One thing he tried was hanging in a doorway with bricks tied to his feet to try to stretch himself.īutler joined the Naval Reserve in 1942. Butler barely met the requirements to join the Navy, as he was initially screened as too short for active duty. Daws Butler served in the United States Navy during World War II. Eventually, many premiums were produced including rings, trading cards, Seadog’s bosun whistle, and more.Ĭap’n Crunch actually had an unexpected naval connection.
Ward’s studio also designed three sixteen-page mini-comic books (“The Picture Pirates”, “The Fountain of Youth” and “I’m Dreaming of a Wide Isthmus”) to be in the cereal packages, package backs, character premiums and store displays. Burns wrote the initial scripts which were then edited by Scott who wrote the majority of the rest of the scripts for two decades.
#Captain crunch series
Unlike his television series where the animation had been farmed out to a Mexican studio, the animation was all done at the Ward studio on Sunset Boulevard. In 1963, Ward produced the following Cap’n Crunch commercials: Breakfast on the Guppy, Wild Man of Borneo, Little Old Grocer, Clock, Singalong with Cap’n Crunch, Sweet, Foe Below, Crunch’s Crunch and Cap’n Crunch Sails Again which was a five minute promotional film for the sales team. Guppy and have numerous adventures as he and his crew tried to deliver his sweet cereal to a hungry populace. His mission in life was to sail the seven seas on his ship the S.S. It was a magical place with talking trees, crazy creatures and in the center was the fabled Mount Crunchmore made entirely of cereal.
#Captain crunch how to
Since American schools were limited in their curriculum at the time, Horatio was sent to England for schooling but on his voyage he was kidnapped by a band of pirates who taught him how to be a sailor.īy 1965, the cereal and the character were so popular that the origin was revised and simplified so that he was born on Crunch Island located in a sea of milk. They had a child, Horatio Magellan Crunch. Crunch’s father, Sven, was a navigator of a Viking vessel but was marooned in New England where he married a lovely Indian girl, Gidget Running Star. The only reason that Ward agree to produce the commercials was assurance that he would not get any artistic meddling from the sponsor and that it would be fun.Ĭap’n Crunch’s original biography was written by Burns in 1963 and was used as a press release by the Quaker Oats Company. Burns was given a thousand dollar bonus when the deal was signed.ĭaws Butler was the voice of Cap’n Crunch and Alfie Paul Frees was the narrator Bill Scott was Jean LaFoote, Dave and Seadog June Foray was Brunhilde, Carlyle and Magnolia Bulkhead (who was in love with the Cap’n).įoray in an early voice session had Brunhilde childishly call the character “Cap’n” instead of “Captain” and Ward loved it and convinced Quaker to use that as the name since it seemed friendlier and more distinctive. In addition, he included Seadog, the faithful companion. He also came up with the crew of kids (to better sell the cereal to kids) based on the first four letters of the alphabet resulting in Alfie, Brunhilde, Carlyle and Dave. Allan Burns later took that same expertise and invented The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”īurns was inspired to come up with the character of the seemingly ageless captain from the fictional Royal Navy officer, Captain Horatio Hornblower. Bill Scott told me in 1983, “You know the Cap’n Crunch commercials? The good ship Guppy and the crew and the adventures and the pirates and the strange creatures and so forth? That world was invented by Allan Burns who was at that time a writer for Jay Ward.
In addition, Baker was a huge fan of Ward’s work.Īllan Burns was one of the very few people still at the studio so had to meet with the executives. On July 1, 1961, Jay Ward had decided that his entire studio should have a summer vacation when Bruce Baker of Compton Advertising approached the studio about doing some animated commercials for a new cereal and that the main character had to have the word “crunch” in its name.Īt the time, many cereals had animated mascots and Ward had already produced three years worth of commercials for General Mills, a competitor of Quaker Oats.
September was the same month that the Cap’n’s first animated commercial produced by Jay Ward was also released. Quaker put roughly five million dollars behind launching the cereal that they had spent nearly two and half years developing. “It’s got corn for crunch, oats for punch, and it stays crunchy even in milk!”Īccording to the Encyclopedia of Major Marketing Campaigns, cereal owner Quaker Oats (now PepsiCo) once used eighty percent of their advertising budget solely on Cap’n Crunch.Ĭap’n Crunch first appeared on a cereal box in September 1963 and went on to become one of the most beloved and long-running cereal spokesmen.
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