If you listened to Dave Berns interview me on KNPR, you heard my shocking revelation that I used to work as Mr. Peanut. Actually, it’s not that shocking, but “shocking revelation” sounds better than “talking about a past summer job.” So you can imagine my excitement at reading this article in the Atlantic City Press:
Mr. Peanut – and his signature snack – are making a comeback.
During the lean years of the Great Depression, a 5-cent bag of roasted peanuts was known as “The Nickel Lunch.”
In 2006, with Americans eating low-carb, high-protein foods, domestic peanut consumption has risen to all-time highs.
And in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Planters Peanuts, the promotional icon Mr. Peanut, born in 1916 and beckoning to Atlantic City Boardwalk visitors for generations, will make a permanent return to the Jersey Shore this summer – as a statue.
The top hat-doffing, spats-sporting, monocled legume will be enshrined in bronze in July at Kennedy Plaza near Boardwalk Hall, Planters officials said. It’s part of a year of celebrations for the company and its corporate dandy, including a nationwide tour in a bright yellow Nut-Mobile and an online contest to add a new accouterment – cuff links? a pocket watch? – to Mr. Peanut’s ensemble.
“There is a really deep connection to Atlantic City for both Planters and Mr. Peanut,” said Heath Osburn, senior brand manager for Planters. “You can’t help but find someone from the Northeast who … will tell you, ‘When we’d go down to the shore, we’d go to the Boardwalk and we’d always see Mr. Peanut.'”
That’s because for much of the 20th century – certainly in the pre-television era – the place to reach a mass audience of would-be consumers was in locales such as Manhattan’s Times Square and along the Boardwalk.
According to the Atlantic City Historical Museum, the seaside resort was home to Underwood’s “World’s Largest Typewriter,” a 12-foot tall rubber Goodyear tire, and thousands of light bulbs flashing out the good news about razor blades, corsets and cigarettes.
Planters was founded by Amedeo Obici, an Italian immigrant who sold peanuts from his uncle’s fruit stand in Wilkes Barre, Pa. In 1896, the 19-year-old entrepreneur built a crude peanut roaster, peddling his wares by horse and wagon. Within a decade he established the Planters Nut Company. His business kept growing, and in 1913 Obici built a mass processing plant in Suffolk, Va. Three years later the Mr. Peanut icon was born of a drawing a school child submitted to the company.
In 1930, the company opened a shop on the Atlantic City Boardwalk, with the aroma of freshly roasted nuts wafting in the sea breeze.
“That was a beautiful store,” recalled Herb Stern, vice chairman of the historical museum. “You could smell it on the Boardwalk a block away.
“Outside there was a man dressed up in the peanut costume,” Stern recalled. “He’d give out little samples. They were supposed to be for adults, but kids always snuck by. If you were lucky, you could sneak by two or three times.”
The store and Mr. Peanut flourished in Atlantic City even after the company sold off its other 100-plus shops across the nation, recalled Leo Yeager III, who worked in the store in front of the Steel Pier through the 1960s.
“It took up about half a block,” said Yeager, who now runs his own Boardwalk Peanuts in three local casinos, and on the Ocean City Boardwalk. “There were seven peanut roasters in the window. It was really unique because preparation was done right in front of the public.”
The final decades of the century were not as kind to Mr. Peanut, however. Heightened awareness of food allergies and fad diets banishing all but the lowest fat foods pushed nuts out of many Americans’ meals. The Atlantic City shop closed in the mid-1970s.
Now part of Chicago-based Kraft Food Inc., Planters is headquartered in East Hanover Township, Morris County.
Atlantic City icon Mr. Peanut returning to Shore
What the article doesn’t mention is that Leo Yeager revived Mr. Peanut in the early 1990s at his Tropicana store. I worked for Leo in that role for a memorable summer.
Probably the dumbest thing to happen to me was when a local reporter tried to interview me–in character. Of course, I didn’t have too much of an iidea of what Mr. Peanut’s backstory was–Leo just gave me the shell and white gloves and told me to buy black pants and shoes–so mostly I waved and twirled my cane. The reporter ended up making up a bunch of stuff, which I guess played better in print.
I never gave out samples, and my job was mostly to stand there, wave, vaguely gesture towards the store, pose for pictures, and try to avoid getting blasted in the package by rambunctious kids. Good training for my current job, I guess.