Occasionally my crack team of investigative reporters run across some real gems, and for the past six weeks they've been traveling the globe in search oif advertising legends, TV stars and cultural icons of yesteryear. Today we bring you six such interviews-Chester Cheetah, Clumsy Smurf, Hermey The Misfit Elf, The Tooth Fairy and Sugar Bear. This will be an unforgettable trip down memory lane….
CHESTER CHEETAH
He's America's coolest cat, who has hawked Cheeto's for more than two decades. His trademark sunglasses and super cool strut have made him an advertising icon.
CC: "Yo, it ain't easy being cheesy. You know what that really means? That I'm tired of being constipated all the time! I mean, I gotta eat all that cheesy, fake fat, artificially flavored, cheesy bullcrap. Laxatives don't even work any more. I'm lucky if I can have one good BM a week, I grunt so much while I'm on the toilet, my neighbors think I'm a collector of James Brown records. I once had a colonoscopy and I was so clogged up that the hose and the camera got stuck in me. The doctor gave me this stuff to make me fart and when I did, the tube exploded, the lens on the camera broke and it knocked the doctor's eye out.
"My friends hate to see me coming. The first thing they ask when I visit is 'Did you use the bathroom before you came?' Because when I'm in the bathroom, I'm usually in their forty minutes or so, and when I come out, whew! It's like being at Jackie Gleason's house after he's gone on a pork 'n bean binge.
And I know what I speak of, because Jackie and I were close. You know, with all the money he had, Jackie could have eaten the finest foods from around the world, but his shelves were filled with the largest cans of beans made. He had an agreement with the Van Kaamp's company and he got beans at a 70% discount. I mean, that cat loved beans. He'd make bean sandwiches, pork 'n bean pudding, pork 'n bean tacos, you name it. I once saw him put pork 'n beans in a salad! The thing is, he was greedy and in such a hurry to eat he wouldn't even heat them up.
"He'd get-and I'm not making this up-a ladle, and he would eat the beans right out of the can, and he'd eat three or four cans at a time. All the while, he'd be smacking, licking his lips and moaning like he was having an orgasm. When he got to farting, man, you just wanted to die. One time he went through one of his farting spells, and as a joke Joan Rivers called a Hazmat squad out to his house. Jackie didn't think it was funny because he received a fine and the next day it was on the front page of the L.A. Times.
"I guess I got a bit off-track, so let me get back to the people at Frito Lay. They've got to be the most uncreative bastards I've ever met. Do you notice that several of their products rhyme? Frito's, Doritos, Cheeto's, Tostitos…If it hadn't been for old man Lay, we would have also had Mesquitoes-a mesquite flavored chip; Porkitos-a version of pork rinds; and Eskolito's-a proposed chip geared toward the Eskimo market.
"Five years ago I foolishly signed a twenty-year personal services contract with the company. They threw a truck load of money at me, and I got weak in the knees. My doctor says sooner or later I'm going to need a colostomy bag, then I'll have a new slogan: 'It ain't pretty being shitty.'
…THE COWARDLY LION
After Dorothy left the Land of Oz to return to Kansas, the Cowardly Lion fell into a deep funk. His friends, the Scarecrow and the Tin Man, went their separate ways, and the Scarecrow would soon thereafter meet an untimely demise.
LION: "I really missed Dorothy. She was the one who motivated me to get myself together and muster up the courage to move on with my life. While I knew along that the so-called Wizard was a phony, I was scared to tell him. That medal he gave me? I tossed it in a nearby creek. Second, the story is really kind of ass backward. For instance, it was the Tin Man who needed courage. Remember the scene when we encountered the witch? He was clanking and shaking like a robot crapping out a peach seed. Yet, all the while he was holding an ax! All he had to do was behead the bitch and problem solved. So which of us was really cowardly?
"I was the one who needed brains. Years of drug use had not only left me paranoid, but my thinking was muddled something awful. I later went to live in a halfway house for jungle cats, where I got the help I needed.
"Shortly after the Scarecrow headed back toward his farm, he was accosted by a bunch of cruel crows who pulled him apart. It was horrible. The Tin Man and I saw his innards scattered all over the countryside, just blowing across the landscape. Now I know why they call it a murder of crows. Outside the funeral, the Tin Man, that heartless bastard, wisecracked, "Well, at least we don't have to spread his remains anywhere. The wind did that for us.' I would have ripped him a new ass, but he was still folding onto that ax.
"Years later, he would again get caught out in the rain and beg for someone to oil him. I walked past him and listened to his tale of woe and then told him, 'I don't give a rusty
f--k.' Get it? Then it dawned on me that I was all alone in the world. I wasn't scared, just depressed. Things got worse after a bunch of munchkins smoked some weed one night and then tried to catch me so they could skin me and eat me. Then I found a flyer in the woods and it directed me to the halfway house. I've been able to relax ever since."
…HERMEY THE MISFIT ELF
In the popular Christmas program, Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, Hermey is the hapless elf who goes on an adventure with Rudolph to the island of misfit toys.
HERMEY: "They should have called Rudolph, the brown-nosed reindeer. He was always kissing up to Santa and was an attention junkie. The other reindeer hated his guts. I remember one time Comet busted him up. Probably would have killed him had it not been for Donner and Blitzen breaking it up.
"As soon as we get back from the Island of Misfit toys, Rudolph starts hogging the spotlight. When I complained to Santa about it, his exact words to me were 'Shut your simple-minded ass up and get back to work, before I slap you into the next century.' Then he docked my pay for the days I had missed!
"Santa worked us fourteen hours a day, six-days a week. Finally, I organized some of the other elves and we began messing up toys on purpose. I remember the Christmas of '05, there were a lot of returns. When stores began considering cutting their ties to our toy shop, Santa finally gave in and offered us an 8% pay raise and full benefits.
"I physically become ill just thinking about Santa. I once saw him polish off a 20-piece bucket of KFC, two packs of Chips Ahoy cookies, and a half-gallon of eggnog. He then shoved a finger down his throat and puked it all up on the head of another elf. Plus, he use to verbally abuse Mrs. Claus. One time Frosty the Snowman came by for dinner, and Ms. Claus burnt the food. He called her a 'dumb, fat, b-word. Can you imagine a man with an eighty-six inch waistline calling someone else fat? When Frosty suggested Santa tone it down a bit, Santa threatened to break out a blow torch on him. Wisely, Frosty cut out.
"Fed up, I wrote my book, "Santa's Sweatshop and House of Horrors." The film Silent Night, Deadly Night was loosely based on my book, and that's another thing. Yes, Santa does deliver toys to all the good boys and girls, but every year he also strangles three or four bad kids while they're sleeping. I seen the crazy bastard do it."
…CLUMSY SMURF
The most uncoordinated of all the Smurfs, Clumsy Smurf-now wheelchair bound after a fall down a mountain-is surprisingly upbeat. He had been Papa Smurf's right hand man for the better part of two decades before being exiled from Smurf Village in 2005.
CLUMSY: "All of us Smurf's were known by our most obvious characteristic. Smurfette was a slut, Weirdo Smurf was mentally disturbed, Sodomite Smurf…well, you get the picture. I was plain ol' clumsy. I didn't learn how to tie my shoes until I was seventeen and for a guy who is already clumsy, you can imagine the many times I scrubbed and Wisecracker Smurf took advantage of it. During a 1997 HBO Comedy Special, he did a ten-minute stand up routine lambasting me, which left me mentally scarred.
"A lot of chicks felt sorry for me, because I was always wearing a cast. Double-D Cup Smurf was always smothering me, and not just with sympathy. I miss her, especially since I've been banned from the village. You know how it goes, once exiled you're persona non grata with everyone.
It started after Papa Smurf caught me smurfterbating in the lunchroom at work. You see, I was having this fantasy about Smurfette and I…I guess I got carried away. Papa Smurf walked in, saw what I was doing and went ballistic.
He radioed for Kung Fu Smurf and Drunken-Brawler Smurf and I guess you can figure out the rest. I tried to run, but tripped and fell. The three of them stomped me. I got kicked to the curb without so much as a trial."
…THE TOOTH FAIRY
The Tooth Fairy was the lovable fellow who'd leave money under the pillows of children who'd lost their lost teeth. Then the B-horror movie The Tooth Fairy came out and the Tooth Fairy's reputation hasn't been the same since. In a recent poll of 10,000 children, of the top five scariest "monsters," the Tooth Fairy finished second behind Freddy Krueger and drew more votes than even The Boogeyman, Darth Vader and Steve Buscemi.
TF: "Tooth gathering use to be fun and rewarding. Sometimes a child would waken before sunrise and you would see him feeling under his pillow and then a big grin would appear on his face. Then that movie the tooth fairy came out and it frightened children around the world. They believed the tooth fairy was a killer, not a kind and giving entity. In fact, the Russian Tooth Fairy was stabbed to death with an ice pick by an irate parent who saw him leaving out of his child's window.
"Things worsened for me after 'the incident,' where I fell asleep and my head landed in the lap of a sleeping child. You can only imagine what the parents thought. First I was sued and I had to file bankruptcy. The only assets I had were children's teeth. What do you think that was worth, especially since more than three million of them were laden with mildew? Luckily the cash that I had saved for the kids is considered government money, so the family couldn't touch it. Meanwhile, I still had to carry out my work, but only after a Federal judge lifted the injunction.
"Word got out that I was some kinda pervert and a slew of restraining orders and lawsuits followed. In several cities I was warned by the local Sheriff that if I went into the bedroom of any child, I would be arrested for everything from breaking and entering to stalking. I had to start putting the money in mailboxes, but that meant going into yards late at night. I never knew so many Americans unleashed their dogs at night. After a week, I had to take time off for the more than fifty dog bites I received.
"As for that movie, it was based on a true story about some old woman in the south who lived in the woods, where she killed many children and took their teeth. She wound up getting locked away in a mental institution, but the papers dubbed her 'The Tooth Fairy,' and there went my reputation.
Now in the movie, the producers took some liberties. They had it so that the spirits of the children walked the earth until they got their adult teeth. Isn't that the stupidest plot ever? Why would a spirit even need teeth?
"Finally, in late 2009, the fairying program was stopped altogether. The fact that we were referred to as fairies carried some negative connotations and in some cities we all had to register as sex offenders 'just in case.' Now I have a job delivering for UPS."
SUGAR BEAR
He couldn't get enough of that sugar crisp and that addiction took its toll. When we caught up with the singing pitch man, he had gone blind in one eye and lost a leg due to complications from diabetes.
SB: "I recall the good old days with fondness, because that was when sugar was what made breakfast cereals appealing. By 1990, however, people became more diet conscious and they began altering the sugar content of foods. Sugar Crisps and Super Sugar Crisps were renamed Golden Crisps and I was canned for a younger spokesperson who-pardon the pun, did bear a strong resemblance to me. I sued Post, but they won, citing the fact that the new Sugar Bear had a slightly different inflection and that I was, in their words, 'crudely drawn.' Plus, they claimed rights to the Sugar Bear trademark.
"None of us cereal box characters were insured. Look at how much sugar harmed our health: Tony the Tiger and Count Chocula-diabetic; Frankenberry-ADD/HD; Dig 'Em the Frog didn't have a healthy tooth in his head; Toucan Sam, Cap'n Crunch, The Trix Rabbit and Sonny the Cuckoo Bird-all troubled, and in the case of the last two, did you ever notice how bizarre their behavior was? It was because of the sugar! Toucan Sam eventually turned to drugs. Guess how they got him to follow his nose? They glued a fake toucan beak on him and pumped him full of hallucinogens! Sam wasn't a toucan, but a freaking magpie with a drug problem!
"I remember Cap'n Crunch telling me that the folks at General Mills wanted him to change his image to that of a Mafiosi. They wanted him to dye his mustache black and speak with this thick Brooklyn dialect so that they could change the name of the cereal to Capon Crunch-which would have been marketed to the thug demographic. They even had Joe Pesci on stand-by to do voice-over work!"
