Scrubbing Bubbles is the brand name of a
bathroom cleaner produced by
S. C. Johnson & Son. The product was originally named Dow Bathroom Cleaner after the
Dow Chemical Company
The Dow Chemical Company, officially Dow Inc., is an American multinational chemical corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan, United States. The company is among the three largest chemical producers in the world.
Dow manufactures plastic ...
, its manufacturer at the time. After some consumer product lines were sold to S.C. Johnson in 1997, the product had to be
rebranded and took the name of the product's longtime "Scrubbing Bubbles"
mascot
A mascot is any human, animal, or object thought to bring luck, or anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name. Mascots are also used as fic ...
s (smiling
anthropomorphic
Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. It is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology.
Personification is the related attribution of human form and characteristics t ...
soap bubbles with
brush
A brush is a common tool with bristles, wire or other filaments. It generally consists of a handle or block to which filaments are affixed in either a parallel or perpendicular orientation, depending on the way the brush is to be gripped duri ...
bristles on their undersides creating a mass of
suds).
History
In the 1970s, the voice of the leader of the Scrubbing Bubbles in popular commercials for the product featured
Paul Winchell
Paul Winchell ('' né'' Wilchinsky; December 21, 1922 – June 24, 2005) was an American actor, comedian, humanitarian, inventor and ventriloquist whose career flourished in the 1950s and 1960s. From 1950 to 1954, he hosted ''The Paul Winchell ...
(best known as the voice of
Tigger in
Winnie the Pooh cartoons). The bubble leader returned with the name "Scrubby" in future commercials. The animation for the commercials was done by
Tissa David, a female pioneer in animation. The
ad campaign was created by the
advertising agency
An advertising agency, often referred to as a creative agency or an ad agency, is a business dedicated to creating, planning, and handling advertising and sometimes other forms of promotion and marketing for its clients. An ad agency is generall ...
of
Della Femina Travisano and Partners
Jerry Della Femina (born 1936) is an American advertising executive and restaurateur. Starting from a poor Italian background in Brooklyn, he eventually became chairman of Della Femina Travisano & Partners, an agency which he founded with Ron T ...
.
In 1995, pranksters at
MIT placed 3D replicas of the Scrubbing Bubbles characters
on the outside of the windows of the school's
Media Lab building to celebrate the lab's tenth anniversary.
References
External links
Official website Official website (Japan)
Advertising characters
Cleaning product brands
S. C. Johnson & Son brands
{{product-stub