CCC: Corporate Cartoon Cow, of course. Elsie and Clo, to be specific.
What, you don’t have a favorite corporate cartoon cow? Well, you gotta get one.
Here’s Elsie, in all her 1950′s America glory:
She’s doing what a corporate cartoon cow does best — pitching a product. Look at that wholesome, fresh face. How could you NOT buy her milk? She’s even got a necklace of daisies. How stylish!
Next up, Clo, the beloved imaginary cow of Cloverdale Dairy:
She’s all over California billboards these days (and days past as well). Far more versatile than Elsie as well. Elsie was always smiling in a field or from a label. But Clo is a chameleon. She’s a cow, a princess, a grande dame of the ballet, Edgar Allen Clo (above) and on and on. A cow of a thousand faces.
Being a cartoonist, it’s not surprising I relate to cartoon icons like this. But it’s easy to feel warm and fuzzy about a milk cow. Where it gets a little strange is when the fish counter has a smiling cod cartoon next to the fish sans head. Or the one I saw in Paris some years back. An absolutely giddy rabbit on a placard placed casually next to the skinned bunnies (it was a butcher store).
They’re all over, though. Laughing, singing cartoons of fish sticks, hot dogs, eggs - you name it. Kinda weird, if you think about it.
- And that’s today’s word from the bird
I found your posting by googling Clo the Cow, I just met the president of Clover Stornetta Dairy Co., at a fundraiser for my kid's school, in Petaluma, CA., the hometown of the company headquarters. Borden also made the Elmer's glue product and had 'Elmer the cow' as a mascot for that. Talk about disconnect; "Hey, Elmer the Cow is now Elmer the glue!"
Kind of like those happy, smiling cartoons of rabbits I saw in the butcher stores in France.