An advertising icon has passed...and is noted on any number of queer blogs (JMG to start) because of the queer subtext of the character. Mr. Whipple was undeniably queer, a Franklin Pangborn of fussiness who was hated roundly as annoying by not only the general public, but by his own creators at Benton and Bowles, as told in the classic on how to create good adveritising "Hey Whipple, Squeeze This:"
"I was assigned to assassinate Mr. Whipple. Some of New York's best hit teams before me had tried and failed. The agency that created him was determined to kill him."
Nevertheless, the campaign ran for 21 years because "Charmin may not have been popular advertising, but it was number one in sales." Which goes back to a discussion yesterday on JMG about the advertising for British Tourism in Belgium. But I digress....so what's the connection between Whipple and Senator Craig? The analysis is right there in the NY Times obituary:
"In hundreds of maligned but effective television commercials, running from 1964 to 1985, the punch line was the Mr. Whipple himself secretly squeezed the product..."
Just like a closeted Republican with homosexual desires, Whipple told other people what not to do, then guiltily did it himself. And got caught again and again. It's a pattern we are all familiar with, though many people close there eyes to it and live in denial. Culturally Whipple blows the whistle: we all know.
On another note, the nature of a "queer" ad spokesman selling soft toilet paper has the less than conscious communication that who better to tell you what's good to put against your butthole than a gay man?
Of course, the actor who played Whipple was straight. But the character? We all know. It's the open secret out there for all to see on Capitol HIll.
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