Poll-Parrot

Not that there was anything wrong with businessman Paul Parrot’s pet project, Parrot Shoe Company, but we wonder if his Poll-Parrot Shoes (which hit the market in 1925 and had stiff competition from another kiddie clothier with a popular spokes-toon, Buster Brown) would’ve fared even better with an animated or, at the very least, cartoonish mascot.

That the shoes remained popular well into the 1950s is no small feat. Its various premiums, including buttons, tin whistles, tin clickers, spinner tops, tin banks, flicker rings and pop guns, certainly helped the company sustain its success. And its 1930s, twice-weekly airing radio show, The Curse of Poll-Parrot, bolstered sales exponentially.

But why did the marketing folks stop at a mere photograph of a parrot on a perch in its print ads? Did they think that the idea of a mimicking bird alone would appeal to children and parents alike? Were the vibrant plumes on the parrot supposed to be linked to compelling sales?

It’s sort of a mystery. Think of what would have been had the makers of the Poll-Parrot shoe campaign gone one step further and allowed their spokes-parrot to become what Toucan Sam is for Froot Loops cereal. One of the company’s premiums, a 1920s tin spinner top with a wood peg, toyed with the idea by featuring a parrot in walking shoes, but the idea was soon abandoned for the life-like bird that would last ’til the company’s fizzling.

In 1947, the company decided to sponsor The Howdy Doody Show on NBC TV, tying its premium to both the puppet and the parrot. Though the inclusion of a more animated character breathed new life into the ad campaigns, making Poll-Parrot his own puppet may have given the company an even longer lasting revival.