1
00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:11,520
Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.

2
00:00:12,520 --> 00:00:16,040
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class, a

3
00:00:16,120 --> 00:00:19,759
Speaker 2: show for those interested in the big and small moments

4
00:00:19,760 --> 00:00:24,200
Speaker 2: of history. I'm Gay Bluesier, and today we're talking about

5
00:00:24,280 --> 00:00:28,680
Speaker 2: one of advertising's longest running mascots, a squishy little baker

6
00:00:28,800 --> 00:00:31,560
Speaker 2: with a bold sense of fashion and a heart of dough.

7
00:00:32,640 --> 00:00:43,320
Speaker 2: The day was November seventh, nineteen sixty five, the Pillsbury

8
00:00:43,400 --> 00:00:47,480
Speaker 2: dough Boy appeared in his first TV commercial. The ad

9
00:00:47,600 --> 00:00:50,760
Speaker 2: was called Dancing Fingers, and it featured the dough Boy,

10
00:00:50,960 --> 00:00:54,080
Speaker 2: brought to life through stop motion, dancing on a kitchen

11
00:00:54,120 --> 00:00:57,240
Speaker 2: counter with the hand of a real life actress. The

12
00:00:57,320 --> 00:01:01,959
Speaker 2: debut spot established many of the character defining traits, including

13
00:01:02,000 --> 00:01:06,280
Speaker 2: his friendly appearance, cheerful personality, and eagerness to help out

14
00:01:06,280 --> 00:01:09,920
Speaker 2: in the kitchen. It also introduced a gag that since

15
00:01:09,959 --> 00:01:13,759
Speaker 2: become the dough Boy's signature, a human hand poking him

16
00:01:13,800 --> 00:01:16,520
Speaker 2: in his little pot belly and causing him to giggle.

17
00:01:16,640 --> 00:01:17,040
Speaker 3: Oh.

18
00:01:18,640 --> 00:01:22,120
Speaker 2: If fictional people made out of doe had birthdays, the

19
00:01:22,200 --> 00:01:26,319
Speaker 2: Pillsbury dough Boys would be March eighteenth, nineteen sixty five.

20
00:01:27,120 --> 00:01:30,639
Speaker 2: That's the day when a copywriter named Rudy purs first

21
00:01:30,680 --> 00:01:33,399
Speaker 2: came up with the idea for the character. He was

22
00:01:33,440 --> 00:01:36,679
Speaker 2: working for the Leo Burnett ad agency in Chicago and

23
00:01:36,760 --> 00:01:39,040
Speaker 2: had been tasked with coming up with a new brand

24
00:01:39,120 --> 00:01:43,080
Speaker 2: mascot for the Pillsbury account. One day, he was testing

25
00:01:43,080 --> 00:01:46,520
Speaker 2: out some Pillsbury refrigerated dough in his kitchen when he

26
00:01:46,560 --> 00:01:50,200
Speaker 2: started imagining a miniature person made of Doe popping out

27
00:01:50,240 --> 00:01:53,680
Speaker 2: of the tube. Pers pitched the idea to his colleagues

28
00:01:53,760 --> 00:01:57,480
Speaker 2: and they started brainstorming names for the character. One early

29
00:01:57,520 --> 00:02:02,000
Speaker 2: contender was Jonathan Pillsbury, but thankfully the team eventually settled

30
00:02:02,040 --> 00:02:06,360
Speaker 2: on something less generic. No, not the Pillsbury dough Boy.

31
00:02:06,720 --> 00:02:10,320
Speaker 2: That's more like the character's job title. His official name

32
00:02:10,560 --> 00:02:14,280
Speaker 2: is actually Popin' Fresh, a reference to the popping noise

33
00:02:14,360 --> 00:02:16,560
Speaker 2: you hear when the can is opened and to the

34
00:02:16,600 --> 00:02:20,280
Speaker 2: freshness of the product. The name is rarely mentioned in

35
00:02:20,320 --> 00:02:23,240
Speaker 2: Pillsbury ads today, but he still goes by it in

36
00:02:23,240 --> 00:02:27,240
Speaker 2: his private life. Purrs and his team brought in Disney

37
00:02:27,320 --> 00:02:30,680
Speaker 2: artist and animator Milt Schaeffer to create concept art for

38
00:02:30,720 --> 00:02:34,079
Speaker 2: the new character. The result was a series of cartoon

39
00:02:34,120 --> 00:02:37,560
Speaker 2: illustrations depicting a stout little dough boy with blue eyes

40
00:02:37,800 --> 00:02:40,840
Speaker 2: wearing nothing but a white chef hat and a neckerchief.

41
00:02:41,520 --> 00:02:45,120
Speaker 2: The character was instantly endearing, but pers worried that the

42
00:02:45,120 --> 00:02:48,680
Speaker 2: final animation would look too much like Casper the Friendly Ghost.

43
00:02:49,320 --> 00:02:51,959
Speaker 2: To get around the problem, Schaeffer took the drawings of

44
00:02:52,000 --> 00:02:54,960
Speaker 2: a flat two d dough boy and redesigned him as

45
00:02:55,000 --> 00:02:58,960
Speaker 2: a three dimensional clay figure. The change in media made

46
00:02:59,040 --> 00:03:02,000
Speaker 2: clear that the character wasn't a ghost, and it also

47
00:03:02,080 --> 00:03:04,880
Speaker 2: allowed him to stand out from the many other cartoon

48
00:03:04,960 --> 00:03:08,559
Speaker 2: mascots of the era, most of which were hand drawn cartoons.

49
00:03:09,440 --> 00:03:13,160
Speaker 2: Once the dough Boy's design was finalized, the agency partnered

50
00:03:13,200 --> 00:03:16,160
Speaker 2: with Cascade Studios in Los Angeles to bring him to

51
00:03:16,200 --> 00:03:20,160
Speaker 2: life through stop motion animation. The popin Fresh scene in

52
00:03:20,200 --> 00:03:24,080
Speaker 2: today's ads is computer generated, but until nineteen ninety two,

53
00:03:24,320 --> 00:03:29,720
Speaker 2: the character was a completely practical effect. As Perrs later explained, quote,

54
00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:33,000
Speaker 2: we made two dough boys. One was a rubber dough

55
00:03:33,040 --> 00:03:35,680
Speaker 2: boy with an armature inside, and you could move his

56
00:03:35,800 --> 00:03:38,080
Speaker 2: arms a little bit at a time, and the other

57
00:03:38,360 --> 00:03:40,680
Speaker 2: was a hard dough boy, and you shifted the head

58
00:03:40,800 --> 00:03:44,880
Speaker 2: or you shifted the body. The hard model included five

59
00:03:44,960 --> 00:03:48,480
Speaker 2: bodies and fifteen heads, all of which could be swapped

60
00:03:48,480 --> 00:03:52,520
Speaker 2: around to give the character different expressions and gestures. Those

61
00:03:52,560 --> 00:03:56,680
Speaker 2: initial models cost sixteen thousand dollars to develop and required

62
00:03:56,720 --> 00:03:59,520
Speaker 2: a good deal of effort to use. In fact, the

63
00:03:59,560 --> 00:04:02,920
Speaker 2: model had to be posed and photographed twenty four times

64
00:04:02,960 --> 00:04:06,960
Speaker 2: to produce just one second of the commercial. Dozens of

65
00:04:07,000 --> 00:04:10,480
Speaker 2: actors auditioned to become the voice of the Pillsbury dough Boy,

66
00:04:10,800 --> 00:04:14,320
Speaker 2: but the job ultimately went to Paul Freeze. The comedic

67
00:04:14,400 --> 00:04:17,039
Speaker 2: actor was a household name thanks to his work in

68
00:04:17,120 --> 00:04:19,359
Speaker 2: Some Like It Hot as well as a host of

69
00:04:19,440 --> 00:04:22,599
Speaker 2: live action films for Disney, but he had also lent

70
00:04:22,640 --> 00:04:25,960
Speaker 2: his voice to several cartoons, such as Ludwig von Drake

71
00:04:26,279 --> 00:04:30,320
Speaker 2: and Boris Badnoff in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. With

72
00:04:30,400 --> 00:04:33,799
Speaker 2: all the pieces in place, Popin' Fresh was finally ready

73
00:04:33,839 --> 00:04:37,760
Speaker 2: to make his TV debut. He introduced himself by name

74
00:04:38,040 --> 00:04:41,440
Speaker 2: in a commercial that first aired on November seventh, nineteen

75
00:04:41,600 --> 00:04:46,080
Speaker 2: sixty five. Take a listene, who are you?

76
00:04:46,839 --> 00:04:50,120
Speaker 3: I'm Popin' Fresh, the Pillsbury dough Boy. May I have

77
00:04:50,200 --> 00:04:53,640
Speaker 3: this dance? A house smells so nice when you bake

78
00:04:53,880 --> 00:04:58,280
Speaker 3: in the oven. Nothing says loven like something from the

79
00:04:58,279 --> 00:05:01,719
Speaker 3: oven And pills Barry says it best.

80
00:05:03,440 --> 00:05:06,920
Speaker 2: The friendly, helpful dough Boy charmed viewers from the start,

81
00:05:07,240 --> 00:05:10,200
Speaker 2: and the Pillsbury company was quick to commission more print

82
00:05:10,200 --> 00:05:14,920
Speaker 2: ads and commercials that featured him. That investment paid off too.

83
00:05:15,000 --> 00:05:18,440
Speaker 2: Within just three years of the character's launch, the Pillsbury

84
00:05:18,480 --> 00:05:22,200
Speaker 2: dough Boy had an eighty seven percent brand recognition among

85
00:05:22,240 --> 00:05:26,719
Speaker 2: American consumers. He became so popular that at one point

86
00:05:26,760 --> 00:05:29,800
Speaker 2: he was receiving two hundred fan letters a week, in

87
00:05:29,839 --> 00:05:35,240
Speaker 2: addition to about fifteen hundred requests for autographed photos. Pillsbury

88
00:05:35,320 --> 00:05:38,280
Speaker 2: took note of the character's growing fan base, and by

89
00:05:38,279 --> 00:05:40,560
Speaker 2: the end of the decade, it began rolling out a

90
00:05:40,600 --> 00:05:45,440
Speaker 2: line of dough Boy branded merchandise, including plush toys, baking utensils,

91
00:05:45,480 --> 00:05:49,800
Speaker 2: and flower jars. Then, in nineteen seventy two, the company

92
00:05:49,839 --> 00:05:53,000
Speaker 2: introduced a seven inch vinyl doll of the character that

93
00:05:53,120 --> 00:05:56,040
Speaker 2: quickly became one of the top selling toys in the country.

94
00:05:56,680 --> 00:06:00,360
Speaker 2: The following year, a copy supervisor at LEO Burnette named

95
00:06:00,440 --> 00:06:03,560
Speaker 2: Carol H. Williams was assigned the job of growing the

96
00:06:03,600 --> 00:06:07,919
Speaker 2: dough Boy brand and its accompanying toy line. She started

97
00:06:07,920 --> 00:06:11,800
Speaker 2: by creating a character called Poppy Fresh, the Pillsbury dough

98
00:06:11,920 --> 00:06:16,240
Speaker 2: Girl Poppy was used to advertise the company's sweet products,

99
00:06:16,400 --> 00:06:20,040
Speaker 2: beginning with the Pillsbury Danish, though Williams insisted that the

100
00:06:20,120 --> 00:06:22,680
Speaker 2: character not be poked in the stomach like her male

101
00:06:22,800 --> 00:06:27,679
Speaker 2: counterpart O. That same year, Poppy got her own final doll,

102
00:06:27,880 --> 00:06:31,200
Speaker 2: which was soon followed by a whole extended dough family,

103
00:06:31,480 --> 00:06:36,640
Speaker 2: including Grandmommer and Grand Popper, Uncle Rollie, two children, Popper

104
00:06:36,720 --> 00:06:40,600
Speaker 2: and Bunbun, and two pets, Flapjack the Dog and Biscuit

105
00:06:40,640 --> 00:06:43,800
Speaker 2: the Cat. Poppy was the only member of the family

106
00:06:43,880 --> 00:06:47,919
Speaker 2: to appear in commercials alongside Popin' Fresh, but sadly she

107
00:06:48,080 --> 00:06:51,080
Speaker 2: was eventually phased out like the rest and hasn't appeared

108
00:06:51,120 --> 00:06:54,560
Speaker 2: in marketing for decades. Of course, the same can't be

109
00:06:54,680 --> 00:06:57,640
Speaker 2: said for pop and Fresh. He remains the face of

110
00:06:57,680 --> 00:07:01,320
Speaker 2: Pillsbury products to this day, having appeared in well over

111
00:07:01,440 --> 00:07:05,400
Speaker 2: six hundred ads for more than fifty different products. He's

112
00:07:05,440 --> 00:07:08,680
Speaker 2: also been a fixture of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

113
00:07:08,760 --> 00:07:11,640
Speaker 2: since two thousand and nine, which means he'll be floating

114
00:07:11,640 --> 00:07:13,880
Speaker 2: his way through the streets of New York City in

115
00:07:14,080 --> 00:07:16,480
Speaker 2: just a few weeks. Be sure to keep an eye

116
00:07:16,480 --> 00:07:18,560
Speaker 2: out for him. If you plan to attend in person,

117
00:07:19,080 --> 00:07:21,760
Speaker 2: just keep in mind that he's about sixty feet tall

118
00:07:21,840 --> 00:07:24,600
Speaker 2: in balloon form, so if you want to poke his belly,

119
00:07:25,000 --> 00:07:30,160
Speaker 2: you're gonna need a really long finger. I'm Gabe Lucier

120
00:07:30,440 --> 00:07:33,440
Speaker 2: and hopefully you now know a little more about history

121
00:07:33,520 --> 00:07:36,840
Speaker 2: today than you did yesterday. If you want to keep

122
00:07:36,920 --> 00:07:39,800
Speaker 2: up with the show, you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook,

123
00:07:39,840 --> 00:07:44,120
Speaker 2: and Instagram at TDI HC Show, and if you have

124
00:07:44,200 --> 00:07:46,920
Speaker 2: any feedback to share, feel free to pass it along

125
00:07:47,080 --> 00:07:51,600
Speaker 2: by writing to this Day at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks

126
00:07:51,600 --> 00:07:54,200
Speaker 2: to Chandler Mays for producing the show, and thanks to

127
00:07:54,240 --> 00:07:57,080
Speaker 2: you for listening. I'll see you back here again tomorrow

128
00:07:57,280 --> 00:08:13,720
Speaker 2: for another Day in History class attended the Peer the