Image
The product's mascot is the character Mr. Clean. In 1957, Harry Barnhart conceived the idea and Ernie Allen in the art department at the advertising agency Tatham-Laird & Kudner in Chicago, Illinois drew Mr. Clean as a muscular, tanned, bald man who cleans things very well.
According to Procter & Gamble, the original model for the image of Mr. Clean was a United States Navy sailor from the city of Pensacola, Florida, although some people may think he is a genie based on his earring, folded arms, and tendency to appear magically at the appropriate time. Hal Mason, the head animator at Cascade Pictures in Hollywood, California modified the existing artwork in print advertising to be more readily used for the television commercials written, produced, and directed by Thomas Scott Cadden. (Cadden also wrote the words and music for the original Mr. Clean jingle — see below.) The first actor to portray Mr. Clean in live action television commercials was House Peters, Jr..
Mr. Clean has always smiled, except for a brief time in the mid-1960s during the "Mean Mr. Clean" series of ads when he was frowning because he hated dirt. Although Mr. Clean is the strong, silent type, he did speak once in a television commercial where live actor (Mark Dana) appeared playing Mr. Clean in a suit-and-tie in the mid-1960s.
Mr. Clean appeared (with permission) on the September 2010 cover of Biz X Magazine.
Read more about this topic: Mr. Clean
Famous quotes containing the word image:
““Power may be at the end of a gun,” but sometimes it’s also at the end of the shadow or the image of a gun.”
—Jean Genet (1910–1986)
“Politics will eventually be replaced by imagery. The politician will be only too happy to abdicate in favor of his image, because the image will be much more powerful than he could ever be.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)
“[Madness] is the jail we could all end up in. And we know it. And watch our step. For a lifetime. We behave. A fantastic and entire system of social control, by the threat of example as effective over the general population as detention centers in dictatorships, the image of the madhouse floats through every mind for the course of its lifetime.”
—Kate Millett (b. 1934)