Presenting the hero you never knew you needed:
Buffalo Bee? What the frak is a Buffalo Bee?
Well, duh, he's an anthropomorphic bee cowboy in a funny animal universe!
And he's not alone...he's got a girlfriend named Honey!!
Despite being (sort of) human-sized, he retains many of his bee abilities...
Heck, he comes wonderfully close to being a super-hero cowboy:
But where did Buffalo Bee come from?
Well, this ad on the back cover kind of lays it out:
Yes, Buffalo Bee was the "mascot" of Nabsico Wheat Honeys and Rice Honeys breakfast cereals!
Lest we're unclear on his origins, check out the copyright notice from the front cover:
Oh, Dell, you gave an entire comic book over to product placement!! How very ahead of the times you were!!
Along with this issue --Four Color #1002 (1959)--Buffalo Bee made two other comic appearances--in #957 (1958) and #1061 (1960). So Dell was relatively committed to taking the money and convincing kids to eat these no doubt extra healthy cereals.
Of course, this is really no different than, say, Kool-Aid Man having his own comic books. But we like to think of the 1950s as a more innocent time, advertising-wise. Not so much.
Still, now we know that the "comic book starring cartoon breakfast cereal spokescreature" barrier has been broken, the question must be asked:
WHERE THE HELL ARE MY CAPTAIN CRUNCH COMIC BOOKS?!?!?!
Oh, there are plenty of others they could give us, too. The adventures of Count Chocula? Sugar Bear? Tony The Tiger?
But man, a Captain Crunch comic book...he could team up with Aquaman, for heaven's sake!!!
Someone make this happen.
2 comments:
I'm not sure why, but I see Cap'n Crunch as a villain for Aquaman...
I believe you meant that Aqua Man was a villain for Cap'n Crunch.
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