Toucan Sam - History

History

Toucan Sam became the mascot for Froot Loops cereal in 1963. The cartoon character was created by Manuel R. Vega and originally voiced by Mel Blanc, using an ordinary American accent. Blanc's original commercials were noted for their use of Pig Latin (referring to the cereal as OOT-fray OOPS-lay). The ad agency later decided to switch to the English accent more commonly associated with the character. They then employed Paul Frees to do what is, in effect, an imitation of Ronald Colman. In the most recent cartoon advertisements for Froot Loops, Toucan Sam's voice is now performed by voice actor Maurice LaMarche after Paul Frees's death. Toucan Sam had a cousin named Arty Artin that was featured in a few commercials. Animation of the commercials were created by several animation companies including Thumbnail Spots, this impacted the character growth among the years.

Although his beak originally had two pink stripes, during the 1970s it became a tradition that each stripe on his beak represented one of the flavors of the pieces in the cereal: (red = cherry, yellow = lemon, orange = orange). The additions of new colors have made this color scheme no longer accurate. There are now eight colors of this cereal. The first new color was green, which was introduced in 1991, then purple in 1994, blue in 1996, pink in 2002, and gold in 2006.

The colors, perhaps, represent different flavors present in the cereal, but each color has the same flavor.