Cap'n Crunch

For other uses, see Captain Crunch (disambiguation).
Cap'n Crunch cereal box, featuring the Cap'n Crunch character.

Cap'n Crunch is a product line of corn and oat breakfast cereals introduced in 1963[1] and manufactured by Quaker Oats Company, a division of PepsiCo since 2001.

Cap'n Crunch was developed to recall a recipe of brown sugar and butter over rice, requiring innovation of a special baking process as the cereal was one of the first to use an oil coating for flavor delivery.[2]

Product history

Grandma would make this concoction with rice and the sauce that she had; it was a combination of brown sugar and butter. It tasted good, obviously. They'd put it over the rice and eat it as a kind of a treat on Sundays...

—William Low, Pamela Low's brother[3]

Pamela Low, a flavorist at Arthur D. Little[4] and 1951 graduate of the University of New Hampshire with a microbiology degree,[3] developed the original Cap'n Crunch flavor in 1963 recalling a recipe of brown sugar and butter her grandmother Luella Low served over rice[5][6] at her home in Derry, New Hampshire.[4] Before developing the flavor, the cereal already had a marketing plan,[7] and once having arrived at the flavor coating for Cap'n Crunch, Low described it as giving the cereal a quality she called "want-more-ishness".[7] After her death in 2007, the Boston Globe called Low "the mother of Cap'n Crunch."[5] At Arthur D. Little, Low had also worked on the flavors for Heath,[7] Mounds and Almond Joy candy bars.[8]

In 1965, the Quaker Oats Company awarded the Fredus N. Peters Award to Robert Rountree Reinhart, Sr. for his leadership in directing the development team of Cap'n Crunch.[2] Reinhart developed a technique in the manufacture of Cap'n Crunch, using oil in its recipe as a flavor delivery mechanism which initially presented problems in having the cereal bake properly.[2]

Marketing

The product line is heralded by a cartoon mascot named Cap'n Crunch.[9] The mascot is depicted as a late 18th-century naval captain, an older man with white eyebrows and a white moustache, who wears a Revolutionary-style naval uniform: a bicorne hat emblazoned with a "C" and a gold-epauletted blue coat with gold bands on the sleeves. While typically an American naval captain wears four bars on his sleeves, the mascot has been variously depicted over the years wearing only one bar (commodore), two bars (lieutenant) or three bars (commander).

According to a humorous 2013 Wall Street Journal article, the mascot, whose full name is Horatio Magellan Crunch, captains a ship called the Guppy, and was born "on Crunch Island in the Sea of Milk – a magical place with talking trees, crazy creatures and a whole mountain (Mt. Crunchmore) made out of Cap’n Crunch cereal."[9] The article refers to the Captain's bicorne as a "Napoleon-style" hat,[9] and claims that this has led to speculation that he may be French.[9]

Cap'n Crunch's original animated television commercials featured the slogan, "It's got corn for crunch, oats for punch, and it stays crunchy, even in milk."[10]

In 2014, a Cornell University studied the box designs of 65 brands of cereals and discovered that buyers show 28% greater brand loyalty where the box cover features a mascot making direct eye contact with the purchaser, citing Cap'n Crunch as an example.[11][12]

In 2013, sources including the Wall Street Journal[9] and Washington Times[13] reported that the three stripes on the mascot's uniform indicate a rank of Commander and not the four needed on his uniform to be a Captain. In jest, the Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. Navy had no record of Crunch and that NCIS was investigating him for impersonating a naval officer.[9]

Daws Butler provided the original voice of the Cap'n until his death in 1988.[14][15][16][17] Author Philip Wylie wrote a series of short stories, Crunch and Des, beginning in the 1940s, which featured a similarly named Captain Crunch Adams.[18] The Cap'n Crunch commercials have historically used basic cartoon animation by Jay Ward Productions. Vinton Studios produced a claymation ad during the 1980s.[19]

Variations

Cap'n Crunch cereal (original flavor)

Product litigation

On May 21, 2009, Judge Morrison England, Jr., of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California dismissed the case Sugawara v. PepsiCo, Inc.[27] The plaintiff, Janine Sugawara, claimed she had purchased the cereal Cap'n Crunch with Crunchberries because she believed "crunchberries" indicated she was eating real fruit. Sugawara alleged that after four years of purchasing the product she had only recently discovered to her dismay that said "berries" were in fact simply brightly colored cereal balls. The judge commented "In this case...it is simply impossible for Plaintiff to file an amended complaint stating a claim based upon these facts. The survival of the instant claim would require this Court to ignore all concepts of personal responsibility and common sense. The Court has no intention of allowing that to happen."[28]

See also

References

  1. Shea, Stuart (2006). The 1960s' most wanted. Dulles, Virginia: Potomac Books. p. 60. ISBN 1-57488-721-1.
  2. 1 2 3 Umstattd, Thomas, Jr. (7 November 2008). "Bob Reinhart, Inventor of Captain Crunch, Dies at Age 84". ThomasUmstattd.com.
  3. 1 2 Pescovitz, David (June 7, 2007). "Pamela Low, Cap'n Crunch creator, RIP". Boingboing.net.
  4. 1 2 "Pamela Low, 79; created flavored coating for Cap'n Crunch cereal". Los Angeles Times. June 6, 2007.
  5. 1 2 Marquard, Bryan (June 7, 2007). "Pamela Low; kin's treat inspired creation of Cap'n Crunch flavor". Boston Globe.
  6. Gregg, John P. (June 3, 2007). "Love the Guilty Pleasure of Cap'n Crunch? Thank New London's Pam Low". Valley News. p. 1.
  7. 1 2 3 "Meet the Mother of Cap'n Crunch". Alumni Profiles. University of New Hampshire.
  8. Sassone, Bob (June 9, 2007). "Inventor of Cap 'n Crunch dead at 79". SlashFood.com. Huffington Post.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Nissenbaum, Dion (June 19, 2013). "U.S. Navy: No Record of Cap’n Crunch Service". Wall Street Journal blog.
  10. Bruce, Scott; Crawford, Bill (1995). Cerealizing America: The Unsweetened Story of American Breakfast Cereal. Boston: Faber and Faber. p. 216. ISBN 0-571-19851-1.
  11. "Cereal Box Psychology: Why Cap'n Crunch is making eye contact with your kid". Take Two. April 3, 2014.
  12. "Eyes in the Aisles: Why is Cap’n Crunch Looking Down at My Child?". Cornell University Food and Brand Lab.
  13. "Cereal fibber? Cap'n Crunch fights charge he's really a commander". Washington Times. 2013-06-18. Retrieved 2013-06-24.
  14. "Daws Butler Biography". IMDb.com. Internet Movie Database. Retrieved April 16, 2016.
  15. "OBITUARIES : Daws Butler; Voice of Well-Known Cartoon Characters". Los Angeles Times. 1988-05-20. Retrieved 2013-12-20.
  16. "Daws Butler, Characters Actor". Amazon.com. Retrieved 2013-12-20.
  17. "The Voices of Cap'n Crunch Cereal (1963, Commercial) - Voice Cast Listing". Voicechasers.com. Retrieved 2013-12-20.
  18. Wylie, Philip (1940), The Big Ones Get Away!, Farrar & Rinehart, Inc.; republished at Google Books
  19. "Vinton Studio Commercials". animateclay.com. Archived from the original on October 15, 2007. Retrieved April 16, 2016.
  20. Jorgensen, Janice (1994). Encyclopedia of Consumer Brands. St. James Press. pp. 99–101. ISBN 1-55862-336-1.
  21. "Cereal of the Eighties, Punch Crunch". In the 80s. Retrieved 2008-06-27.
  22. "From the Cap'n To You! Christmas Crunch". X-Entertainment. 2003-12-12. Retrieved 2008-01-06.
  23. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 "Cap'n Crunch & Friends Cereal Family". MrBreakfast.com.
  24. "Oops! All Berries (Cap'n Crunch) Cereal". MrBreakfast.com. Retrieved 2013-06-24.
  25. "Cap'n Crunch Crunch Treasures". CerealWednesday.com. May 11, 2011. Retrieved July 13, 2011.
  26. "Airhead Berries". MrBreakfast.com.
  27. "Sugawara v. PepsiCo, Inc.". justia.com. Justia Dockets & Filings. Retrieved 2013-06-24.
  28. "Reasonable Consumer Would Know 'Crunchberries' Are Not Real, Judge Rules", LoweringTheBar.net, June 2009.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Thursday, May 05, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.