Corporate Mascots Who Were Shamefully Abused
Unlike pesky human spokespeople, the cartoon characters that often represent our most beloved brands don’t eat, sleep, get sick, or most importantly, talk back. That means you can make them do pretty much whatever you want because they don’t have feelings. Still, there’s a point where the people torturing them should probably start to feel bad, even if they’re not real.
The Strawberry Pop-Tart
To celebrate the inaugural Pop-Tart Bowl in 2023, the brand’s mascot, a giant strawberry Pop-Tart with a frozen grimace and a thousand-yard stare, was lowered into a giant toaster, coming out the other side as an actual giant Pop-Tart that was eaten by the winning team.
As if that wasn’t Hostel enough, the Pop-Tart was somehow brought back to life at the 2024 game, though USA Today noted he was half eaten and looked “like a Terminator with a damaged face.” It might have been kinder to let him stay dead.
Mr. Peanut
Pop-Tart isn’t the only brand to ruthlessly murder and Frankenstein its mascot. In a 2020 Super Bowl commercial, Mr. Peanut sacrificed himself to save Wesley Snipes’s life, which was a real waste because Coming 2 America sucked anyway. He was subsequently reborn as Baby Nut thanks to the Kool-Aid Man’s tears. The biological implications are almost as bad as the stunt marketing.
Tony the Tiger
Out of all the cereal mascots, Frosted Flakes’s Tony the Tiger is clearly the sexiest. Like many of today’s hottest actors, he’s slowly gotten crazy ripped over the years. Between that and being forced to perform in nothing but a bandana, it was only a matter of time before he started attracting unwanted attention. In fact, in 2016, the Tony the Tiger Twitter account started blocking furries en masse because so many of them were sending him graphic propositions and images. You know what they say: One bad wolf boy spoils the pack.
The Hamburglar
The Hamburglar, on the other hand, has never been many people’s sexual fantasy. Not to shame anyone — there’s a lid for every pot and everything — but there just aren’t a lot of takers for the chubby cheeks and single tooth look. In 2015, however, McDonald’s released a series of commercials featuring the Hamburglar as a “sexy family man by day, burger thief by night” Batman kind of character bearing a marked resemblance to a young Dan Stevens.
You’re telling us he went from squatty and striped to that after decades with no corporate pressure? You think his pockets are stuffed with hamburgers and not sad boiled eggs and skinless chicken? Blink if you need fries, Hamburglar.
The Subservient Chicken
In 2004, Burger King embarked on an ad campaign so deranged, Snopes had to confirm it. Visitors to the website subservientchicken.com found what appeared to a livestream (actually pre-recorded footage) of a person in a chicken suit and garter belt standing in a dingy apartment who “responded” to a number of commands, including to dance sexy, pee like a dog and poke its own eye out. It would have been like a number of other websites at the time except it had the Burger King logo emblazoned across it, promoting the TenderCrisp sandwich and “Chicken the way you like it.”
The character was so popular that it appeared in a number of commercials, including one in which it was forced to fight another chicken. Burger King set up a literal chicken fight.
The Subservient Chicken disappeared in 2006 only to briefly reemerge in 2014 and retreat again, hopefully to therapy.
