The dance of King Vitaman: Shoddy Goods 081How a vaudeville hoofer shuffled his way into breakfast royalty
Gather ‘round, children, and let Gramps tell you of a time when all you had to amuse you over breakfast was the cereal box. I’m Jason Toon and in this Shoddy Goods, the newsletter from Meh, I discover the fascinating tale behind the guy who ruled over many a breakfast chez Toon… OK, I don’t think of myself as that old. So sometimes I’m amazed to remember the survivors of early 20th century showbiz who were still alive and active by the time I was old enough to notice them. When I was a kid, George Burns (born in 1896) was as famous and active as ever, as was Bob Hope (born 1903). A couple of the later, lesser Three Stooges were still alive. And Bette Davis (born 1908) was still batting her famous eyes in the occasional TV movie. Little did I know one of those echoes of vaudeville was at my breakfast table.
Crunchy is the bowl that wears the crownsMaybe because it had less sugar than other breakfast cereals, or maybe because it was cheaper, we ate a lot of King Vitaman when I was a kid. This Quaker Oats product was a sort of watered-down Cap’n Crunch, which I guess tells us that in the hierarchy of Cerealland, a Cap’n outranks a King. The yellow-orange pieces were presumably supposed to be crowns but came out looking more like eight-pointed stars. I was never disappointed or excited to see King Vitaman on the table. It was an adequate, just-above-replacement-level cereal, less bland than Kix or Cheerios but far short of a top-tier champion like Apple Jacks or Golden Grahams. The most distinctive thing about King Vitaman was the box. Instead of a cartoon character, Quaker went with this human actor in a crown of spoons spray-painted gold, which always seemed a little chintzy even to my undiscriminating kid’s eye. Aside from his age, there was nothing especially regal about him; with his bushy eyebrows and unkempt hair, smiling over a poised spoonful of crunchy yellow chunks, he seemed more goofy than kingly, more friendly than imperious. (His original box was even goofier.) The Vitamanness of King GeorgeThis live-action version of the title character, it turns out, dated from a series of King Vitaman TV commercials that ended when I was too young to remember. Indeed, I wouldn’t be surprised if both box photos were taken at the same commercial shoot in 1972. Incidentally, those TV spots answer another question I’d always had: was it pronounced just like “vitamin”, or with an emphasis on the “man” ending? There’s no ambiguity in the jingle’s repeated refrain of “King VitaMAN!”
The actor’s name was George Mann, and he’d had a fascinating career in show business for some 50 years before he landed this gig. As you can see, King Vitaman did originally have a cartoon mascot on the box like everybody else. But Mann’s amiable portrayal was effective enough to graduate him to permanent mascot. His place on the cereal box outlasted the commercials, and George Mann himself. The ad campaign came to an end because of Mann’s death in 1977. By then he was so firmly entrenched as the face of King Vitaman that he’d stay on the box for a couple more decades. It may have been his most famous role - but far from his most interesting one. Mannzapoppin’In 1926, Mann made his professional entertaining debut as one half of the comedic dance duo Barto and Mann. Their gimmick was the height difference between the 6’6” Mann and his 4’11” partner Dewey Barto. They toured around the country for the next dozen years, eventually settling into a Broadway residency as part of the company for the vaudeville revival show Hellzapoppin’. (By 1938, vaudeville was already old-hat enough to be a nostalgia item.) Sadly, no film of Barto & Mann performing is currently available online. A 1938 Life magazine spread captures a few stills of a “grotesque dance act” called “Maternity Ward” that the duo did while on Broadway. “Grotesque” is a good description, with the beanpole Mann as a giant baby tormenting the squat Barto. It may have just been too weird for the film version of Hellzapoppin’ a few years later.
Mann would keep acting here and there, but his passion shifted to behind the camera. He had long toted a still camera and a 16mm film camera along on tour, capturing both everyday scenes of Depression-era life and clowning around with famous friends like the Three Stooges. But Mann pursued photography more seriously in the years after World War II, inventing his own 3D stereoscopic photo viewer, and tape playback components that later found their way into the 8-track tape format. His photos reveal an extraordinary talent. I’m no photography expert, but to me his documentary eye is up there with greats like Walker Evans and Weegee, and his candids of other showbiz stars are an invaluable cultural treasure. Somebody publish a book of George Mann photos and please take my money. When I pulled a loose string in my memory marked “what was the deal with that King Vitaman guy?”, I had no idea what I would unravel. It just goes to show you that you never know what kind of story some goofball on a cereal box might have to tell.
In our house, I was limited to Cheerios, Total, and the occasional Life, based on some sugar-not-in-the-first-two-ingredients rule. But when Christmas hit, we got tiny boxes of the sugar-iest cereal and I had a week or so of hanging out with Cap’n Crunch, Toucan Sam, and Count Chocula. What was your go-to cereal growing up? And who were your favorite cereal mascots? Let’s hear about ‘em in this week’s Shoddy Goods chat. These past Shoddy Goods stories are a nutritious part of a balanced breakfast:
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