This morning a concerned friend sent me these images. She was creeped out, and frankly, so am I:
And then there's this one:
Inspect the images closely and you will discover that nowhere does the box explain who the man with the toup�e and the penetrating gaze is. I mean, we all know it's William Shatner (Remember that bizarre curly hair he sported back in 1980 that spawned the rumour that he'd had pubic hair transplanted on his scalp? He appears to have traded that in for a hard plastic shell, which he must now keep out of direct sunlight), but what is your average nine-year old Billy going to think? As far as he's concerned, Scott Bakula is the face of Star Trek. Granted, nine-year-old Billy is not going to look twice at All-Bran, craving instead the tooth-rotting high-fat no-nutrient kick of Count Chocula (Count Bakula?). Obviously the ads are aimed at generations X, Y and Z, those of us who chuckle involuntarily every time we see Shatner's increasingly puffy mug. Still, the absence of a caption is unsettling.
My guess is that the weirdness stems from a basic conflict between Shatner's iconic camp status and the genuine kitsch of cereal box ad copy. Whereas Shatner has embraced the silliness of his image, cereal boxes have never owned up to how silly and stale they are. Year after year they recycle the same few images - loopy cartoon characters, smiling sports celebrities, sunbathed depictions of agriculture. And of course, that freaky money shot of milk slamming into cereal. There's something unconscious about the imagery, even as it seeks to manipulate. It's breakfast kitsch, asking us to take its worn-out pleas and images seriously.
Enter the avatar of camp (in a swirl of dry ice). They don't know what to do with Shatner. They can't even give him a silly caption (and hell, maybe Shatner's sick of Star Trek references). You can picture the execs at Kellogg's and their ad agency pitching Shatner's endorsement contract back and forth:
"It'll be loopy!" "Loopy? Like Froot Loops? All-Bran is a healthy product. It's not loopy". "But Shatner will appeal to adults young and old with fond memories of Star Trek. He's perfectly pitched to hit the boomer market as well as the coveted Gen X and Y demographic. This guy's got serious draw. People will see his image and laugh". "Hmmm... we don't want people to associate All-Bran with laughter. We want people to understand the intestinal benefits of a high-fibre diet. All-Bran is a healthy part of a high-fibre diet". "That's true, but..." "The intestinal benefits of fibre are not a laughing matter". "True, but we've signed the contract already, and Shatner's a litigious bastard". "He is, huh?" "He'll sue our asses for breach of contract". "Why... that ungrateful motherfucker". "You said it, sir". "Goddamn space-age hippie..." "He sure is". "What kind of a man treats his life as a joke? A man should be proud of his accomplishments". "You're right, sir. Maybe if he looked serious on the box? People would recognize him, but they'd get the seriousness of the, uh, of your message". "Okay. We'll use him. Put his face on the box. That's it. Make him look like a presentable human being. Commanding. Like he's captaining the All-Bran ship safely to port. No silly stuff...Okay, what else have you got?" "Well, for our kid's line, we've got Count Bakula cereal. It's wheat-puff tombstones and marshmallow Spaceship Enterprises. We're in talks with the tie-in people at Fox right now". "I'll need to see a few shots of Bakula in a cape and fangs first before I sign off on this one". "The slogan is, 'A thousand miles up or six feet under, you'll enjoy the taste of Bakula".
And that's how Shatner got on the All-Bran box. I'm not even going to talk about the TV spots.
Many thanks to my friend Jen for scanning and sending the images.
