2004 Pop-Tarts Kangaroo

There was this Pop-Tarts Commercial I remember watching on TV in 2004.....

It featured this guy wearing a hat not too dissimilar to the pattern on the shirt worn by WALDO from WHERE'S WALDO.

Anyway, enough talking about hats, or Waldo.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, this kangaroo shows up.

And what does he do?

He steals the guy's Pop Tart.

He doesn't take it very well.

"YOU ATE MY POP-TART!!!"

Then he gets inside the pouch of Mr. Kangaroo.

Proceeding to pull out whatever Mr. Kangaroo has stolen.

Including.....

A PIANO!?

"I hope it's not that Mad Piano from Super Mario 64...."

"Nope. I eat Mario Brothers, and Ghosts. 

Besides, Pop Tarts always get stuck in my teeth."

Then the guy gets his Pop Tart back.

And eats it.

Mr. Kangaroo is not amused by this irony.

After getting his Pop Tart back, the scene cuts to him saying to the Audience:

"NOBODY TAKES MY POPTARTS!!!"

"PART OF THIS COMPLETE BREAKFAST!!!"

These were part of a line of Commercials in POP-TARTS' line of commercials under their

CRAZY GOOD campaign.

Shortly there after, the commercials segued into portraying the Pop-Tarts as anthropomorphic.

By that, I mean, portraying them as trying to avoid getting eaten by children.

A little morbid if you catch my drift.

But at least not as morbid as this classic CHIPS AHOY commercial from 2002 where an anthropomorphic Chocolate Chip cookie realizes he's been substituted for a birthday cake.

"So uh, where's the cake?"

"We're not having Cake."

"Uh Oh!"

UH OH indeed...

This is what happens for having the Gall to ask the girl whether she's having cake or not.

As for the Pop Tarts Commercials,

I actually preferred the Commercial with the Kangaroo because it's hilarious.

It's not the thieving Kangaroo that gets to me but rather what the guy does... and the absurdity of all the crap he pulls out of the Kangaroo's Pouch.

Now that's how you do a proper Snack Commercial.

I actually almost blew a gasket when it got pulled off the air in favor of other commercials in POP TARTS' line of CRAZY GOOD ADs.

Fortunately, the commercial has been preserved on places like YouTube.

The problem is that many of these uploads were obviously VHS recordings or DVR recordings so they don't lend themselves very well to the original picture quality of these commercials as the animators had intended...

At least, for their Big-Ass 21" 1280x1024 CRT Computer Displays complete with all that high-res Shadow Mask Contrast Ratio goodness that was all the rage for Computer Monitors back in 2004.

Fortunately, I lucked out with this MAY 2024 Upload which is where I got these screenshots from...

No VHS magnetic deterioration or DVR Video Compression here.

Just pure High-Res Video Capture from back in the Good Old days...

with the best hardware the uploader had back in the day.

I miss when commercials had unexpected humor like Pianos stuck inside a pouch.

Nowadays, it's ukulele rhythms, trying to damage your subwoofer, or forced emotions....

The list goes on...

On a related topic: 

If the art style of these commercials look familiar, you probably guessed it right.

But no, these commercials were not animated by Don Hertzfeldt.

They were just influenced by his art style after Hertzfeldt refused to make the commercials due to his dislike of advertising.