Seven Decades of a Very Smug Bird With an Incredible Nose
The only newsletter that knows the difference between froot and fruit.
The original voice of Toucan Sam was Mel Blanc.
Bugs Bunny. Daffy Duck. Porky Pig. Tweety. Yosemite Sam. Speedy Gonzalez. Foghorn Leghorn.
This is the man who built the Warner Bros. cartoon universe.
He side hustled part of his career selling Froot Loops to children.
The original Sam spoke exclusively in Pig Latin — “OOT-fray OOPS-lay” — which is insane, and also probably hilarious in 1963 if you were six years old eating cereal before school.
Leo Burnett eventually decided Sam needed a more sophisticated persona.
They wanted him to sound exotic, to match his tropical bird character. The reference they gave to the next voice actor was Ronald Colman, a 1930s and 40s film actor described as dashing, debonair. A gentleman adventurer.
They wanted the bird who eats cereal every morning to sound like he’d just returned from somewhere interesting.
The job went to Paul Frees — who was already voicing the Pillsbury Doughboy and the farmer who educated Little Green Sprout in the Green Giant commercials.
And don’t worry more on these in the next few weeks. Paul Frees is in this entire series and nobody has ever said his name.
Sam launched in 1963. The campaign structure was air-tight from day one: Sam smelled Froot Loops. Sam followed his nose. Sam found said Froot Loops.
That’s it. Same plot. Every single commercial. For sixty years.
“Follow your nose — it always knows.”
That epic tagline does three things simultaneously: it describes the character’s superpower, it makes smelling sugar into an adventure and it quietly invites the kid watching to do the same thing.
The nose is the product benefit. Froot Loops smell like fruit. Sam is just honest about it.
The stripes on Sam’s beak originally represented the three flavors in the original Froot Loops lineup: orange, lemon, cherry.
When new colors were added in the 90s, the beak gained stripes accordingly. His nose is a product changelog. Now, remember that there are not actually different flavors, the brand confirmed long ago that all of them are the same vaguely fruit taste. Any difference you taste is pure fiction.
In 2020, Kellogg’s decided to update him.
They gave him a flat 2D design. Neon tie-dye beak. Turquoise tones. And then — and this is the part that broke something in people — they gave him human teeth. The beak had a visible mouth inside it. With teeth.
The Facebook reveal post got more angry-face reactions than likes. #NotMyToucan trended. One tweet read “NOOOO WHAT THE FUCK DID THEY DO TO TOUCAN SAM????? THOSE CALART FUCKS GOT TO HIM IM NEVER BUYING CHEERIOS AGAIN” which is the wrong cereal brand, wrong on emotion and completely correct on vibes.
Kellogg’s response: this isn’t the first time Sam has changed, he evolves to stay relevant. The internet’s response: what have you done to my boy.
By 2021 they put him back. Slightly brighter. More solid. No teeth. Sam survived.
He’s still there. Still following his nose. Still British for no reason that actually kind of makes complete sense and somehow works entirely.
THE AD LESSON
Toucan Sam is proof that a single clean creative mechanism like follow your nose can run for six decades without modification.
The character barely evolved. The beak changed as the product changed.
The accent shifted once. Otherwise Sam is exactly what he was in 1963.
The 2020 redesign is the negative lesson: even a brief departure from a simple truth causes a measurable crisis. The teeth weren’t a creative decision. They were a symptom of not trusting the original idea enough.
They put the original idea back and everything was fine. It was always fine. It was always the nose.
COCKTAIL OF THE WEEK: STRAWBERRY WHITE NEGRONI
The Masters was this week. Augusta National, where the pimento cheese sandwiches cost $1.50 and the azaleas are always in bloom and the whole thing feels like a country club that decided to cosplay as a national treasure. Beautiful. Timeless. Slightly unreal.
I had this drink at Gary’s on Twelfth in Vancouver — a nice place, as they describe themselves, and they’re not wrong. I was going to rant about having to eat at back-to-back small plates restaurants, but i enjoyed it. It has a sneaky simple vibe. And everything tastes like someone made very specific decisions and never eviated from the path. It gave the opposite to The Bear energy.
Strawberry gin, chiaro amaro, dry vermouth. Stirred. Big ice. Lemon peel.
The white negroni already swaps Campari for something softer — usually a gentian-based amaro or a blanc vermouth — which gives you all the bitter-aromatic structure without the red. This version goes one step further: strawberry wallflower gin from Odd Society (local, Vancouver), Woods Spirit chiaro amaro (also local), Esquimalt dry vermouth.
It’s pink-gold in the light. It tastes like fruit that earned it.
The Masters has its egg salad sandwich for $1.50. This is decidedly way better.
1.5 oz strawberry gin (Odd Society Wallflower if you can find it, or any floral gin works)
1 oz blanc or dry vermouth
.75 oz amaro bianco or chiaro amaro
Stir with ice until very cold. Strain over a large rock. Express a lemon peel over the top and drop it in and start watching the 7 decades of Froot Loops ads.
The Drink Cart. A newsletter version of sitting at a really good bar with someone who thinks too much about advertising and won’t shut up about it. Wednesdays and Fridays.