with spokestoons. And I agree that the cop's final line "makes it all the more sweet."
That said, I think it would have been better if the cop's final line had been, "Wow! What a fruitcake!" It would have been a nice double entendre, in that the cop could have been referring either to the cake he was eating, or to the Joker!
I'm not sure if this predates "The Laughing Fish" but regardless if it occurred after or before, I'd be wary of any free food from Joker, given his propensity for pranks!
Sergio:
Well, that certainly IS another way to look at it!
Those ads were all wonderfully creative, within the context of selling snack cakes – that is, but this one stands apart for the sheer audacity – or genius, if you will – of The Joker’s unconventional method of product endorsement.
To one extent or another, they were all kinda funny, or at least smile-producing, in the unerring way that they magically worked Hostess baked goods into the context of so many different DC, Marvel, Warner Bros. (representing Gold Key?) and Harvey properties but, due to its “punchline” (apropos for The Joker?), this one this one stands chalk-white head and clown-shoulders above the rest!
Needless to say, they were sometimes spoofed to good effect! We may have one of those up in the future!
‘Rehab:
You write: “I'm not sure if this predates ‘The Laughing Fish…’”
Those Hostess ads appeared in lots of different comics, over a long period of time, from the mid-late ‘70s into the early ‘80s. But, as the post notes, I pulled this scan from SUPERMAN # 301 from 1976. It probably ran before this, and absolutely ran for a good while after it.
“The Laughing Fish” appeared in DETECTIVE COMICS #475, cover dated February, 1978 – meaning it was released in late 1977. So, the ad beats it.
Still in all, I might not have bitten into those tasty treats before a thorough chemical analysis! …For all we know, The Joker might actually have HAD the last laugh – off-panel, of course!
At last, after years of discussion of these Hostess ads, we finally get to explore one in depth! These ads are remarkable in so many ways. Unlike most comic book ads, which could be incongruous, annoying, or simply out of place in a standard comic book, these actually had comic book style content and furthermore they were (gasp!) actually fun and enjoyable to read! They did not intrude into the comic book world--instead, they inserted their way in by stylistically blending with the rest of the book. The artwork was clearly done either by the regular artists who drew the characters, or by skilled imitators who could render the characters in their familiar style.
This Joker ad is a perfect example. Not only is the style similar to a typical Batman comic of the day, it even includes a continuity reference to Arkham Asylum, showing that the writers of these ads exercised some literacy regarding their subject matter.
I can certainly understand why it might not "do" to have the Joker directly endorsing Hostess fruit pies. Yet it is indeed a unique twist to have him say he doesn't like them. A bit reminiscent of Hitchcock's scathing remarks regarding his sponsors, which nevertheless managed to sell the products that kept his show on the air. In fact, many of these clever Hostess ads have some interesting variation or twist on the conventions of product-hawking. Another favorite of mine is "Sad Sack Catches It" which features our hapless hero, like the Joker, getting arrested. But unlike the Joker, Sack actually likes the product and is permitted to enjoy his Hostess fruit pies from behind bars when he is thrown into jail in the last panel. This points up one other feature about these ads--they did not shy away from engaging in some good-natured fun with the characters they were depicting.
Would love to see more of these posted--especially as they seemed to cover the spectrum of popular comic book characters--DC, Marvel, Gold Key, Harvey, maybe more. The Hostess ads would make for quite a "rich" study--apart from (or maybe in addition to) the fruit filling! Can't wait to sample more! You get a big delight in every bite!
…And WE “get a big delight in every bite” of your enjoyable analysis, Scarecrow!
The Hostess ads were indeed unique among comic book advertisements, and may very well be the BEST-KNOWN examples of such advertising the medium has ever employed, and for all the reasons you state!
The Gold Key/Warner character ads were by John Costanza, who did a fair number of Warner Bros. comics for Gold Key at the time – especially TWEETY AND SYLVESTER. Many of the DC ads were by the great Curt Swan, one of the VERY BEST EVER at drawing the Superman family of characters, from the very early Silver Age through the mid-1980s. Similarly, the Harvey ads were largely the work of Warren Kremmer, who more of less created what we regard as the “Harvey style”! I don’t know that much about the Marvel artists, once you got a bit beyond Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, but their ads certainly look representative of the comics of the period.
And it was THAT degree of “authenticity” that sets this series of ads “big-head and broad shoulders” above other ads which might have employed the same popular characters. Excluding publisher-produced “house-ads” (also using the respective “authentic” artists), of course.
So widely influential were these ads, we even got one very close imitator… (“imitator” in that “sincerest form of flattery” sense, naturally) HERE!
The Hostess ads featured characters from FOUR of the BIG SIX (hard to believe) PUBLISHERS of the time… DC, Marvel, Gold Key, and Harvey – but not Archie or Charlton! I can understand the non-inclusion of Charlton because, in their unique mission to be a “little bit of everything, and have something for everyone” they may have had few (if any) well-known signature characters to put up, like Gold Key did with the Warner Bros. characters. Yogi Bear would have been a great character to use, even if he were drawn in “Charlton style”. But, who knows from licensing…
But Archie is the one I don’t quite understand – assuming they did not participate in this once-in-a-lifetime advertising jam-session! At least I’d never seen an Archie Hostess ad, but I read no Archie Comics during the run of these ads. Maybe they appeared in their own comics. With the number of famous characters in their stable, you’d think Archie would have been a natural for this.
The Joker’s “closing remark” is what REALLY puts this one over the top! And, while Alfred Hitchcock made a (haunted?) cottage industry of portraying bemused annoyance with “Our Sponsor”, on ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS and later THE ALFRED HITCHCOCK HOUR, he never actually exhibited a disdain for the products themselves – just the sponsor’s necessary intrusion upon his “plays”!
Fear not, you will be definitely be seeing more Hostess goodies in the future!
From our friend Merlin Haas at Grand Comics Database (GCD) comes this query-link showing many Archie character Hostess ads. That they appear to be exclusively run in Archie Comics explains why I was unaware of them, as I did not read Archie Comics after 1971.
It’s only a link to the issues in which the ads appear, and not images of the ads themselves, but thanks to Merlin we now know where to look. All publishers in which the ads were run are included in this query, for your analyzing pleasure – beginning with Archie titles, and going all the way to Yosemite Sam!
It might not be a complete and comprehensive list of the Archie Hostess ads, because not all GCD indexers log the advertisements. You can check it out HERE!
Now, anyone wanna shock the socks off me by coming up with a Charlton character Hostess ad?
Hi Joe,
Here's one Archie Twinkie ad that I posted on my blog. There were ads featuring Archie (and related characters), Josie and the Pussycats, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch. They all had art by Dan DeCarlo, I think..
Sports Nutrition in the 1970s
Shad:
Thanks a bunch for the link to that Archie Twinkies ad!
Until you glance at the Twinkies box in the lower right, it is indistinguishable from the comics themselves! In fact, it looks exactly like a page out of ARCHIE’S JOKE BOOK!
Shad’s link works, folks, so I don’t have to replicate it in my reply… And go visit his Blog! We were once in the same fanzine together, and now look at us!
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