M&M's Hairy M&M Campaign

Tony the Tiger, Toucan Sam, Lucky the Leprechaun, Count Chocula. Saturday mornings, they all hocked sweet stuff in between cartoons. But while Count Chocula vanted you to eat his sugary cereal, Red and Yellow— the giant humanoid M&Ms that have been representing the candy brand on TV for years — want you to eat their bodies. Sure, it's been a running gag: Red and Yellow making a joke out of everyone wanting to eat them. But the new and graphics-improved M&Ms really challenge the notion of edible salesman.

These new M&Ms have detailed facial features and hairdos. Some even look like members of the Addams Family. And online, you can customize your very own M&M to look like you. But the problem is: who wants to eat themselves?

At some point, Mars, Inc. went too far. The old Red and Yellow ads were witty and cartoonish to the point that they weren't creepy. But the more hair you put on a piece of chocolate, the less appealing that piece of chocolate becomes.

We already distance ourselves from the sources of our food as much as possible — few city folk would eat meat if they had to see it slaughtered, let alone slaughter it themselves. Food is preferred in neat, unrecognizable packages. Pork or beef, rather than pig or cow. In other words, while it may be acceptable for a cow to advertise California cheese in a human voice, give that same cow a peg leg and an eye patch, and hawking hamburgers hits too close to home.

This is not to say that there haven't been other spokes-creatures seemingly in favor of their own extinction; individuals who, for the sake of their own skins, have advocated the eating of their fellows. Chiquita banana and Mr. Peanut come to mind as flamboyant blood traitors. But in the case of Chiquita, the company wised up and the little Latin banana was transformed into a human, a Carmen Miranda-esque character with bananas spilling from her fruit hat. And in the case of Mr. Peanut, there is little that seems human in his appearance, and moreover, the features that are recognizable as human are anachronistic. Mr. Peanut looks like a Tycoon from the 20s — more like the guy on the Monopoly box than an actual human contemporary.

The new M&Ms, however, have Mohawks, soul patches, and pouty lips. They skateboard, they run marathons, they break dance. But regardless of how attractive, rotund, or fit these M&Ms appear, the one thing they are not doing is getting eaten, on or off screen. And it's not surprising — this would veer much too close to plain old cannibalism.

Building awkwardly on the old M&M campaign, the latest ads from Mars, Inc. shed unfortunate new light on the catchphrase "melts in your mouth, not in your hands."

— Colin Alexander (colin_alexander at hotmail dot com)