Quaker Oats has a long and storied history dating back to its founding in 1877.
And there are times the company's story gets downright bizarre.
Here's what you might not know about an old-school breakfast favorite.
The grandfatherly, friendly-looking man on the Quaker Oats logo is about as far from
Tony the Tiger as you can get.
"I mean, yeah, I've thought about Tony the Tiger.
We meet at a provocative art opening..."
"OK, hang on right there!"
Though the Quaker mascot was developed in 1877, the familiar logo of just his head didn't
show up until 1956.
He got a complete overhaul in the 1970s, to a blue-and-white logo.
It was only in 2007 that we got the logo you're familiar with today, and in 2012, the mascot
lost some weight.
The company's design firm's Michael Connors told AdWeek,
"We took about five pounds off him."
But who is he?
There's a long-standing belief that he's the founder of Pennsylvania, William Penn.
It's possible - Penn became a Quaker when he was 22 - but Quaker Oats says it's not
him.
He's not any real person, just a general representative of the Quakers, a religious group the company
wanted to be associated with for their, quote, "honesty, integrity, purity and strength."
He does have a name, though: according to The Wall Street Journal, company insiders
call him Larry.
Quaker Oats' success was an incredible thing, because the entire industry was built on its
founders' ability to convince the public they should be eating livestock feed.
Ferdinand Schumacher, a German immigrant, was one of those founders.
Back in his native country, everyone was familiar with the idea of eating oats and porridge.
When he came to the US, he found oats were thought of as horse food.
Schumacher started selling glass jars packed with cubed oats.
The convenience factor got people interested, so Schumacher developed a way to cook them
faster.
He created rolled oats at around the time the Civil War was kicking off.
The military needed a cheap way to feed a lot of people, and soldiers warmed to the
idea of eating their horses' oats.
Henry Crowell - one of the original founders of Quaker Oats - decided to package his oats
in the round, colorful containers we still see today.
That got people noticing his product, but what the company put on the containers was
even more revolutionary.
They printed a recipe right on the box.
We see it all the time now, thanks to their 1891 idea.
That was about the same time they introduced two more brilliant marketing techniques: the
trial-size sample, and the prize in the box.
In 1891, consumers could find a piece of breakable dishware in their oat boxes, something that
probably wouldn't fly today, for safety reasons.
Robert D. Stuart, Jr. was chief executive of Quaker Oats from 1966 to 1981, but according
to the New York Times, in 1940, he helped found America First, one of the largest anti-war
groups in the country's history.
Stuart said, quote, "the US didn't accomplish much in committing troops to the First World
War," and aimed to keep America out of the second.
After the Pearl Harbor attack, though, the group dissolved.
Stuart enlisted in the Army, and served in Europe.
The Quaker Oats Company took a different role in the war effort.
The QO Ordnance Company was a subsidiary of Quaker Oats overseeing ammunition plants in
Nebraska that manufactured bombs, artillery, and ammunition.
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is one of those iconic movies of childhood, even
if it did give kids some nightmares.
According to the Huffington Post, you can thank Quaker Oats for getting the movie made.
Ever wonder why it's not called Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, like the book?
It's because Quaker wanted to market the heck out of the name Willy Wonka.
Quaker Oats financed the movie, Paramount released it, then Quaker created its own candies
based on the film.
The Willy Wonka line of candy launched alongside the movie, but there were difficulties.
Only Peanut Butter Oompas and Super Skrunch bars were ready by the time the movie came
out.
Wonka Bars came a few years later, but Quaker Oats eventually sold the division to Nestle
in 1988.
"You lose!
Good day, sir!"
You've probably seen the Life Cereal commercial.
The one with Mikey.
"He likes it!
Hey Mikey!"
According to Forbes, Tim Clark, who inspired his father Dave to write the commercial, said
his dad's agency had been told to come up with something completely different for the
cereal.
They were given a stack of ad pitches representing everything Quaker Oats didn't want.
Finally, Dave Clark pitched an idea based on his family's breakfast struggles.
Though Clark's bosses hated the idea, Quaker loved it, and it became a piece of pop culture
history.
And don't worry about Mikey, despite what you may have heard.
According to NewsDay, John Gilchrist, still very much alive at the time of this video,
dabbled in acting before settling into a career in media sales.
And yes, he still eats Life Cereal.
Quaker Oats once owned a video game division called US Games, and in the 1980s they made
14 games for the Atari 2600.
The company was only around for about a year, and it's not surprising, because their games
were terrible.
1982's Sneak'n Peek, for example, was a hide-and-seek game.
The game featured a house with a yard and three rooms, and a total of 20 different places
you could pick to hide.
Bizarre?
Absolutely, and it's no wonder the foray into gaming only lasted for such a short time.
Other titles included Eggomania, Picnic, Piece o' Cake, and Name This Game.
Prior to 1997, foods weren't allowed to advertise claims about specific health benefits.
They could say they were low-fat, for example, but they couldn't say they helped manage cholesterol.
That changed after Quaker Oats reached out to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and
requested permission to advertise the fact that including oats in a balanced, low-fat
diet would help reduce the risk of heart disease.
According to CNN, the move changed the way food makers advertise health claims, and the
change came in spite of protests from some groups claiming consumers would be misled
into thinking certain foods were magically healthy.
The FDA made the rule change Quaker requested despite the protests, and by 1999, the Chicago
Tribune was reporting Quaker Oats were selling in record numbers.
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