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Cap’n Crunch, to me, is the iconic childhood breakfast cereal. I have a particular love for Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch and no other peanut butter imitators, no matter how good, can replace it. Reese’s? No way. I love Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, but give me Cap’n Crunch for peanut butter cereal. And of course, that is not meant to take anything away from regular Cap’n Crunch, I’m just a peanut butter man. I can’t deny the influence, however, of the early television ads. These were full-blown spots that featured the Cap’n, his ship, the S.S. Guppy; and his first mate, the dog named, aptly, Seadog. These animated spots were produced by Jay Ward Productions, also responsible for such awesomeness as Rocky and Bullwinkle.
Ward was a legend in the animation industry, Ward’s company also created Dudley Do-Right and George of the Jungle. He also produced the first animated serial for television, Comic Strips of Television, a limited series aired in 1948, and the first full series for television, Crusader Rabbit, a year later.
Crusader Rabbit, along with Dudley Do-Right, was one of the characters featured in Comic Strips of Television. Dudley Do-Right did not get his own show until 1961. Ward also produced the Quisp and Quake commercials for Quaker Oats and was heavily involved in the creation and development of all the characters.
Having breakfast cereal commercials (marketed to kids), be mini-cartoon shows in their own right was common in those days. Kellogg’s did it as well with Frosted Flakes commercials.
The Capn’s Name
The Cap’n Crunch spots (the good ones) ran from the 60’s through the 70’s (the cereal was introduced in 1963 by Quaker Oats). During the time I was watching these spots, I never knew the Cap’n had a full name. Was this name ever mentioned in one of the commercials? I don’t know. Why did they bother to give him a full name at all? Well, you’d be surprised.
Most brand icons in those days had full names, whether they were ever explicitly mentioned, or not. The Cap’n’s name was Horatio Crunch. Cap’n Horatio Crunch, besides his first-mate Seadog, had a crew of children: Brunhilde, Alfie, Dave, and little Carlyle.
He also encountered many silly enemies like the Pirate Jean LaFoote, Smedley the Elephant, and Soggles, evil sea creatures who wanted to get ahold of the ship’s cargo. The cargo, of course, was Cap’n Crunch cereal. Below, you can watch the very first Cap’n Crunch TV spot, called Breakfast on the Guppy.
As much as the TV cartoons influenced my devotion to Cap’n Crunch — which has waned but never truly wilted — there were also free prizes in the boxes which were a bit more high-quality (to a kid’s mind) than other cereal-box prizes. They’d have comic books and all sorts of great things. One famous free prize was a toy whistle called a bosun’s whistle. This whistle is now legendary in its relationship to free long distance telephone calls.
