Talk about putting two things together that you wouldn’t expect — The Monkees and Bugs Bunny selling Kool-Aid!
But the first thing I noticed was that there are only three Monkees here. Peter Tork had already left the group in December 1968, leaving Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones and Michael Nesmith to carry on as a trio. By this point their NBC television series was over too, but that wasn’t the end of The Monkees on television.
In the fall of 1969, CBS brought the show back as Saturday morning reruns, and General Foods’ Kool-Aid was a sponsor. That explains a lot about why these commercials exist. The Monkees were suddenly being introduced to kids all over again, and Kool-Aid had three very recognizable spokesmen ready to go.
Bugs Bunny wasn’t new to Kool-Aid either. I found that the “Make Friends with Kool-Aid” campaign was already using Bugs several years earlier, so pairing him with The Monkees was really a combination of two existing advertising ideas.
There’s another interesting connection from this period. Their 1969 album The Monkees Present was also tied into a Kool-Aid promotion. The group was well past peak Monkeemania by then, Peter was gone and Michael Nesmith would soon leave too.
And for anyone wondering where the Kool-Aid Man is — he wasn’t the television star yet! That familiar walking pitcher didn’t make his big TV debut until 1975.
Looking back, this commercial is almost a snapshot of The Monkees right near the end of their original run.
Do you remember this commercial, or do you remember The Monkees more from their Saturday morning reruns?
