Beautiful Wooden Zu Zu Box

Front. Image courtesy of John Barney. From the collection of John Barney.

I have no background on this box but I’ll take a guess and say that it was used to transport the Snaps in pre-UPS days. It would be interesting to measure the inside and see if it matched some multiple of the cookie boxes themselves.

A big thanks to John Barney for sending these images (and a shout out to little Zu Zu).

Update: Charlie Brown weighed in on the boxes: “…different products were shipped in these boxes. NBC knew their boxes would be read by a lot of people, most were spoken for when they were empty. This is why a lot of these beautiful wooden shipping boxes still survive. So, although it reads ZU ZU Ginger Snaps, it could have contained other NBC Cookies.”

Back. Image courtesy of John Barney. From the collection of John Barney.

NBC Salesman’s Postcard

Photo courtesy of Charlie Brown. From the collection of Charlie Brown.

Back in the day when products were delivered by horse and wagon it was important for salesmen (and it was all men then) to make sure their customers were there when they arrived. So they sent postcards to announce their arrival. This particular postcard was used by National Biscuit Company (NBC) salesmen and it is very rare. Charlie Brown is only aware of two in existence.

It’s hard for me to make it out but it looks like the postmark is from Darien, Connecticut, possibly dated 1885 (1905?). Mr. Brown says, “They also furnished one of these with the “Slicker Boy” on the card. National Biscuit did not miss any opportunity to advertise their products and get the sales. ”

And NBC was an impressive marketing company, putting many current corporations to shame. As an outsider, though, they strike me as having had some heart in selling their products. There is a certain touching approach with the way they marketed, say, Zu Zu Ginger Snaps. In contrast one can look to the current owners of Nabisco to see what I’m talking about. I know NBC wasn’t perfect but we have definitely lost something in this super-saturated, hyper-marketed, 24-hour news cycle culture.

There’s no reason why mass marketed products can’t have a heart. We all have a part to play in this and that’s why we should support those products that contribute to a healthy culture. We should support whimsy and feeling and that’s what we’ve lost with the passing of the Snaps.

How do you spell Zu Zu?

Photography by Joann M. Ringelstetter (http://www.shunpikingtoheaven.com).

Clearly on the Zu Zu Ginger Snaps package the name Zu Zu is two words each capitalized. But I have seen this name spelled different ways from official sources. Even though this may speak more to the early days of branding than that of sloppiness of sources, it’s mildly interesting:

• Zu Zu – The official NBC spelling
• Zuzu – How the “It’s a Wonderful Life” character’s name was spelled. Also from the title of a cookbook written by Karolyn Grimes the actress who played Zuzu in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” I wonder if the character was spelled this way to avoid any lawsuits from NBC.
• Zuzu – “Zuzu Bailey’s It’s A Wonderful Life Cookbook: Recipes and Anecdotes Inspired by America’s Favorite Movie”
  Out of the Cracker Barrel: The Nabisco Story, From Animal Crackers to Zuzus” by William Cahn. Odd that the iconic Snaps should have their name misspelled by this NBC-commissioned book.
• Zu-Zu – On page 3 of the sheet music of the Zu Zu Rag.
• ZuZu – The way my wife spells her name.

Note: The photo above is by the photographer Joann M. Ringelstetter and is entitled “C.W. Burleson General Store with Advertising Mural for National Biscuit Company (Nabisco), Avery County, North Carolina.” You can purchase the photo from her website here.

Zu Zu Clown Dolls

Zu Zu Clown Doll. From the collection of Mr. Charlie Brown. Image courtesy of Mr. Charlie Brown.

According to Mr. Charlie Brown NBC sold the Zu Zu Clown Doll starting in 1914. It was produced by the Ideal Toy & Doll Company, Brooklyn, NY and was available in two sizes. The 16″ large version went for $1.00 and the 10″ small for 50 cents.

According to the Vintage Doll Collector website, “Both dolls have compo (composition) head, hands and boots, with a cloth body.”

Both are very rare.

Zu Zu Clown Dolls. From the collection of Mr. Charlie Brown. Image courtesy of Mr. Charlie Brown.

Zu Zu Rag

From the University of Colorado Digital Sheet Music Collection

I first learned of the 1916 Zu Zu Rag song from Mr. Charlie Brown who sent me a photo of the sheet music cover (he owns 3 copies). Here is the song info from the University of Colorado Digital Sheet Music Collection:

Title: Zu-zu rag
Composer/Lyricist: by Max E. Fishler ; [arr. by Hector MacCarthy].
Publication: New York : John Franklin, c1916.
Description: 5 p. of music ; 35 cm.
Collection: Rag

Since the Zu Zu Ginger Snaps packaging and clown appear on the cover of the sheet music it seems to be an NBC-commissioned work. But it also seems to have enjoyed some measure of popular appreciation. I found this video (below) on YouTube showing the Zu Zu Rag being played on a player piano. The piano roll is of a Victor Arden (1893-1962) performance for the American Piano Company. So this song was in the public light to some degree, not just an internal, corporate marketing piece.

And if that wasn’t enough here’s another player piano video.

I couldn’t find any info on the composer Max E. Fishler.

Was this a common thing during this time? Just how popular was the song? Who was Max E. Fishler?

The Zu Zu Designers

From left to right: Charles Kuskin, Guy Rowe and Victor Joseph Smedley. Images courtesy of Charlie Brown.

National Biscuit Company maintained their own art studio from 1902 into the 1930’s. The studio was located in New York on 14th Street, right around the corner from the NBC bakery, now called Chelsea Station (click here for some historical information about NBC’s buildings in this area).

The main NBC (and Zu Zu Ginger Snaps) graphic artists were (and as pictured above from left to right) Charles Kuskin, Guy Rowe and Victor Joseph Smedley.

Image courtesy of Charlie Brown

Guy Rowe was from the Chicago Artists Association and was an accomplished commercial and fine artist. You can see more of his work here. From that website: “Guy studied at the Detroit School of Fine Arts under John P. Wicker from 1912 to 1919, with a break in the army from 1918 to 1919. His first job in New York was doing still life paintings for the National Biscuit Co. ” He later went on to do many covers for Time magazine and ads for Jell-O and Campbell’s Soup among others.

Guy Rowe photograph from the Guy Rowe website

I was not able to locate any further information about Charles Kuskin or Victor Joseph Smedley.

Thank You Mr. Charlie Brown

Charlie Brown is the president of the Inner-Seal Collectors Club and the owner of the largest collection of Zu Zu Ginger Snaps – and National Biscuit Company – memorabilia in the world. In fact he owns more items than Nabisco or Kraft (who bought Nabisco in 2000). Out of the blue he contacted me and kindly offered to send photos of his collection and help me fill in the many gaps of Zu Zu history.

I am grateful for his assistance and hope to do his collection (and recollections) justice in this blog.

Mr. Brown started as a salesman for the National Biscuit Company (NBC) in 1968 in Louisville, Kentucky. He sold biscuits (cookies, snacks and crackers) for over 30 years. He married in 1973 and has “been collecting Nabisco/National Biscuit Company for over 37 years.”

About his collection: “Our collection is the largest private collection of NBC in existence. We have a lot more than Kraft/Nabisco, when they still had the museum in Waterloo Village, NJ. It was closed down and everything shipped to Chicago when Kraft took over Nabisco in about 2000. The museum artifacts have never been put back out for exhibit.”

At the time whenever anyone had a question about NBC’s history were referred to Charlie’s group.

In 1994 he and others started the Inner-Seal Collectors Club. Their newsletter is called the Inner-Seal Colophon and they have the rare permission to use the “SEALS OF NABISCO.” They may be the only non-Nabisco/Kraft entity who has that permission. “We love the old Nabisco, they had cereals, breads, candy, store jars, furniture, toys, signs, paper ephemera & more,” he says. “Our collection is the most complete. If it has been put out by Nabisco, we probably have it. In our collection we have the original glass negative made of Gordon Stille (The Uneeda Boy) made in 1901. Priceless.”

These days Charlie and his wife display their collection throughout their house and barn. “I have an old NBC delivery truck I am restoring, I am going to put the logo back on the truck,” he says.

I will be liberally stealing from Charlie’s storehouse of images and information for what I hope to be many blog posts. Thank you again Charlie.

That Clown, Those Eyes

I have only been able to find two versions of the Zu Zu Clown. Curiously one is used (as far as I can tell) only in advertising and the other on a cookie tin and a marketing sign. Both the cookie tin and the sign are reproductions (again, as far as I’m able to make out). The cookie tin is supposedly a reproduction of an original tin produced in 1916 (not sure if that was strictly packaging) by Nabisco itself.

Note: The tin features the second clown on the lid that we’ll get to in a minute.

The sign uses the same clown as the tin:

Now here are the advertising clowns:

The advertising clowns seem to be children dressed in pretty much the same costume. We know that the costume was given out as promotional items to children but not if they were free or part of a promotion – or what.

The Ginger Snaps were clearly intended for children but the non-advertising clowns were a different clown altogether. The face looked almost photo-realistically human (especially evident on the blue sign) but the eyes were cartoonish. It’s a little unsettling in a way. But this is the real clown that the advertising/children clowns are trying to emulate.

It’s got a little “Trip to the Moon” vibe about it. The movie came out in 1902, about a year after Zu Zu Ginger Snaps received its trademark. I’m just saying.

Update: Mr. Charlie Brown has verified that the costumes were indeed given to children for free.

Forbidden Fruit

You might know that Zuzu Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life got her name from Zu Zu Ginger Snaps. But where did the snaps get their name? According to a National Biscuit Company- (later Nabisco) sponsored book called “Out of the Cracker Barrel: From Animal Crackers to ZuZu’s” by William Cahn the name came from a character in a play.

In 1898 Adolphus Green became president of the newly formed National Biscuit Company (NBC). It is not clear exactly when but he apparently attended a play called Forbidden Fruit by the popular actor and playwright Dion Boucicault (the play originally opened in New York on October 3, 1876, 22 years previous). The company-sponsored book had the good grace to place “there was one theory that…” before telling the tale but I will soldier on with the story because it makes, well, a good story.

Forbidden Fruit is a three-act farce typical for the day. Boucicault was not a particularly good writer but he knew how to pander to the crowds. In Act II he introduced “a real horse drawing a four-wheeled cab” which was somewhat amazing for that time.

In the play there is a character named “Zulu” who is listed as the “female cartridge” and “The flying Fairy of the Trapeze the Geni of the Ring.” The cartridge bit referred to her getting shot out of a canon. She wants to be a witness in the “Brighton Scandal Case” so that she can be “well displayed.” She wants the PR a high profile case would provide despite not having witnessed anything at all. As I said, it’s a farce.

There might – might – be a connection between her working in a circus and the Zu Zu Clown. And there were a lot of products during that time that had double names like the “Hoo Hoo Ginger Snap” that NBC successfully sued in a trademark dispute (of which NBC had many). So it is possible that Green was captivated by the lithesome Zulu and converted her name to a double word brand name. I doubt we’ll ever know for sure.

A Nickel Everywhere

This ad appeared in House Beautiful magazine, date unknown. “Say Zu Zu to the grocer man” was a common Zu Zu marketing statement. I have a hard time nailing down the age of this clown. It could be a child of 7 or a 30 year old man. For everyone involved I’m pulling for the 7 year old.

Update: my wife says that the clown looks a little like a woman. She said that it bears a passing resemblance to Disney’s version of the fairy godmother in Cinderella: