Famous Finger
Famous Finger
Pillsbury Doughboy
When I was a child my father Tom Corlett worked for Cascade Studios in Los Angeles. One of the accounts they took on was the Pillsbury Doughboy. Poppin Fresh was created by Rudy Perz and designed by Milt Schaffer.
The studio used stop-motion animation to create the moves of the doughboy. One day my father came home and asked me if I would be willing to let him take a mold of my hand. I said “sure”. It wasn’t until a short time later that I found out the studio was using my hand mold to poke the Doughboy’s tummy. It too was used in stop-motion, one frame at a time until he was poked.
So It was my finger that did the original poking of Poppin Fresh! In later years a hand model by the name of Jackie Dunphy became the next finger to poke the Doughboy. Finally in the 90’s the doughboy went CGI. Oh by the way, that’s my hand in the picture!
Doughboy being worked on in the studio
Ho Ho Ho!
Green Giant
Green Giant was a popular commercial back in the day and Cascade Studios produced them too. They used both animation and live action in the commercials.
Cascade Studios per my father liked to keep some of the actions of making a commercial in house with the staff. The studio head did the “Ho Ho Ho” part of the commercial, and my father’s hand was the one that would reach down and pick up the can or item being mentioned. Lot’s of green hand and arm dye!
The studio also did some Hershey commercials, Alka Seltzer and a variety of other commercials. My brother and I were always hopeful on Hershey day, would dad bring us leftovers from the shoot!
And yes, that’s my dad’s hand in the pic. I guess famous hands and fingers run in our family!
