Chiquita Brands International - Chiquita Banana

Chiquita Banana

The trademark logo mascot, "Miss Chiquita," now Chiquita Banana, was created in 1944 by Dik Browne, who is best known for his Hägar the Horrible comic strip. The original character was an animated banana with a woman's dress and legs. 1940s vocalist Patti Clayton was the original 1944 voice of Chiquita Banana, followed by Elsa Miranda, June Valli and Monica Lewis. Advertisements featured the banana character wearing a fruit hat (the fruit hat costume, in turn, first emerged in a film featuring a character played by Carmen Miranda, the year before the logo was invented). The banana with a fruit hat was changed into a woman in 1987. Peel-off stickers with the logo started being placed on bananas in 1963, and are still placed by hand, in order to avoid bruising the fruit.