Little Mikey was a fictional boy played by John Gilchrist in an American television commercial promoting Quaker Oats' breakfast cerealLife. The ad was created by art directorBob Gage, who also directed the commercial. It first aired in 1972. The popular ad campaign featuring Mikey remained in regular rotation for more than 12 years and ended up as one of the longest continuously running commercial campaigns ever aired.
Original commercial
The iconic commercial centers on three young brothers eating breakfast. Before them sits a heaping bowl of Life breakfast cereal. Two of the brothers question each other about the cereal, prodding each other to try it, and noting that it is supposed to be healthy. Neither boy has any desire to taste it, so they get their brother Mikey to do so, noting, "he hates everything". Mikey briefly stares at the bowl. After moments of contemplation, he begins to vigorously consume the cereal before him, resulting in his brothers excitedly exclaiming, "He likes it! Hey, Mikey!" Mikey's brothers in the commercial are Gilchrist's actual brothers, named Michael and Tommy. John is the middle child of seven children born to Tom and Pat Gilchrist of the Bronx..
Reception
The advertisement was very popular and won a Clio Award in 1974. It was also often referenced in retrospectives of classic television advertisements. For example, in 1999, TV Guide ranked it the #10 commercial of all time. Despite the commercial's age, a 1999 survey noted that 70% of adults could identify the spot based on just a "brief generic description."
Sequels
A series of "Today's Mikey" ads aired in the 1980s, with Gilchrist bemusedly reprising the character as a college student. In 1996, Quaker Oats commissioned director Rick Schulze, of Industrial Light & Magic Commercial Productions, to digitally composite a bottle of Snapple, then a subsidiary of Quaker Oats, into the original Life ad, via longtime Snapple ad agency Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners, New York. This time, however, in an ironic twist, Mikey likes some of the product's flavors while disliking the others. Life's ad agency, Foote, Cone & Belding, in Chicago, revived the Mikey character for two campaigns in the late 1990s. In 1997, Quaker Oats initiated a nationwide search for the "next Mikey", settling on 4-year-old Marli Hughes out of more than 35,000 applicants. She also appeared in a TV commercial, "Better Life" directed by Howard Rose, where she is seen telling her classmates how she won the contest and traveled to New York to do some TV shows. She adds that as the new Mikey she gets to eat as much Life cereal as she wants. In 1999, Quaker Oats remade the commercial word for word with an all-adult cast acting like kids. Mikey is portrayed by New York-based actor Jimmy Starace.
Afterward
By 2012, aged 44, Gilchrist had become director of media sales for MSG Network. He has said that he has no clear memories of filming the original commercial as he was only three and a half years old.
