Hateful Stereotypes Behind 5 Lovable Cereal Mascots

Dig 'Em Frog

SECRET IDENTITY: Black Guy

Smacks mascot Dig 'Em Frog wears an exaggeratedly sideways baseball cap, his name is an insulting approximation of urban slang, and his voice is low and melodious like an amphibian Barry White. It's just surprising that Dig 'Em doesn't walk around giving out unwarranted high-fives and beating white people in sports. Oh, wait"...

WHAT WE LEARNED: No portrayal of black people is too insulting to put into a TV commercial.

Without the trailblazing latent racism of Dig 'Em, we never would have been prepared for the McDonald's "I'm Lovin' It" campaign. ("Lovin.'" You know, because black people don't use Gs at the end of their words.) But we're not the only ones who learned something from Dig 'Em. When faced with the task of creating a cartoon character to reach their "urban" demographic, the now-defunct WB network went with a frog, too. It's easy to imagine dozens of WB executives sitting around a table, wracking their brains to come up with an animal that is known for jumping high AND for dancing well, before deciding, "Ah fuck it, let's just go with another black frog."

(Fortunately for African-American culture, the makers of Kangaroo Jack came through where Warner Bros. couldn't-they invented a rapping, dancing kangaroo who steals people's money.)

Toucan Sam

SECRET IDENTITY: British Imperialist

Like any turn-of-the-century British imperialist, the vaguely accented Sam can often be found deep in the jungle searching for the natural resource he craves with an Ahab-like singleness of purpose. If the natives can't keep up with him on his quest to plunder their land, Sam offers the pathologically unsympathetic rejoinder that they just need to "follow their noses," ignoring that fact that not everyone possesses the privileges to which he was born.

WHAT WE LEARNED: British imperialists and American imperialists are different.

By giving Sam a British accent, Fruit Loops commercials highlight the very important distinction between British and American imperialism. While both proud nations wantonly kill people who live in the jungle, British imperialists tend to kill them for their natural resources (See Heart of Darkness, Zulu ), whereas Americans tend to kill jungle civilizations because we think they're communists (Vietnam) or because we're bored (Granada, Panama). C'mon Britain, everyone knows pillaging natural resources is for the desert.

Trix Rabbit

SECRET IDENTITY: Third World Beggar

Sonny

SECRET IDENTITY: Addict

Sonny is in the throes of a very serious addiction, and he's not exactly in denial either. Cocoa Puffs commercials always centered around Sonny's desperate search for some distraction from his cravings. Leading something like a normal life, if only for a few blessed minutes.

Tony the Tiger

SECRET IDENTITY: Steroid-Abusing Competition Addict

We're not saying that Tony is definitely doping, but let's use common sense for a minute. Look at any picture of Tony from the 1950s, with his wiry frame and spindly arms. Now, his shoulders are the size of barstools, his head has changed shape, he's only getting better at sports despite being a senior citizen, and he routinely hits 450-foot home runs into the upper deck.

In fact, the entire structure of Frosted Flakes commercials seems built to promote the use of performance enhancers. Almost every Frosted Flakes ad since the early '80s plays out as follows: Two unnecessarily evil teenagers come up and make a lame comment about how the wimp who's sitting with Tony isn't good at a particular sport. Also, the lame comment invariably involves the word "good," which allows Tony to say that "Frosted Flakes aren't good, they're great!" The unnecessarily evil teenagers never point out that they weren't talking about Frosted Flakes, nor do they scream: "Holy fucking shit, a tiger!" and run away in fear. Instead, they go out and get schooled by Tony and the wimp. The ad usually ends with with the teenagers saying stuff like, "Man, that kid sure can shred!"

WHAT WE LEARNED: Win at any cost.

There are substances you can consume that will immediately make you better at sports, and doing so will make people respect you (even unnecessarily evil teenagers who aren't afraid of tigers).