Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, November 24, 1995                   TAG: 9511240025
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BRINGING IN THE DOUGH, BOY

He's cute, cuddly, wealthy and famous, and, at 30 years of age, a little pudgy.

But don't look for the Pillsbury Doughboy to go on a diet any time soon. After all, that trademark tummy and the famous giggle that goes with it have given rise to one of the most successful and enduring characters in advertising history.

"It's really unusual. I didn't expect it to last more than a couple of years - and a couple of years was pretty darn good for an animated character," said artist Marty Nodell, one of a team of ad men who cooked up the Doughboy back in November 1965 at Chicago's Leo Burnett Advertising Agency.

Nodell, also the creator of DC Comics' first Green Lantern, will be at Star City Comics on Williamson Road today from noon to 6.

As one of the original team of artists who sketched the Doughboy, the 80-year-old Nodell gets lots of requests to draw the trademark character and autograph Doughboy merchandise - from magnets to cookware to grocery store displays. It's been a pleasant surprise for him.

"No one expected the usage and consistency of the character," Nodell said in a phone interview from his home in West Palm Beach, Fla. "But then ... I didn't expect Green Lantern to last more than two years, either."

In 1965, Nodell was an art director working on accounts including Kellogg's cereal icons Tony the Tiger and Snap, Crackle and Pop when he was given a sketch of a new character that was to promote Pillsbury's line of refrigerated dough.

Nodell, who had worked on animated commercials and films in the early 1950s, first approached the Doughboy as just another animated character - flat, like a cartoon strip. But then one of his supervisors came up with the idea of making the Doughboy 3-D, animated by stop-motion photography.

"The general idea was that he would be like the dough popping out of the little round carton," Nodell said.

Apparently, there was some sour dough in the Doughboy's creation, too.

Rudy Perz is credited by Pillsbury as the official creator of the Doughboy. A creative director at Leo Burnett, Perz coined the Doughboy's name and made the first sketch of him.

"He came out looking like Casper the Ghost," said Perz, who lives near Chicago.

Perz has seen articles about Nodell and downplays Nodell's role in the Doughboy's creation. Nodell says he created the final sketch that was used as the character study for the Doughboy, but Perz responded: "Marty Nodell was an art director, period. He drew storyboards, and he drew what we told him to draw."

Perz said another artist at the agency developed the finished Doughboy and Nodell "really ought to stop saying" the character was his creation.

Whatever the origins of the little fat guy, there's a big reason why people would fight over him Early in his life, his fan mail was second only to Morris the Cat.

"Tonight Show" host Jay Leno recently cracked a joke on the Doughboy's 30th birthday: "We hear he's a little depressed about it. His guests found him with his head in the oven."

And since the Doughboy's first appearance (when he popped out of a can of dough held by Maureen McCormick, better known as Marcia Brady on "The Brady Bunch" TV show), Pillsbury's retail refrigerated-dough sales have risen tenfold - from $81 million in 1965 to an estimated $840 million this year.

That's no mistake. The Doughboy is a recipe for success, said Reed Watson, vice president for Minneapolis-based Pillsbury's refrigerated baked goods.

"The Doughboy definitely strikes a nerve with American consumers," Watson said. "He's magic when it comes to introducing new products."

The Doughboy has changed very little over the years. Sure, he raps now. And he looks a lot more real, complete with a moving shadow.

But the reasons for his lasting appeal are the things that made him a hit in the 1960s, say the bakers who put him together.

"He's warm. He's friendly," Perz said. " He's not sarcastic, he's not mean.

"He's shy, he doesn't brag. When he's kissed, he blushes, and when he's poked in the stomach, he giggles."