What's your favorite brand of coffee, or do you stay away from caffeine?

[jmowreader]

95. Wilkins Coffee, of course

In 1957 John Wilkins, who ran a coffee company in Washington, DC, found out the FCC required occasional ten-second gaps in television broadcasts...and that those short blocks of time could be sold to advertisers. He got his advertising agency to find someone who could make him a bunch of memorable ten-second spots; the advertising executive found an up-and-coming puppeteer named Jim Henson.

Henson had an interesting concept: two Muppets, one named Wilkins - who liked the coffee and who sounds and looks like a young Kermit the Frog - and Wontkins - who did not - would appear. Wilkins would invite Wontkins to have some Wilkins Coffee. Upon Wontkins' refusal an act of senseless violence would be perpetrated upon his fuzzy little body. This part took eight seconds, followed by a two-second beauty shot of a coffee container with some text overlaid on the frame. They eventually made about 150 of them. The spots were popular with little kids so Mr. Wilkins started selling Wilkins and Wontkins puppets, which were also very popular.

These spots were so popular John Wilkins wound up licensing them to companies outside the National Capitol Region to advertise other things - meaning he was probably making more money from renting out Jim Henson than he was selling coffee, and he was making a ton of money doing that. These spots led to great things for Mr. Henson, like Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock, The Dark Crystal and The Labyrinth.

So...the entire Henson empire was founded on violent coffee ads.

Since you can't buy Wilkins Coffee at all anymore and you never could buy it outside Washington, DC, I've been buying whole-bean coffee from Trader Joe's. It's not the cheapest coffee and definitely not the finest coffee, but I like it fine.