The company that brought their best to you each morning also filled the airwaves with catchy jingles to accompany the cartoons they sponsored in the Baby Boom era.
A KELLOGG CONCERT OF BEST CEREAL SELLERS
Words and Music by “Philmore Bowls”
Kellogg’s Promotional Record 22985/22980 (10” 33 1/3 LP)
Released in 1965. Commercial Version of “Good Morning Song” Published by Famous Music Corp. Running Time: 23 minutes.
Songs: “Good Morning Song,” “Corn Rouser,” “Live it Up,” “Counterpoint,” “Spice of Life,” “Ballad of Sugar Pops Pete,” “Tony’s Song,” “Hillbilly Goat Song,” “Froot Loops Song,” “Triple Snack,” “Snickety Snack,” “Raisin Rock,” “Rock Island Henry,” “Languages,” “Good Morning Song (Reprise).”
Kellogg’s and Hanna-Barbera were a dynamic partnership when the studio launched the immensely successful Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear and Quick Draw McGraw Shows. The Colpix soundtrack albums proudly placed Kellogg’s boxes on their earliest covers.
Although Kellogg’s sponsored other kid’s shows, like Woody Woodpecker, their bond with Hanna-Barbera crisscrossed greatly, as the commercial jingles found their way into cartoon themes and H-B artists brought Kellogg’s own characters to life on boxes and in TV spots.
The “Good Morning Song” on this particular album—A Kellogg Concert of Best Cereal Sellers—is what can be heard during the openings to several H-B shows. Ironically, Famous Music Co. copyrights it, which is Paramount’s music arm and the source of their animation studio’s name.
The Concert album was basically a collection of demos for sales execs so they could get a feel for Kellogg’s various campaigns and to perhaps inspire ways for using them for radio, TV and in-store promotions. Side Two contains instrumentals to make any number of concepts possible. It’s a vivid echo of the era, brightly orchestrated and performed (with a sprinkle of political incorrectness).
The songs are very nostalgic for those who enjoyed those snappy jingles of the early ‘60s. But the cover is what makes it particularly fascinating for cartoon fans. As Tony the Tiger conducts, an orchestra of Kellogg’s and Hanna-Barbera characters plays, including Hillbilly Goat, Sugar Pops Pete, Quick Draw McGraw, Huckleberry Hound, Snagglepuss, Yogi Bear and in the background I’m guessing it’s Pixie or Dixie and Cindy Bear. Despite their presence on the cover, the record either leaves the characters off or does not represent them with the original voices.
“They managed to simulate some character voices (Jinks, Tony, Toucan Sam, etc.) without using any of the original soundtracks,” says Tim Hollis, author of Part of a Complete Breakfast, which should be part of every complete home library. “Even without any visuals, one can still identify which characters are supposed to be speaking! (And of course, the ‘fake Toucan Sam’ is imitating the Blanc version of the voice, not the later Frees one.)” Leo Burnett is a Chicago agency, so the music and voice work may have originated there rather than in Los Angeles, where Butler, Messick, Ravenscroft and company were located. (Jinks actually sounds a little like Jim Henson.)
Don Yowp addresses this issue and more about the record on his superb website.
GIVE A LITTLE LISTEN
“Snap Crackle Pop Tunes”
This is another collection of Kellogg’s songs from 1983. The “Snap, Crackle, Pop” song was written by H.B. Winkless, Jr. a creative director at the Leo Burnett agency. He has my undying gratitude for co-writing the Banana Splits classic, “The Beautiful Calliopasaxaviatrumparimbaclaribassatrombophone,” with the legendary Hoyt Curtin for The Banana Splits (we explored the Splits here).
GREG EHRBAR is a freelance writer/producer for television, advertising, books, theme parks and stage. Greg has worked on content for such studios as Disney, Warner and Universal, with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars. His numerous books include Mouse Tracks: The Story of Walt Disney Records (with Tim Hollis). Visit 
I guess the link to cartoon characters lasted until Kelloggs began adding commercials featuring prime time TV show characters from Superman (George Reeves) to the Monkees. I always have to laugh when I see those ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN ads for Kelloggs cereals, with Perry White getting angrier and angrier simply because he doesn’t have his bowl of cereal! But I digress; ah those were the days when the sponsor intruded on the opening credits to some of our favorite animated cartoons. It kinda ruins it when the shows are released to home video, as we’ve seen with the release of “THE MAGILLA GORILLA SHOW”, and that was well after Kelloggs was sponsoring the shows. In a semi-related note, one of my favorite classic Kelloggs ads was the one in which two actors are simulating that painting of a farmer and his wife and the pitchfork, just standing there as stiff as the painting, singing the Country Corn Flakes song. But didn’t they issue a collector’s CD years back of many, many jingles of all kinds, with one of the disks in the series especially devoted to the Kelloggs jingles? I never bought ’em, because much of the contents wasn’t really the official scores from the TV commercials and, if they were, the source material was not nearly as good. Nice try, though, and the disks were part of a larger series around classic TV show themes. Guess I’ll never get those catchy jingles out of my head. Thanks to Warner Brothers for issuing the first volume of “THE HUCKLEBERRY HOUND SHOW” which featured some terrific Kelloggs ads and even gave us the original full uncut opening credits to the show. I urge anyone who can find that set to buy it, because it is as close to the genuine article as we’re ever going to see again…unless they decide to release the rest of the series on DVD with even more Kelloggs ads of the period and antics and bumpers. Hey, WB, you’ve got the audience right here!!
Is this the album, Kevin?
http://www.amazon.com/Tee-Vee-Toons-Greatest-Hits/dp/B000000GOR?ie=UTF8&keywords=tee%20vee%20toons%20commercials&qid=1460490200&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1
Country Corn Flakes weren’t a Kellogg product; they were the competition, made by General Mills. I remember that commercial fondly too, but it ran in the Jay Ward and TTV shows “Big G” sponsored (among other places…)
The Snap-Crackle-Pop jingle (Snap, what a happy sound…) was sung by the male contingent of a vocal group called The J’s With Jamie, who sang literally hundreds of commercials in the 60’s, and made a few LPS for Columbia Records as well. You can hear a bunch of their jingles at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EFv2HArEDc
The Good Morning Song also shows up at the start of the Fleischer’s 1937 Popeye cartoon “Protek the Weakerist“, as well as background musing in a few other assorted Paramount cartoons of the 1930s, which would match up with the Famous Music connection.
Ah, fascinating! Thanks very much for that info!
Was this kind of advertising effective? Let me tell you a story.
Once there was a little boy who liked two things almost as much as anything in the world: watching cartoons and playing around with his dad’s tape recorder …
https://soundcloud.com/peter-mork-1/kelloggs
“Good Morning” was a 1937 song, recorded by a number of artists of the day–the version that comes to mind is the Decca release by Dick Robertson. Kellogg’s got the license to use this song, and it also shows up in the sponsor tag on those episodes of “The Beverly Hillbillies” where Kellogg’s (instead of Winston cigarettes) was the main sponsor.
This is not to be confused with “Good Morning”, a 1940 song owned by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and associated with the young Judy Garland.
“Good Mornin’, Good Mornin'” was written by Sam Coslow and was first performed by Martha Raye in the 1937 Paramount feature MOUNTAIN MUSIC. I saw it a couple of years ago and almost fell out of my seat when she started singing that familiar tune.