On a Sugar High with Rosie, Roy and Three Bears

Promotional labels; picture sleeve for commercial release

This post presents a 1951 promotional record for Sugar Crisp cereal featuring Roy Rogers, Rosemary Clooney, and three cute bears. But before we get to the record, some background might be helpful.

When Post's Sugar Crisp cereal came out in 1948, it quickly became popular with children, if not dentists because it was literally more sugar than cereal. Post's ad agency, Benton & Bowles, came up with a memorable (and lengthy) tag line, "For breakfast, it's dandy. For snacks, it's so handy. Or eat it like candy." Like candy? It was (and still is) candy.

B&B conceived the idea of having three bears as a mascot for the cereal - Dandy, Handy and Candy - who appeared in Sugar Crisp ads. (There's one below.) In 1951, the agency decided the bears needed a song, and tunesmiths Alan and Marilyn Scott set to work. Then B&B arranged for Rosemary Clooney to record the result, "Dandy, Handy and Candy," for Columbia records.

Rosemary Clooney

Now, the record does not push the cereal, per se. Instead the Scotts invented a tale of the bears living in a hollow tree, wanting something bigger, building a house, becoming disenchanted with the upkeep, and moving back to the hollow tree. Rosie Clooney managed to make all this charming.

Post then set up a deal where cereal buyers could get both the record and sheet music. Cash Box magazine reported they expected to move some 50,000 discs that way.

Dandy, Handy and Candy sell the product

But for this post we're presenting a different promotion for the same record, apparently designed to be sent to merchants. On one side we have Rosie with the "Dandy, Handy and Candy" song. On the other we hear from singing cowboy and TV/radio star Roy Rogers, whose programs were sponsored by Post cereals. In addition to some folderol involving wife/sidekick Dale Evans and dog/sidekick Bullet, Roy breezily mentions a brochure providing the details of the promotion, while explaining that comical sidekick Pat Brady was off working on his Jeep, Nelliebelle. He concludes by singing a splendid Western swing number, "San Antone," which, if truth be told, beats the heck out of "Dandy, Handy and Candy."

I don't know if all this sold any cereal or not. It couldn't have hurt because Sugar Crisp was very popular, and I ate it myself occasionally. I even remember the tag line and the bears.

A few decades later the Federal Communications Commission banned such product tie-ins aimed at children.

If you want to know more about Sugar Crisp cereal (now known as Golden Crisp in the US) and an exhaustive delineation of its evolving bear mascots, please see this discussion by blogger Dan Brady.

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