Sunny Jim

"Sunny Jim", depicted on an early box of Force Cereal

"Sunny Jim" is the name of two completely unconnected characters used in advertising and product branding: (1) a cartoon character created to promote Force cereal, the first commercially successful wheat flake; (2) the name of a brand of peanut butter produced in the Seattle area.

Sunny Jim and Force cereal

The character on boxes of Force cereal was created in the United States in 1902 by writer Minnie Maud Hanff and artist Dorothy Ficken, initially for an advertising campaign. Rather than selling the benefits of eating wheat, which Hanff assumed customers already knew, her copy for the original advertisements told stories in verse, such as this one:

Jim Dumps was a most unfriendly man,

Who lived his life on the hermit plan;

In his gloomy way he'd gone through life,

And made the most of woe and strife;

Till Force one day was served to him

Since then they've called him "Sunny Jim."

The advertisements featured slogans such as "Better than a Vacation” and “A Different Food for Indifferent Appetites.” Other verses included:

Whatever you say, wherever you've been,

You can't beat the cereal, that raised Sunny Jim!

and

High o'er the fence leaps Sunny Jim,

Force is the food that raises him

This last rhyme became a familiar catchphrase.

Also used was the slogan "When skies are grey and times are grim, wake up and smile with Sunny Jim", which appeared on advertising coins.

The campaign was wildly successful at promoting the character of Sunny Jim. Printer's Ink stated that “No current novel or play is so universally popular. He is as well-known as President Roosevelt or J. Pierpont Morgan.” However, the cereal company turned its advertising account over to a different firm, which did not approve of humor in advertising and more or less abandoned the campaign.

In the United States, Force followed a convoluted path involving many corporate mergers. The last owner stopped producing the cereal in 1983. Both the cereal and Sunny Jim had greater success in the United Kingdom, where Force cereal is still available and the box still features a picture of Sunny Jim.

Sunny Jim Peanut Butter

The brand of peanut butter known as Sunny Jim was manufactured in Seattle, Washington by the Pacific Standard Foods company. The company was founded by Germanus Wilhelm Firnstahl, who modelled the apple-cheeked character seen on the jars on his son, Lowell. During the 1950s the brand accounted for nearly a third of all peanut butter sold in the Seattle area. The company was sold in 1979 for $3 million to the Bristol Bay Native Corp. A large sign on the factory building made the "Sunny Jim building" on Airport Way South a familiar landmark to motorists passing on nearby Interstate 5. In 1997, there was a fire at the plant which destroyed the sign and a portion of the building. On September 20, 2010 a massive fire finished off the Sunny Jim plant as well as a vacant building on the factory site. The main advertisement for Sunny Jim was "Sunny Jim has underground peanuts with a flavor that's outta sight".

Other uses

• James White, a musician living and performing in the Cayman Islands whose music is played regularly on Radio Margaritaville is also known as "Sunny Jim". https://sunnyjim.com/About_sunnyjim.html
• Nickname of James Rolph (1869–1934), American politician.
• Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons (1874–1966) was a famous thoroughbred horse trainer.
• Nickname of James Mackay (1880–1953), Australian cricketer.
• Nickname of James Young of Celtic FC (1882 - 1922), one of Celtic's greatest ever players
• James Joyce (1882–1941), when young, was sometimes called "Sunny Jim" by family members.
• Performing name of juvenile film actor "Sunny Jim McKeen"(born Lawrence David McKeen Jr.), sometimes billed only as "Sunny Jim" (1924-1933).
• Nickname of Jim Bottomley (1900–1959), American baseball player.
• James Callaghan, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1976 to 1979, was nicknamed 'Sunny Jim' for his optimistic forecasting to the public.
• By the 1920s, "Sunny Jim" had become a popular sobriquet for someone who is being grumpy.
• Jolyon Wagg, a fictional character from The Adventures of Tintin, in the story Tintin and the Picaros, explains "Sunny Jim" designed the costumes for the carnival troupe, the Jolly Follies. He is referring to himself.
• General Alexander A. Vandegrift, 18th Commandant of the Marine Corps, was known as "Sunny Jim," a nickname given to him by his mentor Smedley J. Butler [1]
• At the La Jolla Cove beach in San Diego, California, there is a sea cave called "Sunny Jim Cave." When the cave is viewed from a certain angle, the opening of the cave bears a striking similarity to the cartoon character. The cave is accessible by swimming from the cove, but also is accessible from a neaby store that charges a nominal fee to walk down some in-store steps leading to the cave.
• Jed Stone, a character on the UK soap opera Coronation Street, had a cat named "Sunny Jim".
• There is a British hero in DC Comics called Sunny Jim. He appears on Superman #689 and is depicted as a working class superhero.
• In The Andy Griffith Show episode "Man in a Hurry", Barney promises to get Thelma Lou some frozen "Sunny Jim" bars.

See also

• Force (cereal)
• List of breakfast cereal advertising characters

External links

Seattle Times stories about Sunny Jim peanut butter (registration required):

• Fire Destroys I-5 Landmark -- Warehouse That Housed Sunny Jim (Peanut Butter) Plant Burns
• Celeste F. Rogge, Who Inherited The Sunny Jim (Peanut Butter) Fortune, Dies At 84
• "The Case for Sunny Jim: An Advertising Legend Revisited" by Eileen Margerum in Sextant, the journal of Salem State College (cereal)