... but then I saw that Jim Lehrer had died, and it seemed as though it would be in bad taste to talk about what was to me a significant cultural and personal loss on a day when a famous American has passed on. I have my own blogging standards, and I know what they are, but I also know there are people who think that to blog one thing and not another is to make a statement that you think the one thing is more important than the other. I learned in my first year of blogging that I can't let that criticism bother me.
But occasionally I do, on my own, feel that I need to blog X if I'm going to blog Y. And I didn't have anything to say about Jim Lehrer. I looked back in my archive to see what I'd said about him over the years, but it did not turn into a post, and therefore I did not feel free to talk about the death of Mr. Peanut.
But Mr. Peanut has been important to me, personally, and I wanted to talk about him. I'm touched by the circumstances of his death — benevolent sacrifice. He was always such a positive figure. I have never forgotten a time, long ago — I must have been about 15 — when I was in a gloomy mood and a Mr. Peanut TV commercial came on the TV and magically cheered me up. Such pure joy. He's happy, and he's a peanut. Why are you not happy?
I blogged about him in my first year of blogging (2004):
Thanks to Throwing Things for pointing to Advertising Week's vote for all-time best ad icon and best all-time ad slogan. I voted for Mr. Peanut for best icon, because I've been a Mr. Peanut fan for a long time. I feel that Mr. Peanut embodies a poignant eternal human optimism. He's just a peanut, yet he's very high class, and being high class, with charming innocence, has to do with a top hat, spats, and a monocle.
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47 comments:
Has anyone seen Mr. Peanut, and Jim Lehrer at the same time, and in the same place?
I mean, 24 hours in a day, and 24 beers in a case, and you want me to believe it’s a coincidence?
Looks like he got roasted at the end. Maybe he has a plan?
We’ll need a big game to find out...
This is all just a bad dream and he’s not really dead.
What a legume...
Mr. Peanut was getting ready to testify about Hillary's handling of the Haiti relief funds. And now he is dead, like that UN official in 2016 that had his barbell crush his throat one day before he testified.
Why should someone who read the news be important to me?
During the period that I've been blogging (since 2004), Lehrer's distinction was that he was chosen to moderate debates. He had the right image — he seemed to be very respected, venerable, and neutral. Was he really so neutral? How much have we lost when we've lost Lehrer as a presidential debate moderator?
Remember he moderated the first Romney/Obama debate, the one where Romney did so well. In the second debate, there was another moderator, Candy Crowley, and she openly helped Obama and that threw Romney off and ended his momentum.
You mean this was not Jimmy Carter's Obit? I recall there was a Planter's Peanut open front store half way between The Lowes Grand and the Paramount Theaters. And the smell of fresh roasted peanuts was the attraction for hundreds of feet around.
I think I'm Mr. Peanut's only living heir.
I prefer Tom Lehrer.
They got rid of him before he was guillotined as an embodiment of the 1% with that top hat and cane. (Only have joking)
You know that the semiotics of his dress was choking the little woke scolds. It was just a matter of time.
Jim Lehrer was never neutral in his newscasts, so I doubt that he was as a moderator.
Candy Crowley, and she openly helped Obama and that threw Romney off and ended his momentum.
Obama was spying on Romney as well. Especially, after he got his ass shellacked in the first debate!
We’ll need a big game to find out...
Cut to the Super Bowl commercial of the game party, guy eating fire roasted peanuts. It's what he would have wanted.
Found a peanut, found a peanut, found a peanut right now.
Right now I found a peanut, found a peanut right now.
A peanut sat on the railroad track
His heart was all aflutter.
Along came the 6:15
Woo a Woo! Peanut butter.
Joke on me...when I read Jim Lehrer, I substituted Tom Lehrer (the parody songwriter and performer from the 60's) and was surprised that Tom Lehrer's politically incorrect song topics hadn't struck a chord with our hostess during her adolescence. Anyway, it made me go to youtube to check out some Tom Lehrer stuff and it was sweetly entertaining.
How will we ever survive the loss of another Leftist TV news person? Where will we turn for reliably Leftist takes on a day's events?
Didn't Mr Peanut cause the death of Chuckles The Clown???
Funniest commercial I’ve seen since the Geico “four teens and a chainsaw killer” ad. Truly great writing, all for a 40-second TV ad. I suppose Shakespeare, were he alive today, would be doing Geico ads.
Mr. Peanut's reign of terror is finally over.
Armstrong and Getty
Planters Big Block was what I always bought for Halloween since I could eat the leftovers rather than throwing it out. Protein in peanuts.
Of course they stopped making it.
Jim Lehrer was the last news presenter I liked and felt any kind of trust towards.
Matt Walsh, of UCB, is in that Mr. Peanut commercial and it's great to see him get exposure. He had a good recurring role on Veep but the fact that only Poehler from that core UCB group (Amy Poehler, Ian Roberts, Walsh, and Matt Besser) made it as a big movie star is a shame. Damn, their show on Comedy Central was 21 years ago!
That's all I've got.
Yeah, those big blocks were good. Like peanut brittle, but with more peanuts. One of those with a cup of coffee kept me going many an afternoon at work.
He died doing what he loved: getting roasted.
Mr. P wore a monocle. What a symbol of 1% status THAT was. Spats, top hat and a cane too?
Tax the crap outta that un-woke nut case.
Estate tax now, I suppose.
I don't understand literally killing of a brand like Mr. Peanut. It seems something Disney would do to something like Star Wars. Then again, Jack in the Box killed off Jack long ago, and now he's back, better than ever.
I remember how most of the Left was childishly blaming Lehrer for letting their master lose to Romney in that debate. Those people are so spoiled and whiny!
From what I've read, Lehrer made an honest effort to be fair minded and unbiased in his approach to the news. I seldom watched him, but he seemed like a decent person. He was kind of dull but in a trustworthy way. He lived a long life and had success proportionate to his talents and virtue. There's more to celebrate than to mourn in his life, but even in death it's a dull tale told by a bland pundit full of yawns and glazed eyes signifying very little. It's a shame he died on the same day that a seminal newsmaker like Mr. Peanut passed away, but those are the breaks.
I once imagined a short story in which a NY Times reporter arrives to interview the CEO of Planters Peanuts and discovers it's actually a guy in the Mr. Peanut costume. Then, as the interview progresses, he reaches the horrifying conclusion that it's NOT A COSTUME.
The CEO offers the reporter "fresh roasted peanuts right off the line," and cringes in emotional pain as the writer consumes his brothers.
My agent is shopping the manuscript around.
"I recall there was a Planter's Peanut open front store half way between The Lowes Grand and the Paramount Theaters. And the smell of fresh roasted peanuts was the attraction for hundreds of feet around."
TradGuy, I thought of that immediately, remembering trips downtown with my mother. I think it was on Broad Street, correct? So much has changed.
Would have enjoyed being the the marketing meetings of Kraft Heinz (a stock that used to trade in the $90's but now swings in the $20s) wherein they discussed destroying the most prominent and longest lasting mascot and respected brand proponent. There probably was not a decently smart person in the room at all.
I accuse Mr. Peanut of shellism!
Would Mr. Peanut have swerved for anything in the road without a shell?
Mr. Peanut is being retired because he displayed too much toxic masculinity.
You will be happy to know that he will return after gender reassignment surgery as Mrs. Peanut.
Mr. Peanut was a Kapo who has sent thousands of his brethren to the ovens.
Mr. Peanut WILL RETURN. And what a tale he will have to tell!!
The great news is they also blew up that Oscar-Mayer-weinermobile rip-off.
Who did Mr. Peanut think he was? Charlie McCarthy?
Hey, Althouse, your participation in free advertising for the peanut industry is noted, and not appreciated. Start paying attention to social media advertising campaigns like this and you'll only encourage the advertisers to further intrude their commercials into your life, and everyone elses', too.
Mr. peanut spent his life combating class prejudice against peanuts. With his monocle and top hat - which shouted classy sophistication - he contradicted the peanut stereotype as a lowly food fit only "Goobers". Known to Mr. Peanut as the "G-word".
In eulogizing Mr. Peanut, may he rest in peace, it is well not to forget about the peanuts themselves, epitomized by Planter's Cocktail Peanuts, those slippery, salty nuggets of sophistication and taste. I imagine Deco serving dishes of them on the tables at the Algonquin Hotel bar. Thanks, Mr. Peanut. Gone too soon.
Hey, wait. I buy peanuts by looking on the shelf for the Mr. Peanuts picture. Other brands have let me down, the peanuts have been stale or the wrong amount of salt. There've been brands that pretended to be Mr. Peanuts, pretenders lurking in Mr. Peanut colors and the peanuts were ROTTEN. I've lived a long time and I warn you of the evil that lurks in the heart of man and creeps out onto grocery shelves and I paid extra for the lucky charm of the picture and warded it away. Now? The same brilliant group that gave us New Coke have got Mr. Peanut. Next, tofu-peanuts?
Miss Peanut will make her entrance during the Super Bowl
Ad Agencies are feminist havens these days
"Miss Peanut will make her entrance during the Super Bowl".
Marketing GENIUS! Selling us packages that we ASSUME contain peanuts, but are actually empty. Just like Mr. Peanuts but without..... nuts.
What's next, Ms. Oscar Myer wieners?
There was more to Jim Lehrer than his staid, placid persona let on:
Jim Lehrer: Badass Moderator
I still remember Conan O'brien's classic quip about "Nothing is more purely capitalistic than a giant peanut selling other peanuts for a living, all the while wearing a top hat and monocle"
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