This smiling fellow is Sunny Sweet. He was the spokesprune for Sunsweet Prunes, and star of the 1951 animated film “Good Wrinkles”. (Technically, a prune is simply a plum with a sugar content high enough to dry the fruit in the sun and it won’t ferment at the pit. That’s one of the things I learned after spending almost twenty years writing a dictionary about the Rose Family of plants, just for the heck of it). Botanically, a plant is classified into its respective family based on the structure of its flowers. Since the flowers of a Wild Rose, for example, are like Apple blossoms, which are like Strawberry blossoms, which are like the blossoms of Cherries, Plums and Prunes, etc., all of these plants and more are included in the Rose Family. I’ll bet you didn’t expect to get a botany lesson here. I digress…
Anyway, “Good Wrinkles” was produced by All-Scope Pictures, Inc., and sponsored by the California Prune and Apricot Growers Association. It’s a total prune promotion from beginning to end. (Perhaps I should use another word here besides “end”. Or perhaps not. Most everybody knows that prune juice is a legendary remedy for, well, you know, “digestive” problems. Okay, constipation. There, I said it).
There is a website where you can download the movie for free, as part of the collection of the Prelinger Archives. I tried for two hours to figure out how to add it here, but gave up. Instead I’m providing the link:
http://www.archive.org/details/GoodWrin1951
Our Sunny Sweet was manufactured sometime around the mid-1950’s by the plush toy maker R. Dakin & Company, of San Francisco. The company went out of business in 1995. Sunny is approximately 5″ tall, and looks very classy in his formal wear including top hat.
And here’s Sunny’s paper hang tag with some truly vintage recipes:
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Allee Willis
I almost can’t even react to Sunny Sweet as I’m still reeling from the facts that a) you spent 20 years writing a dictionary about the Rose Family of plants and b) that prunes are in the Rose family. I love curating this museum and cruise directing this social network because I get to find out things like that.
Have you had Sunny since way back when? I’m guessing yes. I think what I love best about him is he doesn’t at all look like a prune. Perhaps they come in purple but I’ve only seen brown. I also love his little fish tail. I’ve never considered prunes seafood. With all this said, I actually love prunes.
As far as adding videos to your posts, if you include the link in the description I then go and grab a screenshot when i publish the post and turn it into a playable video. I did this so there wouldn’t be a bunch of porn on this site. But you’ve included the link so eloquently I’m leaving it in as is.
Please say hi to Sunny Sweet for me and tell him I just ate a small bowl of him.
denny
A prune with a face is more appetizing to me. Such a great item and your commentary is tops!
k2dtw
Love the Post…and Sunny Sweet sure is a snappy dresser…smile
Kyle Dayton
Thank you very much for your generous compliments! I really appreciate it.
Sunny certainly does look like he has a fishtail! It’s really the coattails to his jacket, but since he’s not elevated on a little stand when I took his photo, it makes him look like half sea creature, half fruit. Honestly, every time I look at him he reminds me of a purple fish.
I won Sunny Sweet several years ago in an Ebay auction. I acquired him when the advertising dolls and characters were much more plentiful and readily available. But even then he was considered a rare doll. I was lucky that he was still in near-mint condition and with his paper tag attached.
Allee is right. Before the plums are dried for use as prunes they’re generally dark purple, but they’re basically a shriveled darkish brown-black color when they’re dried. I guess that the toy manufacturer thought that Sunny would be more appealing to the eye if he remained his original shade of purple!
Nessa
Cousin of the California Raisin?