Marketing and advertising
By 1955, just one year after Trix's market debut, General Mills experimented with a rabbit puppet as a potential Trix mascot.[7] Joe Harris, a copywriter and illustrator at the Dancer Fitzgerald Sample advertising agency, created the trademark animated "Silly Rabbit", who debuted in a 1959 television commercial for the cereal.[1][8][9] Harris also wrote the famous Trix tagline, "Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids!", which is still used in General Mills' commercial campaigns. It is also used at the end of every commercial: children state to the rabbit that the cereal itself is for them only.[1][8]
Chet Stover, creative director of the Trix account at Dancer Fitzgerald Sample, fully credited Harris with the creation of the Trix rabbit after viewing the new character in its 1959 television commercial for the cereal.[1][8] In an internal memo to Dancer Fitzgerald Sample employees, Stover wrote, "In a business where the only thing we have to sell are ideas, it is of first importance the credit is given where credit belongs — and Joe gets all the credit for this one."[1][8]
The Trix Rabbit—voiced by Mort Marshall in earlier commercials, and by Russell Horton in later commercials—is an anthropomorphic cartoon rabbit who finds children and wants to trick the children into giving him a bowl of cereal. He bursts with enthusiasm but is discovered every time. The kids always reprimand him with the signature phrase: "Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids!" at the end of the commercials.[10] These ads in the late 1960s and early 1970s sometimes closed with the Trix Rabbit following up with "And sometimes for tricky rabbits!" (This happened in case he managed to have a taste or he had a secret stash.) The Trix Rabbit originated as a puppet before he was animated. The plight of the Trix Rabbit has drawn comparisons to Sisyphus, a Greek figure who was doomed to endlessly repeat a futile task.[11] He did succeed in obtaining and eating Trix cereal on occasion, including five times as the result of a box top mail-in contest (1968, 1976, 1980, 1984, and 1991) titled "Let The Rabbit Eat Trix".[12] The results of the vote were overwhelmingly "yes", and the Trix Rabbit was depicted in a subsequent commercial enjoying a bowl of Trix.[13] Children who voted received a button based upon their vote in the election. In 1991, the Trix Rabbit won a Tour de Trix Bicycle Race. At the end of the race, two judges are arguing about whether or not the Trix Rabbit should get the prize.
In commercials from 1967, the 1970s, and the 1980s, the Trix Rabbit disguised himself to get the cereal, employing costumes as diverse as a balloon vendor, a painter and an American Indian. One alternate slogan for the cereal was, "Oranges, Lemons, and Grapes I see; the fruit taste of Trix is all for me!". Once, Bugs Bunny helped the Trix Rabbit in an attempt to get the cereal.[15]
The Trix Rabbit's popularity led him to appear in commercials for other products, such as a Got Milk? advertisement, in which he disguises himself as a man (played by Harland Williams) taking Trix from a grocery store but realizing he is out of milk, much to his distress.[16]
