12 Bizarre Product Mascots from the Past
Take a wild ride through advertising history with these 12 bizarre product mascots — strange, unforgettable characters that once tried to sell us everything from pizza to peas.
- Alyana Aguja
- 5 min read
From moon-headed crooners to gremlin-like cereal fiends, advertising history is filled with bizarre mascots that once dominated our screens and shelves. These strange characters, often unsettling and unintentionally hilarious, were created to capture attention — and sometimes haunted our memories more than they sold the product. This list dives into twelve of the weirdest mascots ever unleashed, revealing the wild creativity (and chaos) of marketing past.
1. The Noid (Domino’s Pizza)
Image from Wikipedia
The Noid was a manic, red-suited villain meant to represent the perils of pizza delivery delays. With buck teeth, bunny ears, and a mission to ruin your dinner, he was part cartoon nuisance, part anti-hero. Strangely, the character became so infamous that Domino’s eventually retired him after a real-life incident involving a man who believed the commercials were targeting him personally.
2. Fido Dido (7UP)
Image from Wikipedia
Fido Dido was a lanky, squiggly-haired doodle of a guy who looked like he walked straight off a high school notebook margin. He was the 7UP mascot in the late ’80s and early ’90s, symbolizing laid-back cool with cryptic one-liners and a perpetual shrug. His abstract, minimalist look made him feel both weirdly hip and eerily detached from the soda he was selling.
3. Spongmonkeys (Quiznos Subs)
Image from Wikipedia
In 2004, Quiznos unleashed the Spongmonkeys — fuzzy, bug-eyed rodents with human teeth and shrill voices. They sang chaotic jingles like “We love the subs!” in a disturbingly high pitch that had people either laughing or recoiling. The internet-born mascots were a gamble, and they didn’t last long, but they sure left a scar.
4. Bibendum (Michelin Tires)
Image from Wikipedia
You probably know him as the Michelin Man, but his original name is Bibendum, and early versions were downright creepy. In his 1894 debut, he was made of stacked, bloated white tires, often depicted drinking nails and broken glass to show Michelin’s toughness. His Victorian-era design resembled a ghost made of intestines more than a tire mascot.
5. Mac Tonight (McDonald’s)
Image from Wikipedia
Before the Moon Man meme, there was Mac Tonight — a slick, sunglasses-wearing crescent moon who crooned like a Vegas lounge singer. He was McDonald’s attempt in the 1980s to appeal to the nighttime crowd. However, his oversized moon head and uncanny smile were unsettling enough to turn a late-night snack into nightmare fuel.
6. Mr. Six (Six Flags)
Image from Wikipedia
In 2004, Six Flags introduced Mr. Six, an elderly man in a tuxedo who suddenly breaks into wild, robotic dance moves to techno music. His bald head, oversized glasses, and jerky movements made him impossible to forget — and kind of hard to look at. It turns out he wasn’t an old man at all, but a young dancer in prosthetics, which somehow made it even weirder.
7. Crazy Craving (Honeycomb Cereal)
Image from Wikipedia
In the early 2000s, Honeycomb Cereal had a terrifying fuzzball creature named Crazy Craving, who screamed “Me want Honeycomb!” and caused chaos wherever it went. It had the energy of a cracked-out gremlin and the design of a rejected Muppet. The character was supposed to represent the intense craving people had for the cereal — mission accomplished, maybe?
8. Punchy (Hawaiian Punch)
Image from Wikipedia
“Hey, how about a nice Hawaiian Punch?” WHAM! — Punchy, the punch-happy mascot from the ’60s, would then deck his unwitting companion in the face. With his tiny stature and straw hat, he looked innocent enough, until he assaulted you with fruit drink enthusiasm. It was cartoon violence disguised as a beverage ad, and it ran for decades.
9. Little Green Sprout (Green Giant)
Image from Wikipedia
You know the Jolly Green Giant, but do you remember his tiny sidekick, Little Green Sprout? This eternally optimistic kid was green, leaf-clad, and disturbingly enthusiastic about canned vegetables. His high-pitched voice and strange dependency on his towering plant-god mentor made for an odd pairing in the frozen foods aisle.
10. Mr. Blobby (Blobby Jelly/TV Tie-ins)
Image from Wikipedia
Mr. Blobby originated as a parody of children’s characters on UK television but became the accidental face of various branded products. He was a pink and yellow polka-dotted humanoid with a terrifying fixed grin, incoherent speech, and the grace of a tumbling balloon animal. Despite his horror show antics, he sold everything from jelly to toys in the ’90s.
11. Captain Cup (Captain Cup Yogurt Drink, Philippines)
Image from Wikipedia
This Filipino mascot was a cup-shaped superhero with a plastic smile and unsettlingly long arms. He appeared in local commercials, zooming into classrooms to preach the benefits of yogurt with an intense stare and robotic delivery. If the drink didn’t hook you, the surreal puppet-man surely lingered in your dreams.
12. Pea-Boy (Green Giant Canned Peas, 1950s)
Image from Wikipedia
Before Little Sprout took the stage, Pea-Boy was the first attempt at giving canned peas a face — and it was uncanny. He was a literal giant green pea with a human face and legs, often depicted holding a can of his brethren with an eerie look of pride. Consumers didn’t quite connect with this proto-body horror mascot, and he was shelved rather quickly.