AARDVERTS

An old, probably forgotten, cartoon series from 1966 could serve as the ancestor to a commercial that's currently airing.

Triaminic is hawking their Thin Strips to clear up congestion with a cartoon utilizing primitive animation (paper cut-out style somewhat similar to 'South Park').

In the blipvert, a young aardvark is having trouble snorfling up the ants because of his congestion. After Mama Aardvark gives him a Triaminic Thin Strip, he is able to vacuum up the ants with ease and get a good day's lunch out of it.

As the coloring of the aardvarks is somewhat bluish (Funny, they don't look bluish.), it's not hard to imagine that they're related to the Aardvark from "The Ant And The Aardvark" series of cartoons that eventually ran as part of 'The New Pink Panther Show'.

In these cartoons, the Aardvark never caught a break in his attempts to eat this one particular ant who sounded like Dean Martin. (According to Jeff Lenburg's "Encyclopedia Of Animated Cartoon Series", Jackie Mason provided the voice for the Aardvark and it is pure Jackie in delivery.)

Had this been live action, I would have done the research into how long an Aardvark lives; to determine how many generations separate Big Blue from the Triaminic Tyke. However, since they all exist in the Tooniverse, Time has no meaning there. After all, this is a dimension where Bart Simpson was born in 1984, and is still just a little kid.

So the Aardvark is still alive, with a voice similar to Rabbi Krustofsky, and probably the grandfather to the little guy - who's obviously more successful at getting an ant sandwich than Grandpa.

The difference in animation is irrelevant. Those are just artistic interpretations of life in the Tooniverse and is not noticeable to the inhabitants. (Examples: 'King Of The Hill' and 'The Critic' visiting 'The Simpsons', an unnamed Bart Simpson on 'South Park', the 'Jimmy Neutron'/'Fairly Odd Parents' crossover.)

And don't feel bad for the ants. Never could understand how we can root for ants and mice in cartoons and yet kill them as vermin in real life.....

BCnU!
Tele-Toby