Monkey Brand Redux

It would be a wonderful thing if Monkey Brand were to reappear on the supermarket shelves if only for the pleasure of watching our mighty brand character shoulder aside today’s feeble examples. When times were good for Monkey Brand our simian friend missed no opportunity to remind the public of his extraordinary powers – full page magazine advertisements and inserts were accompanied by trade cards, of which these are typical examples. He’s a jester, a juggler and the Ancient of Days, all in the service of The World’s Most Marvellous Cleanser and Polisher. Victorian advertisers were notorious for embracing bizarre concepts and one of the most troubling to the present day observer is the use of the unclothed infant form. In this instance the child, in all its chubby innocence, is surrounded by an admiring flock of winged and disembodied monkey heads, introducing us to another singular peculiarity – the hairy angel. The Monkey Brand soap opera has been extensively explored in these pages, most recently, here.