Cherubic but Not as Chubby

For 79 years the dimpled dumplings known as the Campbell's Soup kids have been among the most familiar and successful symbols in advertising. When the kids first appeared in posters on New York City trolley cars, Cy Young was on the mound for the Boston Somersets (now the Red Sox) and Enrico Caruso was winding up his first American opera season. Cherubic and definitely chubby, the kids have always conveyed the message that children raised on "M'm! M'm! Good!" Campbell's soups will grow up healthy and happy.

But times are changing, and so are the kids. Realizing that thin is in and fitness is the fashion, the Campbell Soup Co. has made its pudgy pixies taller, trimmer and more athletic. The transformation is part of the company's drive to convince the yogurt-and-vitamin crowd that soup from a can is as nutritious as anything found in a health-food store. As part of the effort, Campbell is sponsoring the U.S. figure-skating team and has managed to get its products designated the "official soups" of the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia. The new, thinner Campbell kids are appropriately garbed as skaters, skiers and bobsledders. Admits Paul Mulcahy, Campbell's managing director for advertising: "We've slimmed them down a bit, and we'll gradually slim them down a bit more." He vows, however, that "the kids will never be skinny."

Many companies have a long tradition of making cosmetic changes in their advertising symbols. Psyche, the winged goddess who has adorned the labels of White Rock beverages for 89 years, has grown steadily more svelte. In 1894, says the company, she was 5 ft. 4 in. tall, weighed 140 Ibs. and sported measurements of 37-27-38. Now she is 5 ft. 8 in., 118 Ibs. and 35-24-34. She was always topless until 1975, when White Rock switched from paintings and started using photographs of a real, filmily clad woman in some promotional materials. Betty Crocker, the imaginary supercook at General Mills, has had five facelifts since 1936 to make her look younger and trendier. Careful observers may have noticed that Aunt Jemima seems to have joined Weight Watchers in recent years.

Some famous advertising figures, of course, have so far escaped the fitness fad. The jolly old Quaker of Quaker Oats is as rotund today as when his paunchy figure first appeared in 1877. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.