By: Rénald Fortier
Ingenium – Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation
“Forget that times are tough and grim, cheer up and smile with Sunny Jim” – The crunchy saga of Force Food Company’s Force, the 1st commercially successful wheat flake breakfast cereal on Earth, part 3
William Wallace Denslow’s lavishly illustrated booklet Through Foreign Lands with ‘Sunny Jim.’ https://wwdenslow.blogspot.com/ via Wikipedia
Greetings, my reading friend, and welcome to the 3rd and final part of this article on Force Food Company’s Force, the first commercially successful wheat flake breakfast cereal on planet Earth. You will remember that the 2nd part of our article came to a close with the collapse of the commercial empire of the American businessman Edward Ellsworth – and the existence of a rather interesting explanation of said collapse.
With your permission, or without it if need be, I will quote a text on Ellsworth’s commercial failure, a rather interesting text published in a July 1907 issue of an American weekly, Commercial Bulletin of Southern California, and this without using the quotation format commonly used in this blog / bulletin / thingee. Incidentally, yours truly found that quote in an early August 1907 issue of The Merchants Journal, a weekly published in Topeka, Kansas.
Beginning of quote:
The retail grocers of the United States, nearly 200,000 strong, contributed more than any other element to the $2,760,000 failure. The Force and H-O companies reckoned without the retailer. They regarded him as a necessary though objectionable element in distribution; an element to be used but not respected. And they have failed.
The sales managers of Force depended on just one thing for their success – advertising to the consumer. They concluded that an advertising-made demand for Force represented all that was necessary. And for a time it did. The consumer demanded Force and the retailer was forced to stock it. He bought at $4.25 to $4.50 a three dozen case and sold it at two-for-a-quarter, making a margin of profit which would bankrupt him if it represented the margin on all of his grocery sales. For a time he was defenceless. The thousands of dollars invested in advertising brought their inevitable demand which had to be supplied even if at a loss. As long as the immense advertising was continued Force was a big seller in spite of the protests, although even in the heyday of the consuming demand the Force company lost thousands of sales because they had the indifferent support or positive enmity of the retailer. The retailer is long suffering and his protests against the weak profit on Force were feeble. This feeble opposition clinched the Force Food Company’s conviction that the retailer was not to be reckoned with and would sell goods at no profit at all if sufficiently advertised. ‘Put every dollar in educating the consumer and the consumer will dictate to the retailer’ was the conclusion.
Then Korn Kinks was put on the market; a five cent seller which paid the retailer the munificent gross profit of about one-half a cent a package or a net loss, cost of doing business taken into account of 8 to 10 per cent. But Korn Kinks did not sell. Thousands of dollars were poured in advertising and the goods were of fair quality as breakfast foods go. The reason? Retailers all over the country in associations and as individuals stood out against this disregard for their profit and refused to stock Korn Kinks. These last thousands of dollars spent in a fruitless effort to force the retailer to sell goods at a loss put this cereal concern into the hands of a receiver. Or to be exact, the retailers of the United States put the company into the receiver’s hands.
The lesson to be drawn from this by other manufacturers is that the retailer must be reckoned with. He is the biggest single element in the trade.
He can dictate the manufacture and sale of things about as powerfully as any other class. He can buy what and where he pleases, and if he does not like one line he can turn it aside and take up some other more to his liking. The manufacturer may think the retailer is small potato, but he soon finds there are a good many in a hill. The retailer has his place and he fills it well, and woe be to the maker who tries to make that place and filling burdensome. There are thousands of dealers to one manufacturer. Their power is great. Truly the little fellow is not to be despised. Rather he is to be courted and petted somewhat. And it is well.
End of quote.
Before I forget, the US $2 760 000 failure mentioned above corresponded to more than $126 000 000 in 2024 currency, which was a pretty big failure.
You may wish to note that what follows was pretty loathsome. And yes, the topic here is Korn Kinks.
Launched in late 1906 by H-O Company, Korn Kinks was a corn flake breakfast cereal whose advertisements featured the misadventures of a young African American girl. Kornelia Kinks was portrayed as a barefoot girl with thick lips and bulging eyes – a supremely insulting portrayal of a young member of an oppressed minority.
And the awful truth was that African Americans were, and still are, an oppressed minority. At least 4 400 African Americans were lynched between 1877 and 1950 in the United States, a country where “All men are created equal,” or so had stated the signatories of The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, slave owners in many cases, in July 1776.
Compared to their lily-white compatriots, African Americans also had a much higher likelihood of being incarcerated, or of being harmed or killed by policemen, which were almost exclusively white men in the 1900s.
I will not dignify the loathsome product that Korn Kinks was by including examples of the advertisements published in a great many American newspapers and magazines, as well as quite a few newspapers published in at least 5 Canadian provinces (Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, Québec and Saskatchewan).
I will also ignore the set of 6 colour postcards published at the time.
Korn Kinks was sold in the United States at least until 1914. It could be found on the shelves of Canadian grocery stores until at least 1909. And no, Korn Kinks did not disappear because it was a racist product.
Incidentally, the American board game giant Milton Bradley Company included in its 1907 product line a board game entitled Kornelia Kinks at Jamestown. That game portrayed the misadventures of Kornelia Kinks at the Jamestown Exposition, a large fair held in Jamestown, Virginia, between April and December 1907, to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the founding of the first permanent English settlement on the American continent.
Need yours truly mention that Jamestown was also the English settlement on the American continent where African slaves made their appearance, in August 1619? I thought not.
Let us now turn the page on Korn Kinks and never mention that loathsome product again, shall we?
Interestingly, at least for me, in May 1910, H-O put out a lavishly illustrated booklet, yes, the one visible at the beginning of this 3rd part of the current article, Through Foreign Lands with ‘Sunny Jim’ by the famous American illustrator / editorial cartoonist / caricaturist William Wallace Denslow.
Yes, again, that Denslow, the one who had illustrated a 1900 children’s novel written by the American author Lyman Frank Baum. You might have heard of it perhaps. Does The Wonderful Wizard of Oz ring a bell by any chance? Yes, yes, the book which inspired the 1939 American musical fantasy film The Wizard of Oz, which starred Judy Garland, born Frances Ethel Gumm, a world-famous American actress / dancer / singer mentioned at the very beginning of this article. Small world, is it not?
This being said (typed?), have you ever wondered if, like the famous Captain Jack Sparrow, a gentleman (?) mentioned in many issues of our blog / bulletin / thingee since September 2018, yours truly plans it all, or just makes it up as I go along. A gentleman never tells, it is said, and the non gentleman that I am shall do the same today.
Through Foreign Lands with ‘Sunny Jim’ showed “SUNNY JIM in many LAUGHABLE PREDICAMENTS among the Cannibals, Chinese, Russians, Pirates and others.” And yes, many if not most of the foreign people mentioned therein were treated in a deeply condescending manner. Oddly enough or not, perhaps, the Japanese were one of the few foreign people treated with some respect. The Japanese armed forces had after all seriously clobbered their Russian counterparts during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05.
Families which did not have 4 premium certificates had to send 10 cents in American or Canadian stamps to pay for the booklet, sums which corresponded to about $4.50 in 2024 currency.
Incidentally, the look and feel of our old friend Sunny Jim in the booklet might, I repeat might, have been inspired by advertisements that Denslow had seen during a 1909 visit to England. And yes, the booklet he had illustrated was offered as a premium in both the United States and England, and perhaps Canada.
Incidentally, again, it has been suggested that a sea cave located in La Jolla, California, became known as Sunny Jim Cave no later than 1908 when a visiting Baum was struck by the resemblance between the entrance of said sea cave and a profile view of the head of Sunny Jim.
To quote, out of context, a mischievous and adventurous 6-year-old American human named Calvin, “I’m not dumb. I just have a command of thoroughly useless information.” But back to our story.
Incidentally, yours truly stumbled across some rather interesting advertisements for Force in Canadian newspapers which were published after the collapse of Ellsworth’s commercial empire.
An advertisement for Force breakfast cereal issued by H-O Company of Hamilton, Ontario. Anon., “H-O Company.” Manitoba Free Press, 16 July 1910, 44.
Another advertisement for Force breakfast cereal issued by H-O Company of Hamilton, Ontario. Anon., “H-O Company.” L’Action populaire, 20 July 1916, 2.
Have you figured out why I think those advertisements are interesting, my observant reading friend? No? Sigh… Have you not noticed the presence of Sunny Jim in its original form in both advertisements?
Now, my not so observant reading friend, compare those advertisements with this one…
An advertisement for Force breakfast cereal issued by H-O Company of Buffalo, New York. Anon., “H-O Company.” Buffalo Evening News, 8 May 1916, 12.
Where is Sunny Jim, you ask without being prompted to do so? Good question. From the looks of it, our friend vanished from advertisements for Force breakfast cereal in the United States, but not in Canada, in the years which followed the collapse of Ellsworth’s commercial empire.
Over the years, Sunny Jim acquired some notoriety, forgotten today perhaps, in the history of advertising as an example of a campaign which, even though it gained a great deal of fame, eventually failed to sell the product.
In March 1908 for example, Gaston LeRoy, advertising manager of Western Clock Manufacturing Company, an American firm about to gain fame for its Big Ben alarm clocks, wrote in a memo to the management of said firm that, and I quote,
Personally I would not recommend any so called ‘clever’ advertising or humorous copy such as we have had to do from time to time with the trade or for instance like the Sunny Jim campaign of the Force Breakfast Food Co. but a purely educational campaign, describing the BIG-BEN, pointing out its different advantages over others and laying special stress on the consumer’s price, which until further notice I shall suppose to be $1.50.
Would you believe that this US $1.50 corresponded to about $70 in 2024 currency? If you ask me, that was a lot of moolah for an alarm clock. Too much moolah in fact, but back to Sunny Jim’s notoriety.
In his influential 1914 book Newspaper Advertising, an equally influential American advertising executive / writer, George Henry Edward Hawkins, asserted that
‘Sunny Jim-Jim Dumps’ is almost a memory. He was a national character while he existed, but the trouble was there wasn’t enough direct connection between ‘Sunny Jim’ and the product. In this case, one didn’t know whether to ask for ‘Sunny Jim’ or Force.
At some point, Earnest Elmo Calkins, the famous American advertising executive mentioned in the 2nd part of this article, added his two cents worth to the discussion: “The advertising absolutely sold Sunny Jim to the public, but it did not sell Force. Humor, you see, is a very good servant but a bad master.”
Given what we have come across earlier in this article, namely the failed redesign of Force Food’s advertising efforts and the indifferent support or positive enmity of retailers, the portrayal of our friend Sunny Jim as a failure was a tad unfair, would you not say?
All that eupeptic prattle about the American advertising industry made yours truly think about how Force was faring in its home on native land after the collapse of Ellsworth’s commercial empire, if I may quote, out of context, a few words of the version of the national anthem Oh Canada sung in February 2023 by a Canadian songwriter / singer / actor, Jully Black, born Jullyann Inderia Gordon Black, mentioned in May, June and September 2023 issues of our dazzling and astounding blog / bulletin / thingee.
In December 1924, an American firm, Hecker-Jones-Jewell Milling Company, a subsidiary of another American firm, Standard Milling Company, acquired what was then H-O Cereal Company Incorporated, the American producer of Force, I think, as well as its Canadian subsidiary, H-O Cereal Company of Canada Limited of Ayr, Ontario.
Hecker H-O Company Incorporated and Hecker H-O Company of Canada Limited came into existence in early July 1925.
In February 1929, Gold Dust Corporation, a large American producer / distributor of numerous products, acquired control of Standard Milling. Gold Dust changed its name and organisation in November 1936 and became Hecker Products Corporation. In late December 1942, Hecker Products merged with an American firm, The Best Foods Incorporated, to create, well, The Best Foods Incorporated 2.0 and… Yes, my very literal reading friend, the 2.0 was not in the name of the company back in 1942. I added it to make a point.
What was by then H-O Cereal Company, I think, officially merged with The Best Foods in April 1944 and seemingly lost its identity. In turn, Hecker H-O Company of Canada became Best Foods (Canadian) Limited in July 1945, but we have moved ahead of ourselves. Let us straddle our time machine and ride back to the 1930s.
In 1932, Hecker H-O or its American advertising firm, Erwin, Wasey & Company, one of the first American advertising agencies to develop a network of foreign offices, began to investigate ways to increase sales of H-O Oats and Force.
To do so, one of them contacted a very versatile and energetic English radio actor / director / writer with numerous shows under his belt on American soil, Herbert C. Rice, and offered to sponsor a children’s show that he would create.
Given the similarity between the name of a ranch and the letters H-O, Rice came up with a storyline about an orphan, Bobby Benson, who inherited a ranch in Texas, the H-Bar-O Ranch to be more precise.
The good people at Hecker H-O loved the idea, and so did the good people at Columbia Broadcasting System Incorporated (CBS), an American radio broadcasting network mentioned several times in our ethereal blog / bulletin / thingee, and this since February 2020. Would you believe that CBS actually gave The H-Bar-O-Rangers a slot in its schedule, starting in late September 1932?
Their instincts proved right. The H-Bar-O-Rangers proved phenomenally successful. Within months, Hecker H-O needed a dozen women to answer the fan mail and process the letters containing pieces of boxes of H-O Oats which were exchanged for a variety of Bobby Benson premiums advertised on the show: decal books, cereal bowls, card games, drinking glasses, maps, code rules, etc.
Boys were encouraged to become members of the H-Bar-O Rangers Club by sending a piece of a box of H-O Oats. In exchange, they received, among other things, a metal badge, a membership certificate and a photo of the young actor playing Benson, Richard Wanamaker (1932-33) or William “Billy” Halop (1933-36). Up to 90 000 boys (and girls?) became members of the club within the space of a few months, in 1932-33.
It is worth noting that Benson’s adult guardian, a wealthy, mysterious and active Englishman known as, you guessed it, Sunny Jim was gradually phased out from 1933 onward.
By the time The H-Bar-O-Rangers went off the air, in December 1936, more than 700 15-minute episodes had been broadcasted. Sadly enough, no recording is known to exist.
Interestingly, another version of The H-Bar-O-Rangers hit the airwaves in California in 1932. Its history appears to be somewhat more obscure than that of its Eastern United States counterpart. No recording of that version is known to exist.
This being said (typed?), complete sets of a full colour comic strip, The Adventures of Bobby Benson and Sunny Jim, printed on the back of boxes of Force, have survived. Those 16 strips could politely be described as very condescending, if not downright racist, in their depictions of Indigenous Americans as well as Latino Americans. And yes, one could see Sunny Jim there from time to time.
Benson and his pals had yet to permanently ride into the sunset, however. Starting in June 1949, a second radio show hit the airwaves. The first of two television series followed suit in April 1950. Given the absence of any link with Sunny Jim, yours truly will eschew a detailed description of that revival. You are most welcome.
In early 1933, the renowned vice-president of Erwin, Wasey & Company, Owen Burtch Winters, looked into the possibility of reintroducing Sunny Jim in its advertising, in the hope of boosting Force sales. And yes, Erwin, Wasey & Company might have drawn inspiration from the continuing success of Force in the United Kingdom, a success mentioned below.
Unable to find the originator of the concept, by then known as Minnie Maud Ayers, Erwin, Wasey & Company thought it would be a good idea to publish, in several, if not many newspapers, a little jingle like the Sunny Jim jingles composed 30 or so years before. A jingle asking Ayers to contact Erwin, Wasey & Company.
A few days before said jingle was to be published, a new telephone directory revealed Ayers current coordinates. Even so, the advertising firm thought that the idea of publishing the jingle was so cute that it went ahead anyway, and this in February 1933.
Ayers saw the jingle and contacted Erwin, Wasey & Company. Would you believe that someone at that firm allegedly helped her to concoct an equally cute jingle to answer the firm’s creation? I kid you not.
Even though Ayers agreed to provide some texts for the new advertisements, Erwin, Wasey & Company or Hecker H-O seemingly chose not to use them. Even though some new advertisements were produced, sales did not increase all that much. And here is one of the advertisements in question…
An atypical advertisement for Force breakfast cereal issued by Hecker H-O Company Incorporated. Anon., “Hecker H-O Company Incorporated.” Boston Evening Globe, 7 July 1933, 11.
The small increase in sales meant that Sunny Jim was quickly back in the closet of oblivion.
And now for something very sad. The three children, a daughter and two sons, that Ayers gave birth to in the 1900s and 1910s were afflicted with poliomyelitis in their youth. Her spouse could not stomach that fact and took a powder. Yes, you read it right. That ******* abandoned his family.
It was probably as part of their advertising campaign that Erwin, Wasey & Company or Hecker H-O came up with the idea of giving away a 32 or so millimetre (1 ¼ or so inch) brass token which carried a profile of Sunny Jim and words which might have resonated with the people trying to survive amidst the Great Depression: “Bring back prosperity with Sunny Jim / Forget that times are tough and grim, cheer up and smile with Sunny Jim.”
You will of course remember that those very words were included in the title of this article and… You did not, now did you? Sigh… To quote the main nogoodnik of the 1997 French, yes, yes, French, science fiction film The Fifth Element, the death merchant Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg, founder and owner of Zorg Industries Incorporated, I am very disappointed!
Mind you, I must admit to having a soft spot for one of Zorg’s more thoughtful thoughts: “Honour’s killed millions of people, hasn’t saved a single one.” Anyway, let us move on.
At some point in the 1930s, possibly in parallel with the gradual phasing out of Sunny Jim from The H-Bar-O-Rangers, the very appearance of that character on boxes of Force underwent some change.
Speaking (typing?) of Force, how did that breakfast cereal fare at the time, you ask, my reading friend? A good question.
Between 1907 and 1983, Force Food and the firms which succeeded it in the United States underwent close to 10 changes of ownership. In pretty much all cases, Force sales represented a smaller and smaller percentage of the total sales of the firms which supervised its production. It was seemingly not advertised all that much in American newspapers and magazines from the 1930s onward.
Indeed, yours truly has no idea of when Force was finally yanked off the shelves of American grocery stores. That year might have been 1983 for all I know. The last mention that yours truly came across in the press dated from 1949, however, and…
You have a question, do you not, my reading friend? Why did I bring up the year 1983, you ask? Read on and find out.
The last owner of the Force brand, the American food and beverage ingredient provider CPC International Incorporated, shut down its milling operations in 1983, thus ending the saga of Force in the United States. To quote out of context the evil Asgardian Loki Laufeysson in the 2013 American superhero movie Thor: The Dark World, tadaa…
That late date raised the issue of when Force was yanked off the shelves of Canadian grocery stores. And no, I have no answer to that question. This being said (typed?), it could still be found in such stores in 1940, and probably later.
Yours truly does, however, have some information on the saga of Force in the United Kingdom. You see, Force remained quite popular in that country well after its American best before date. Let me mansplain why this was so.
For some reason or other, Force Food’s British subsidiary, Force Food Company, I think, seemingly decided in 1903-04 not to drop the original Sunny Jim and his whimsical jingles. This being said (typed?), yours truly could not find many newspaper advertisements which featured him, and not too many Force advertisements either. Sunny Jim might, however, have been displayed on billboards and streetcars.
In any event, in 1910, an Englishman by the name of Alfred Channon Fincken left his position with Force Food, yes presumably the British one, and formed A.C. Fincken & Company to distribute Force throughout the United Kingdom. The breakfast cereal in question was produced in Hamilton, Ontario, and that for quite a while. And here is proof…
A typical advertisement for Force breakfast cereal issued by A.C. Fincken & Company. Anon., “A.C. Fincken & Company.” Sunday Pictorial, 23 May 1926, 4.
Err, yes, now that yours truly sees the image, the words Made in Canada on the box are not really legible. Sorry about that.
For some reason or other, however, A.C. Fincken & Company decided to drop Sunny Jim and, from the looks of it, any advertisement for Force around 1911, or was it 1914, as a result of the onset of the First World War perhaps.
In any event, again, our friend was seemingly banished from newspapers advertisements until the fall of 1921 and the start of a sizeable advertising campaign which targeted mothers and children, a campaign supervised by A.C. Fincken & Company’s new advertising firm, Smith’s Advertising Agency Limited. And here are examples of 1921 advertisements issued by A.C. Fincken & Company.
A typical advertisement for Force breakfast cereal issued by A.C. Fincken & Company which did not include Sunny Jim. Anon., “A.C. Fincken & Company.” The Daily Mail Incorporating Hull Packet and East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire Courier, 23 June 1921, 5.
A typical advertisement for Force breakfast cereal issued by A.C. Fincken & Company which did include Sunny Jim. Anon., “A.C. Fincken & Company.” Nottingham Evening Post, 24 November 1921, 5.
A box of Force could be bought for 11 ½ pence at the time, a sum which corresponded to about $3.45 in 2024 currency.
And yes, Sunny Jim dolls similar to those sold in the United States made their appearance in the United Kingdom around 1922. They quickly became very popular. How popular were those dolls, you ask, my reading friend? Well, no less than 250 000 or so had been sold by 1927, or so it was claimed. By 1933, no less than 1 000 000 or so dolls had been sold, or so it was claimed.
At some point, Sunny Jim became what could be described as a lively and slightly eccentric monocled old uncle who carried a stout walking stick.
The jingles were gradually replaced by a simple rhyme. We have already met the one which struck the public’s fancy: “High o’er the fence leaps ‘SUNNY JIM’ – ‘FORCE’ is the power that lifted him.” You do remember it, do you not, my reading friend? Yes, that jingle was to be found in the 2nd part of this article, I think.
And yes again, my slightly giggly reading friend, the term high has indeed taken a whole new meaning in recent decades. Err, let us move on.
In 1930, the year Force peaked in popularity in the United Kingdom and the year during which the Great Depression really began to hammer that country, British families bought almost 12 500 000 boxes of that breakfast cereal.
A typical advertisement for Force breakfast cereal issued by A.C. Fincken & Company which did include Sunny Jim as well as a coupon a person could use to acquire a fruit spoon. Anon., “A.C. Fincken & Company.” The Birmingham Mail, 17 August 1939, 11.
Helping sales were Sunny Jim toy airplanes, balloons, milk bottle disks, facemasks, sheet music, metal pins, wooden jigsaw puzzles, gramophone records, fruit spoons, stockings, yo-yos, etc., not to mention advertisements aired from 1933 or so onward by Radio Luxembourg, a private radio station located in Lëtzebuerg / Luxembourg / Luxemburg, in the eponymous grand duchy.
The introduction of Sunny Jim-related knickknacks might, I repeat might, have been linked to the first truly aggressive advertising campaign launched in the United Kingdom by Kellogg Company, the well-known American firm which produced the equally well-known Kellogg’s Toasted Corn Flakes. Well, actually, the breakfast cereal in question was produced by Kellogg Company of Canada Limited of London, Ontario.
A.C. Fincken & Company seemingly redesigned the box in which Force was sold around that time, and presumably for the same reason it had introduced the aforementioned knickknacks, namely to counter its increasingly popular rival.
And yes, you are quite correct, my reading friend, the use of a Canadian factory to produce breakfast cereals for the British market was linked to the new tariffs imposed on items produced outside the British Empire / Commonwealth as a result of the British Empire Economic Conference held in July and August 1932, in Ottawa, Ontario.
And yes again, my media savvy reading friend, countless British families preferred the entertaining radio programs of Radio Luxembourg to the prim and proper ones, dare one say the borderline stodgy ones, offered by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), a state-owned radio broadcaster with a radio broadcasting monopoly mentioned moult times in our very non stodgy blog / bulletin / thingee, and this since May 2018.
As you might have expected, many British firms paid good moolah to Radio Luxembourg to advertise their wares. Would you believe that no such advertisements could be broadcasted by the BBC at the time?
And yes, again, some of the entertaining radio programs broadcasted by Radio Luxembourg had been recorded in the United Kingdom before being shipped to Luxemburg.
As you might have expected, again, the muckymucks of the BBC were not amused. They were blissfully ignored by all parties involved, but back to our story.
The onset of the Second World War, in September 1939, apparently brought deliveries of Force to a close, which was understandable given the circumstances. Indeed, it looked as if a single shipment of Force made across the Atlantic Ocean, in 1942.
And yes, Radio Luxembourg stopped to broadcast its advertisements entertaining programs in May 1940, when Luxemburg was occupied by National Socialist Germany. Taken over by the German state broadcaster, Großdeutscher Rundfunk, it fired propaganda toward the United Kingdom until 1944.
Sadly enough, Minnie Maud Ayers, born Hanff, the person who had created Sunny Jim back in 1902, had left our war-ravaged world by then. She passed away in December 1942, shortly after her 63rd birthday. Dorothy Goddard Gwynne, born Ficken, the artist who had created Sunny Jim’s original look and feel, on the other hand, passed away in February 1978, shortly before her 92nd birthday.
Force returned, err, in force, sorry, sorry, to the United Kingdom only in 1954, if not 1955. Indeed, that year seemingly saw production of our breakfast cereal begin in England. Said production was made possible by negotiations between A.C. Fincken & Company and the aforementioned The Best Foods. Said production went on, and on, and on…
Over the decades, said sales were helped along by updated versions of the Sunny Jim doll, not to mention items like tea trays, tea towels, t-shirts, mugs, storage jar, coasters, battery-operated wall clocks, shopping bags, aprons, etc.
Would you believe that Sunny Jim dolls remained available for sale until the late 1990s? I kid you not. You could have bought one in 1991 in exchange for 2 tokens from Force packets and £1.95, a sum which corresponded to approximately $ 7.60 in 2024 currency. And yes, various small changes were made over the years to keep the dolls up to date.
Products associated with Force were produced until the 2000s. One only needed to think about sets of 3 miniature teddy bears and 3 miniature diecast delivery trucks.
In July 1990, two multinational food giants, General Mills Incorporated of the United States and Nestlé Société anonyme of Switzerland, acquired Ranks Hovis McDougal Public Limited Company, the British firm which had controlled A.C. Fincken & Company since 1989 or so. General Mills and Nestlé made that acquisition through a joint venture called Cereal Partners Worldwide Société anonyme.
By then, Force was well past its prime. Indeed, it could be found in an ever-decreasing number of places. The management of Cereal Partners Worldwide finally pulled the plug in January 2013. By then, Sunny Jim was probably one of the oldest trade characters on planet Earth.
I apologise for the inordinate length of the 3rd part of this article. Some information was uncovered late in the game. It could not be ignored.
And that is it for today. Breakfast anyone? I am buying. And yes, my backseat reading friend, it might have been a good idea to split this article in 4 parts. And just for that, YOU are buying.
I will even add to the inordinate length of the 3rd part of this article by stating that the lady behind Sunny Jim, Minnie Maud Hanff, was the aunt of a noted American writer and personality. Helene Hanff was, and still is, best known as the author of a book published in 1970, the epistolary memoir 84, Charing Cross Road, which formed the basis of a popular stage play, television play and movie. The latter was premiered in February 1987. Its main stars were the American actress / director Anne Bancroft, born Anna Maria Louisa Italiano, and the Welsh actor Philip Anthony Hopkins.
Rénald Fortier
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