Coke Bottle Cap Ornament

Most people can agree on what Santa Claus looks like -- jolly, with a red suit and a white beard. But he did not always look that way, and Coca-Cola® advertising actually helped shape this modern-day image of Santa.

2006 marked the 75th anniversary of the famous Coca-Cola Santa Claus. Starting in 1931, magazine ads for Coca-Cola featured St. Nick as a kind, jolly man in a red suit. Because magazines were so widely viewed, and because this image of Santa appeared for more than three decades, the image of Santa most people have today is largely based on our advertising.

Before the 1931 introduction of the Coca-Cola Santa Claus created by artist Haddon Sundblom, the image of Santa ranged from big to small and fat to tall. Santa even appeared as an elf and looked a bit spooky.

Through the centuries, Santa Claus has been depicted as everything from a tall gaunt man to an elf. He has worn a bishop's robe and a Norse huntsman's animal skin. The modern-day Santa Claus is a combination of a number of the stories from a variety of countries.

The Civil War cartoonist Thomas Nast drew Santa Claus for Harper's Weekly in 1862; Santa was shown as a small elf-like figure who supported the Union. Nast continued to draw Santa for 30 years and along the way changed the color of his coat from tan to the now traditional red. Though some people believe the Coca-Cola Santa wears red because that is the Coke® color, the red suit comes from Nast's interpretation of St. Nick.

The Coca-Cola Company began its Christmas advertising in the 1920s with shopping-related ads in magazines like The Saturday Evening Post. The first Santa ads used a strict-looking Claus, in the vein of Thomas Nast.

At this time, many people thought of Coca-Cola as a drink only for warm weather. The Coca-Cola Company began a campaign to remind people that Coca-Cola was a great choice in any month. This began with the 1922 slogan "Thirst Knows No Season," and continued with a campaign connecting a true icon of winter -- Santa Claus -- with the beverage.

In 1930, artist Fred Mizen painted a department store Santa in a crowd drinking a bottle of Coke. The ad featured the world's largest soda fountain, which was located in the department store of Famous Barr Co. in St. Louis, Mo. Mizen's painting was used in print ads that Christmas season, appearing in The Saturday Evening Post in December 1930.

Archie Lee, the D'Arcy Advertising Agency executive working with The Coca-Cola Company, wanted the next campaign to show a wholesome Santa as both realistic and symbolic. In 1931, The Coca-Cola Company commissioned Michigan-born illustrator Haddon Sundblom to develop advertising images using Santa Claus -- showing Santa himself, not a man dressed as Santa, as Mizen’s work had portrayed him.

For inspiration, Sundblom turned to Clement Clark Moore's 1822 poem "A Visit From St. Nicholas" (commonly called "'Twas the Night Before Christmas"). Moore's description of St. Nick led to an image of Santa that was warm, friendly, pleasantly plump and human. For the next 33 years, Sundblom painted portraits of Santa that helped to create the modern image of Santa -- an interpretation that today lives on in the minds of people of all ages, all over the world.

From 1931 to 1964, Coca-Cola advertising showed Santa delivering (and playing!) with toys, pausing to read a letter and enjoy a Coke, playing with children who stayed up to greet him and raiding the refrigerators at a number of homes. The original oil paintings Sundblom created were adapted for Coca-Cola advertising in magazines, store displays, billboards, posters, calendars and even plush dolls. Many of those items today are popular collectibles.

The Coca-Cola Santa made its debut in 1931 in The Saturday Evening Post and appeared regularly in that magazine, as well as Ladies Home Journal, National Geographic, The New Yorker and others. The instantly popular ad campaign appeared each season, reflecting the times. One ad even featured Santa in a rocket!

Sundblom continued to create new visions of Santa Claus through 1964. For decades after, Coca-Cola advertising has featured Santa’s image based on Sundblom’s original works.

These original paintings by Haddon Sundblom are some of the most prized pieces in the art collection of our Company’s Archives Department, and have been on exhibit around the world, including at the Louvre in Paris, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, the Isetan Department Store in Tokyo and the NK Department Store in Stockholm.

The Coca-Cola Santa has had a powerful, enduring quality that continues to resonate today. Many of the original paintings can be seen on display at World of Coca-Cola Atlanta or touring during the holiday season.

Did you know?
It's a common misconception that Santa wears a red coat because red is the color of Coca-Cola. In fact, Santa appeared in a red coat before artist Haddon Sundblom painted him for Coca-Cola advertising.

People loved the Coca-Cola Santa images and paid such close attention to them, that when anything changed, they sent letters to The Coca-Cola Company. One year, Santa's large belt was backwards (perhaps because artist Haddon Sundblom used himself as a model and painted by looking in a mirror). Another year, Santa Claus appeared without a wedding ring, causing fans to write asking what happened to Mrs. Claus.

In the beginning, artist Haddon Sundblom painted the image of Santa using a live model -- his friend, Lou Prentiss, a retired salesman. When Prentiss passed away, Sundblom used himself as a model, painting while looking into a mirror. After the 1930s, he used photographs to create the image of St. Nick.

The children who appear with Santa Claus in Haddon Sundlbom’s paintings were based on Sundblom's neighbors. However, the neighbors were both girls, and Sundblom simply changed one to a boy in his paintings!

The dog in the 1964 original Santa Claus painting by artist Haddon Sundblom was actually a gray poodle belonging to the neighborhood florist. Sundblom painted the animal with black fur, instead, to make the dog stand out in the holiday scene.

The image of Santa Claus has appeared on cartons for bottles of Coca-Cola since 1931, when artist Haddon Sundblom first created his version of St. Nick. Early cartons completely covered the bottles of Coke -- almost as if they were inside a box -- and had a handle at the very top. The carton itself was created -- and patented -- by the Coca-Cola system. Introduced in 1923, it allowed people to take home more bottles of Coke.

The Coca-Cola Polar Bear stars with Santa Claus on the 2006 store advertising for the U.S. Hispanic market. The Coca-Cola Polar Bear was introduced in 1993 as part of the "Always Coca-Cola" campaign. The first commercial featuring the bear showed was called "Northern Lights" and showed a group of bears watching a "movie" (the aurora borealis) and drinking from bottles of Coca-Cola.

The "Sprite Boy" character, who appeared with Santa Claus and was used in Coca-Cola advertising in the 1940s and 50s, was also created by artist Haddon Sundblom. Though The Coca-Cola Company does have a drink called Sprite®, the Sprite Boy character was not named for the beverage. Sprite Boy's name came because he is a sprite -- an elf. Sprite Boy first appeared in ads in 1942, while the drink Sprite was not introduced until the 1960s.

In 2001, the artwork from Haddon Sundblom's 1962 original painting was used as the basis for an animated TV commercial starring the Coca-Cola Santa. The ad was created by Academy Award-winning animator Alexandre Petrov.

Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends Stickers

In the Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends universe, imaginary friends (or "friends" for short) become physical beings the instant a child imagines them; unlike how the concept often works on other shows, an imaginary friend takes physical and emotional form after a child creates specific details about that character. Unfortunately for them, the children eventually outgrow them around ages 7–8. When this happens, the friends are left to fend for themselves. Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends was founded by the elderly Madame Foster to provide a foster home for abandoned imaginary friends.
There are (according to "Setting a President") 1,340 imaginary friends in Foster's Home; however, at the end of "Emancipation Complication", Madame Foster states that there are 2,038 imaginary friends currently residing in the house, plus Bloo and Mr. Herriman. The house motto is "Where good ideas are not forgotten".
The inspiration came when McCracken and his wife, Lauren Faust, adopted a pair of dogs from an adoption shelter. McCracken wondered how things would be if there was a similar place for childhood imaginary friends.

Cartoon Network Cartoonival Paper Bag

Cartoon Network's first original show was The Moxy Show (produced by Hanna-Barbera Cartoons) and was first aired in 1993. The first series produced by Cartoon Network was Space Ghost Coast to Coast (1994), but the show mostly consisted of "recycled animation cels" from the archives of Hanna-Barbera, being an ironic deconstruction of a talk show. It featured live-action guests, mostly consisting of celebrities which were past their prime or counterculture figures. A running gag was that the production cost was dubbed "minimal". The series found its audience among young adults who appreciated its "hip" perspective.
Kevin Sandler considered that Space Ghost Coast to Coast was instrumental in establishing Cartoon Network's appeal to older audiences. Space Ghost, a 1960s superhero by Hanna-Barbera, was recast as the star of a talk show parody. This was arguably the first time the Network revived a "classic animated icon" in an entirely new context for comedic purposes. Grown-ups who had ceased enjoying the original takes on the characters could find amusement in the "new ironic and self-referential context" for them. Promotional shorts such as the "Scooby-Doo Project", a parody of the The Blair Witch Project, gave similar treatments to the Scooby gang. However, there were less successful efforts at such revivals. A Day in the Life of Ranger Smith and Boo Boo Runs Wild (1999) featured new takes on Yogi Bear's supporting cast by John Kricfalusi. Their "tasteless" humor, sexual content and lack of respect for the source material was rather out of place among the rest of the Cartoon Network shows. These shorts do not seem to have much of a fan-following and the network rarely found a place for them in its programming.
In 1994, Hanna-Barbera's new division Cartoon Network Studios was founded and started production on What-a-Cartoon (promotionally known as World Premiere Toons). This show debuted in 1995, offering original animated shorts commissioned from Hanna-Barbera and various independent animators. The Network promoted the series as an attempt to return to the "classic days" of studio animation, offering full animator control, high budgets, and no limited animation. The project was spearheaded by several Cartoon Network executives, plus John Kricfalusi and Fred Seibert. Kricfalusi was the creator of The Ren & Stimpy Show and served as an advisor to the Network, while Seibert was formerly one of the driving forces behind Nicktoons and would go on to produce the similar animation anthology series Oh, Yeah! Cartoons and Random Cartoons.
Cartoon Network was able to assess the potential of certain shorts to serve as pilots for spin-off series and signed contracts with their creators to create ongoing series. Dexter’s Laboratory was the most popular short series according to a vote held in 1995 and eventually became the first spin-off of What a Cartoon! in 1996. Three more series based on shorts debuted in 1997: Johnny Bravo, Cow and Chicken, and I Am Weasel (the latter two as segments of the same show; later, I Am Weasel was separated and got its own show). These were followed by The Powerpuff Girls in 1998 and concluded with Courage the Cowardly Dog and Mike, Lu & Og in 1999. The unrelated series Ed, Edd n Eddy was also launched in 1999.
These original series were intended to appeal to a wider audience than the average Saturday morning cartoon. Linda Simensky, vice-president of original animation, reminded adults and teenage girls that cartoons could appeal to them as well. Kevin Sandler's article of them claimed that these cartoons were both less "bawdy" than their counterparts at Comedy Central and less "socially responsible" than their counterparts at Nickelodeon. Sandler pointed to the whimsical rebelliousness, high exaggeration, and self-consciousness of the overall output, while each individual series managed to be "visually bold and energetic" in its own way.

Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends Folder

Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends is an American animated television series created and produced at Cartoon Network Studios by animator Craig McCracken, creator of The Powerpuff Girls. It first premiered on Cartoon Network on August 13, 2004, as a 90-minute television movie, which led to a series of half-hour episodes. The series aired on Cartoon Network and its affiliates worldwide, except in Canada where it has aired on English and Francophone Teletoon networks due to Canadian television ownership regulations. The show finished its run on May 3, 2009 with a total of 79 episodes.

In the Foster's universe, imaginary friends take physical form and become real as soon as children think them up. Once the children outgrow them, the friends move to Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, where they stay until other children come to adopt them. The home is run by the elderly Madame Foster, its founder; her friend Mr. Herriman, the business manager; and her granddaughter Frankie, who handles day-to-day operations.
Mac is an eight-year-old boy, whom his mother told that he needs to give up his friend Bloo, who hears about Foster's and thinks it will be a perfect place for him to stay. Bloo moves in with the lanky and one-armed Wilt, the scary-looking but cowardly Eduardo, and the bizarre bird/airplane/tree friend Coco. He is saddened to learn that staying at Foster's makes him eligible for adoption by another child, but eventually Madame Foster makes a special deal: as long as Mac visits every day, Bloo can live there and not be adopted.

Samurai Jack Paper Bag

Samurai Jack is an American animated television series created by animator Genndy Tartakovsky that aired on both Cartoon Network and Toonami from 2001 to 2004. It is noted for its highly detailed, outline-free, masking-based animation, as well as for its cinematic style and pacing. It was the first Cartoon Network original series aside from those who comprised the Cartoon Cartoons lineup at the time. It is shown on its sister network Boomerang.
The plots of individual episodes range from dark and epic to light-hearted and comic, but typically follow "Jack", a time-displaced samurai warrior, in his singular quest to find a method of traveling back in time. Many of the battle scenes in the series are reminiscent of samurai films, and since Jack's robotic enemies "bleed" oil or electricity and monsters and aliens bleed slime or goo, the series is able to exhibit the action of these films while avoiding censorship for violence.
Samurai Jack is no longer available to be viewed by American residents via the Toonami Jetstream website. Production on the show was halted in 2004, but it was never officially ended. In return, Tartakovsky has announced plans to direct a theatrical film, but whether or not it will resolve the series has yet to be announced.
The feature film was reported to be in pre-production as of 2009.

Hotwheels Metal Car

Hot Wheels is a brand of die cast toy car, introduced by American toymaker Mattel in 1968. It was the primary competitor of Matchbox until 1996, when Mattel acquired rights to the Matchbox brand from Tyco.

There were sixteen castings released in 1968, eleven of them designed by Harry Bentley Bradley, with the first one produced being a dark blue Custom Camaro. Although Bradley was from the car industry, he had not designed the fully functional versions of the real cars, except the Dodge Deora concept car, which had been built by Mike and Larry Alexander. Another of his notable designs was the Custom Fleetside, which was based on his own heavily customized '64 El Camino. (Other info...It is more likely that Bradley's heavily customized hot rod was a 67 Chevrolet Pickup Truck...not the 64 El Camino.) Matchbox cars are more city or "real life" cars, while Hot Wheels are more "tricked out" cars.

Of the first 16 cars (sometimes called the "Sweet 16" by collectors), 10 were based upon customized versions of regular production automobiles of the era, and 6 were based upon real show cars and cars designed and built for track racing. All of the cars featured "Spectraflame" paintwork, bearings, redline wheels, and working suspension.
There was one notable difference in the first run production cars and that was a lack of "Door Cuts" in the molded cars. This was thought to be more accurate to the scale as door openings would be nearly invisible at that scale. Also, the sharp edges of the cuts in the molds would quickly wear away from the process of injection. Later they were brought back due to public opinion and toy testing on children.
The metallic "Spectraflame" paintwork also marked out these models from drab enamel of Matchbox cars. The attractive finishes were achieved by firstly polishing the bare metal of the bodyshells and then coating them in a clear colored lacquer, and featured such exotic colors as "Antifreeze", 'Magenta' and "Hot Pink". Because "Hot Pink" was considered a "girls color", it was not used very much on Hot Wheels cars. For most castings, it is the hardest color to find, and today can command prices ten times as high as more common colors.
In order for the cars to go fast on the plastic track, Mattel chose a cheap, durable, low-friction plastic called Delrin to use as a white bushing between the axle and wheel. The result was cars that could go up to scale 200 mph. The bushings were phased out in 1970, and replaced with flush black inner wheels with outer caps. The early years of Hot Wheels are known as the Redline Era as until 1977 the wheels had a red line etched around the tire rim, popular on muscle cars at the time.
The "Torsion Bar" suspension was simple, but flawed. Inside the car, the axles followed a "C"-like shape that was connected to the chassis. When pushed down, the axles would bend like a real car. However the axles were hard to install on the chassis while being assembled and would become detached from the lugs on the baseplate if very hard pressure was applied. Well played with cars would develop an obvious "sag" to the wheels. The suspension was redesigned in 1970 with solid axles mounted on a bar of plastic acting as a spring. Packaged along with the cars were metal badges showing an image of the car so fellow collectors could identify each other and compare collections.
Most importantly, they were designed to run on orange plastic track, which could be placed to make interesting jumps and loops. Motive power was by means of gravity, by attaching the starting point of a course to a table or chair via an included plastic C clamp. A two-lane starting gate was available, allowing two lengths of track to be set up for racing. Later sets had both the starting gate and a finishing flag which would be tripped by the first car. One of the most famous sets was the 1970 Mongoose & Snake Drag Race Set, which reached values as high as $500 during the 1990s, but has since been produced in modified replica form. It featured yellow Plymouth Barracuda and red Plymouth Duster funny cars, loops, jumps, and even an apparatus that would deploy drag chutes after they crossed the finish line, all in a box showing Don Prudhomme and Tom McEwen.
Other sets included a Supercharger that had an electric motor and foam covered wheels that propelled the car around a loop of track as the cars passed through. Accessories included a lap counter and a speedometer. It was the combination of all of these ingredients — speed via the low-friction wheel/axle assembly and racing tires, looks due to Spectraflame paint and mag wheels, plus the inclusion of very American themes such as hot-rod designs based on true American prototypes not seen in great numbers in the competition's product lines — that laid the groundwork for the incredible success story Hot Wheels were to become.

Cartoon Network Cartoonival Notebook

Cartoon Network (abbreviated CN, corporately known as The Cartoon Network, Inc.) is an American cable television network owned by Turner Broadcasting which primarily airs animated programming. The channel was launched on October 1, 1992 after Turner purchased the animation studio Hanna-Barbera Productions in 1991. It was served as a 24-hour outlet for classic animation properties from the Turner Broadcasting libraries and was all-ages-oriented, but now the channel serves as a platform for the up & rising animation medium with various programmes catering to both adult and child audiences respectively.
It also broadcasts many shows, ranging from action to animated comedy. Original series started in 1994 with Space Ghost Coast to Coast, along with Cartoon Cartoons original programmings like Dexter's Laboratory, Johnny Bravo, Cow and Chicken, I Am Weasel, The Powerpuff Girls, Ed, Edd n Eddy and Courage the Cowardly Dog. In 2009, it started airing live-action programming, including movies from Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema.

In 1986, Ted Turner's cable-TV conglomerate acquired most of the pre-May 1986 MGM film and television library (which also included Gilligan's Island and its animated spin-offs, the U.S. rights to a majority of the RKO Radio Pictures library, and the Associated Artists Productions catalog which includes the pre-1950 Warner Bros. feature films, the pre-September 1948 Warner Bros. short subjects, the Harman and Ising Merrie Melodies except Lady, Play Your Mandolin!, the pre-August 1948 color Warner Bros. cartoons, and the Fleischer Studios and Famous Studios Popeye cartoons released by Paramount Pictures). In 1988, its cable channel Turner Network Television was launched and had gained an audience with its film library. In 1991, it purchased animation studio Hanna-Barbera Productions and acquired its large library as well as most of the Ruby-Spears library.

At 12PM ET on October 1, 1992, Cartoon Network was launched as an outlet for Turner's considerable library of animation, and the initial programming on the channel consisted exclusively of reruns of classic Warner Bros. cartoons (the pre-August 1948 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies), the 1933–1957 Popeye cartoons, MGM cartoons, and Hanna-Barbera cartoons.[citation needed] At first, cable providers in New York City, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., and Detroit carried the channel. By the time the network launched, Cartoon Network had a 8,500 hour cartoon library. From its launch until 1995, the network's announcers said the network's name with the word "The" added before "Cartoon Network", thus calling the network "The Cartoon Network".
Cartoon Network was not the first cable channel to have relied on cartoons to attract an audience. Nickelodeon had paved the way in the 1980s. On August 11, 1991, Nickelodeon had launched three "high-profile" animated series: Doug, The Ren & Stimpy Show, and Rugrats, further signifying the importance of cartoons in its programming. The Disney Channel and the Family Channel had also included animated shows in their programming. In each of these cases, until 11:59AM ET on October 1, 1992, cartoons were only broadcast during the morning or the early afternoon. Prime time and late night television hours were reserved for live-action programs, following the assumption that television animation could only attract child audiences, while Cartoon Network was a 24-hour single-genre channel with animation as its main theme. Turner Broadcasting System had defied conventional wisdom before by launching CNN, a channel providing 24-hours news coverage. The concept was previously thought unlikely to attract a sufficient audience to be particularly profitable, however the CNN experiment had been successful and Turner could hope that the Network could also find success.
Initially, the channel would broadcast cartoons 24/7. Most of the short cartoons were aired in half-hour or hour-long packages, usually separated by character or studio—Down Wit' Droopy D aired old Droopy Dog shorts, The Tom and Jerry Show presented the classic cat-and-mouse team, and Bugs and Daffy Tonight provided classic Looney Tunes shorts. Late Night Black and White showed early black-and-white cartoons (mostly from the Fleischer Studios and Walter Lantz cartoons from 1930s), and ToonHeads, which would show three shorts with a similar theme and provide trivia about the cartoons. There was also an afternoon cartoon block called High Noon Toons which was hosted by cowboy hand puppets (an example of the simplicity and imagination the network had in the early years). The majority of the classic animation that was shown on Cartoon Network no longer airs on a regular basis, with the exception of Tom and Jerry, Looney Tunes, The Flintstones, and The Jetsons as of January 12, 2012.
The first challenge for Cartoon Network was to overcome its low penetration of existing cable systems. When launched in October 1992, the channel was only carried by 233 cable systems. However, it benefited from package deals. New subscribers to sister stations TNT and WTBS could also get access to Cartoon Network through such deals. The high ratings of Cartoon Network over the following couple of years led to more cable systems including it. By the end of 1994, Cartoon Network had become "the fifth most popular cable channel in the United States".

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