Thanksgiving Feast

If you induced your turkey coma a little early yesterday you might have missed out on a couple of annual product mobile sightings. Everyone's favorite burger flipping clown and monocled nut made their regular Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade appearances.

First up is Ronald McDonald's Big Red Shoe Car:Unfortunately the Grimace was noticeably absent, marring an otherwise successful parade appearance.

Next is the Planter's Nutmobile (a.k.a. Mr. Peanut's hot rod) desperately trying to escape from Dr. Seuss' Horton:

Mr. Peanut's head turns from left to right so he can always get a good look at you with his good eye.

And so another successful Thanksgiving parade winds down. (By the way, there were also floats, dance numbers, balloons and any number of other parade nonsense but, of course, the product mobiles were the best part.)

The images are property of NBC.

Shout Out to My Peeps

A few years back we shout footage of the Peeps Fun Bus. It didn't end up making it into our documentary but now we've edited for your sugary enjoyment:

Mr. Peanut & Ronald McDonald Prepare for Thanksgiving Parade

It looks like Macy's has confirmed appearances by both the Planter's Nutmobile and Ronald McDonald's Big Red Shoe Car at this year's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Picture courtesy of TDLPhoto

This isn't exactly ground breaking news since they are both Thanksgiving Parade veterans and have appeared for the last several years. But it's always good to see some product mobile representation.

Here are their descriptions from the Macy's press release:

Hopefully in the future the parade (and all parades) will be bumper to bumper with Wienermobiles, Spammobiles and all our other favorites.

Product Mobile Exhibition coming to the UK

Recently James Hale, author of "The Wonderful Wacky World of MarketingMobiles – Promotional Vehicles of the World," recently gave us the heads up about a new exhibition coming to the National Motoring Museum at Beaulieu in Hampshire, England.

The exhibition opens March 26, 2010 and will include the Cadbury Creme Egg Car, the Outspan Orange and the Worthingtons beer-bottle lorry.

We'll post more details about the exhibit as they become available. You can also check out the museum's website:

http://www.nationalmotormuseum.org.uk/

Wienermobile Feeds the Hungry

For years the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile has been cooperating with "Meals on Wheel" to help bring feed the elderly and disabled. Here's a news story about a recent delivery:



This is from KEYC in Mankaot, MN.

http://www.keyc.com

Separated at Birth Part 3 - Art vs. Commerce

Unlike Part 1 and Part 2 of our "Separated at Birth" series which pointed out design similarities in various product mobiles, this particular case seemed to cause a bit of contention in the art car community.

When Marshall's unveiled their new Stiletto Car it seemed like the shoe definitely fit for the apparel outlet.

It didn't take people long, however, to notice the striking similarities between this stiletto car and David Crow's stiletto art car which has been making parade appearances for years.

It seems like they even got the color right. Well, suffice to say, many art car fans were not amused. I don't know any details of how far people took their displeasure but if next year Marshall's debuts a giant wiener on wheels they'll really have a fight on their hands.

Phone Car Video

Not too long ago we took a call from the Phone Car. Now we can finally see it in motion:

This is a quick video from The CBS Early Show.