TheAgitator.com
Kellogg Drops Phelps
Thursday, February 5th, 2009…Phelps’s behavior—caught on camera and published Sunday in a British tabloid—is “not consistent with the image of Kellogg.”
This would be the same company that for decades has been encouraging children to start the day by inhaling sugar by the spoonful. It’s also the company that still proudly bears the name of the man who advocated yogurt enemas and pouring carbolic acid on the clitoris to prevent women from experiencing sexual pleasure.
Yes, it would be a shame to see a 14-time gold medalist’s bong hit tarnish the company’s image.
As is often the case, the Onion was way out in front on this one.
Weird, Kellogg was in deep trying to rehabilitate masturbators. Talk about synchronicity.
Or did you plan it out like this, Agitator? You sly boots, you.
Kellogg boycott, eh?
That mf lived to 91 years of age at a time(born 1852) when life expectancy was about 40 for those who made it to adulthood. Maybe he was on to something with some of his “wacky” theories like yogurt enemas.
So Kellogg is saying,” Fuck you , I don’t want your business” to the forty per cent of american’s who’ve tried marijuana? Here’s hoping their dumbasses get boycotted out of business.
What the hell, Radley? I just finish up boxing the clown and a yogurt enema (not at the same time) and I visit your site to have you make me feel like some kind of criminal!
(note: see story below this one for the origin of “frosted” flakes)
Dear Kellogg, Inc,
YOU MAKE SNACKS, DUMMY!
Yours,
J.D.
There is a fantastic opportunity for Frito-Lays right now.
OTOH, here’s an endorsement he might pick up.
He should be dropped for being dumb enough to rip a bong at a house full of college kids whose most valuabe possesion is their camera phones. Listen up kiddies, don’t smoke pot with snitches.
Brag – I smoked with three guys a few months before they competed in Beijing. However, I’m pretty sure there was an implicit agreement that if I pulled a camera I’d be beaten to a bloody pulp.
Yes, I just found it. “The Road to Wellville” with Matthew Broderick. That was one crazy movie about the Kellogg retreat! With that attitude they should be supporters not detractors! BOYCOTT!! How would we get a list of all the products? Buy generic frosted flakes, everyone!! They should lose their part of the munchy supply market!
Let’s all inhale deeply and relax. The free-market at work can still be a beautiful thing. Kellogg is making a business decision, not a value judgement. If the Phelps endorsement is no longer a positive investment, they should terminate the contract. No?
I suspect that this was a convenient way to terminate the endorsement without having to pay a fee, rather than any actual commentary on Phelps’ smoking marijuana.
Cheetos, Velveeta Cheese, Dominoes, and Fudge Stripe cookies are all missing out on an ideal opportunity.
A pirate? Well, that’s hardly the image we want for Long John Silver’s!
“I suspect that this was a convenient way to terminate the endorsement without having to pay a fee, rather than any actual commentary on Phelps’ smoking marijuana.”
His contract is up at the end of the month, and they’re not renewing it.
#11 cb–Yeah, maybe it’s a solid business move. In any event, I can’t relate to eating a kind of cereal because of a celebrity endorsement. I guess I don’t understand advertising. But kids like cereal, commercials, and parents are afraid of drugs…
I think Kellogg, the man would have supported a natural remedy like medical marijuana. Hell it sounds like he might have even enjoyed it recreationally. The benefits of probiotics are well established now. I doubt the founder would have anything to do with the crap the Kellogg Corporation puts on the shelf.
I’d like to see him on the a box of Organic Hemp Plus at Whole Foods. Cannabis, breakfast of champions!
In lieu of a suspension, I think USA Swimming should require Phelps to be high for the entire London Olympics. Not as a punishment. Just because it would be awesome.
Just thought of something. Apparently Kelloggs execs have no idea how much cereal stoners eat. I mean what else are you going to eat at 2:00am while watching Sanford and Son’s reruns and toking a spliff? Damn, I got the mad munchies.
Let Kellogg know you disapprove of their decision:
http://www2.kelloggs.com/ContactUs.aspx
Perhaps remind them of the virtues of forgiveness, the health effects of sugar and other legal products, and the many customers who are upset at Kellogg’s decision.
I just found the switchboard number: (269) 961-2000 I’m going to ask them why they think a a picture of a bong hit is a worse corporate image than a DUI conviction.
I will not buy another Kellogg product.
Please sign the petition…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lee-stranahan/petition-to-boycott-kello_b_164527.html
Damn! And I really liked to eat Cheez-Its! Getting rid of Phelps was idiotic. I don’t know why it’s a big deal if an 8 gold medal winner wants to smoke a little weed in the offseason.
But you realize if he places 2nd in a race, people will blame it on the weed.
Screw Kellogg’s. Assholes.
People like Kellogg are why many reasonably educated religious people don’t take science seriously until it has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. There is so much quackery in the history of science, and even a lot of it today (fraud in science journals is rampant). We often end up finding out that a lot of scientific ideas in hindsight were painfully absurd and idiotic. Take eugenics, as known in his day. The idea of using the methods they had to improve the human race was as laughably inelegant and ineffective (and thus a true rationalist should have laughed at them) as trying to paint a house with long-range artillery filled with paint ball gun ammunition.
***The reason I bring up eugenics is simply that it, like the treatments for “female hysteria” are in hindsight not much removed from witch doctor beliefs (and didn’t make much sense even to some of the more skeptical people in his day), but men like Kellogg were quite respectable.
Why rip on Kellogg?
My understanding is that libertarians are anti-Drug-War, not pro-drugs. Hasn’t this situation unfolded in a manner that is totally consistent with libertarian ideals – the consequences for Mr Phelps’ actions have been dealt with between private parties?
Certainly Kellogg has as much right to cancel on Mr Phelps as Mr Phelps has to smoke whatever he wants. Mr Phelps has no right to endorsement money, regardless of what he smokes or doesn’t smoke.
Unless the state gets involved and uses force against Mr Phelps or Kellogg, I see no reason for a libertarian to possibly object to anything that has happened.
Won’t be buying Kellogg’s products.
Jackasses.
cvd: yeah you’re right, Kellogg’s has every right to end their relationship.
We also have every right to disagree with their decision, and to see it as part of a larger problem of excessive moralism and misinformation. I am offended when people lie, and don’t want to support that behavior financially.
[...] Homage to Roger Abramson Posted on February 6, 2009 by Aunt B. 1. You wonder how Kellogg’s can do something like this with a straight face. You own Keebler and you make Frosted Flakes. Who do you think is your largest adult [...]
Dammit, I just went through the Kellogg’s product list on their website so I know what not to buy any more and now I’ve got a craving for some damn Vienna fingers. Being principled sucks…
In all fairness, it was actually Will Kellogg that started the company that became Kellogg’s. Will and John parted ways because Will wanted to add suger and John didn’t.
Doesn’t mean they aren’t a bunch of dicks about this, though.
“…Phelps’s behavior—caught on camera and published Sunday in a British tabloid—is “not consistent with the image of Kellogg.”
I cannot find the press release from Kellogg’s in spite of searching for it on their website. If their language is as Radley quoted above, I am inclined to give Kellogg’s a bit of a pass. If, and it’s a big if, this is what they in fact said, it tells me that they are upset about him damaging his image as opposed to smoking pot in private. I can understand how they are upset about the photo. If they’re upset about him just smoking pot then I’m upset with Kellogg’s.
cvd- You’re right. Now we are just doing our job as consumers.
What’s shitty about their move is that it looked very much like they weren’t going to re-up with Phelps even before this little tempest. Apparently there were few talks, and Kellogg’s had already dropped their USOC sponsorship to save money. So this was just a free chance for them to take a swipe at Phelps. Totally unnecessary.
Phelps suspended for 3 months:
http://www.statesman.com/sports/content/sports/stories/other/02/06/0206phelps.html
#36 Eric, if what you say is true and it probably is, because Olympic athletes usually get short term endorsments from non-athletic companies in order to take advantage of their moment of fame, then Kellogg’s deserves even more disdain from us for trying to capitalize on the situation by pandering to the anti-drug crowd.
[...] Links Jump to Comments Kellogg drops Phelps; Radley Balko drops Kellogg. [...]
Yaaaaawwwwwnnn.
Phelps is yesterday’s news. Worse, he is a nightmare for drug-war abolitionists, or so I suspect.
The comments are funny though.
Radley, thanks for the peek into Dr. Kellogg. What a whack!
Yougurt enemas would help restore the natuarl bacteria found in the bowel. He wasn’t far off with that one.
The carbolic acid, strange dude- would assume there were many women who would have yearned to give that yogurt eneam.
Obviously, Kellogs has the “right” to cancel. Why belabor the self-evident? What irritates some people is the idiotic and revotingly hypocritical moralism of a major corporation–esp. one like Kellogs, selling sugared crap to children ever since its inception. Obviously too, Phelps was careless. If he wanted to smoke weed he shouldn’t have done it before a camera. He does have a responsibility to his young admirers, and he should be aware that we live in a hysterically moralistic society–our values tend to be incredibly shallow and one-sided. That’s just the way the culture is.
Kelloggs,
Since you are Dropping Michael Phelps…the greatest swimmer of all time…I will be dropping kelloggs…I won’t buy another cereal made by Kelloggs..its that simply…I AM SO SICK of this self righteous shit going on in America…kelloggs has been selling posion for years..so full of sugar and other crap…and now they are acting like they are an example of goodness…Go to hell kelloggs your just one more greedy corprate bussiness selling overpriced filler…Michael Phelps worked his butt off to get where he is…if he wants to smoke a bong so be it..he’s young. He is far more important them kellogs.
I stopped buying anything made by Dumblog years ago because of their saturation advertising.
[...] http://www.theagitator.com/2009/02/05/ke… [...]
Don’t forget — Kellogg’s also makes Kashi products. So maybe the smart thing would have been to embrace the Phelps dalliance, and market it as Kashew — the herbal blow that’s good for you! Otherwise let’s just stop subsidizing the processed crap that is killing us — wouldn’t that be a better strategy than all this official hypocrisy?
What a crock of shit. The media just doesn’t quit. Here we are in a country that has been hi jacked by insane criminals. genocide going on around the world. Wars everywhere you look. The USA on the verge of total collapse with martial law on the way etc, and here is this BIG media hype on a famous athlete smoking a joint.
WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH EVERYBODY? All these sick self righteous bastereds who have made this the big issue of the week can now go out and drink their devil water until they are shit faced now. This planet and the people are getting sicker every day.
IS IT EVER GOING TO END?
Get the f____n plank out of your own eye first you self righteous pathetic losers.
Kellogg Drops Phelps? They are also dropping millions with their poison food. All you need to do is open your eyes and actually pay attention what Kellogg along with thousands of other companies put in their processed foods. We spend more frauds, (money) on health care then any other nation on the planet yet we still remain the sickest people in the world. ANY CLUE AS TO WHY HERE?
WAKE UP AMERIKA. This whole story on Phelps smoking a joint is something for SNL. Kellogg dropping Phelps will be a blessing for Phelps.
As long as the Amerkin people continue to buy into the shit, (poison) they eat in our food sources, they will keep putting it on the table.
Two things…
I think we should be talking to our kids about the lack of integrity the dudes who sent in the pictures for cash (real uncool)
and
what is really going on in America or abroad that is hidden behind ‘the Phelps smoking the bong story’?
Any ideas, comments?
Even if stoners weren’t big on eating cereal, they are famous for eating cookies and other good munchie stuff, the kind of stuff that Keebler makes. Yes, Keebler is owned by Kellogg’s.
It’s nice to see that an occasional pipe-full doesn’t prevent you from being a world class anything. It’s a damn shame that the same Kellogg’s asshats are probably sitting down to dinner on a Saturday night and getting equivelent buzz off of some bottle of Booze…..and no one would have known about it or even cared….
If it was a glass of beer – Budwieser or Miller would be all over it
Let’s hope for a good Saturday night live skit -
The whole thing is ludicrous!
Fascinating that you hold out *desensitizing* the clitoris as a n example of his wackiness, but refuse to mention his advocacy of unanesthetized ircumcision as a means to deter masturbation.
Its a business and if they want to drop him they are fine.
I’m sorry that most of you feel this way but its their right.
Unless you feel its not their right to spend their money the
way they see fit, like some of us spend our time and
earning the way we wish. Look, Kelloggs isn’t Speedo
who kept him on the ground that he was a great swimmer.
Hopefully in the end he loses Kelloggs and gains Taco Bell would
that get the intertubes to stop nagging about my
damn Frosted Flakes.
So he can swim — he makes perpetually bad decisions (pot head…DUI…I’m just saying…) I support Kellogg’s decision now that it has been made. Don’t worry though, Michael will still know what time it is thanks to the Omega and Speedo sponsorhips — time for another HIT — and I’m sure Michael will get by (and high) with a little help from his friends at those companies. I’ll stop buying Speedos, and no longer need to aspire to an Omega watch (a little out of my league — not a pot head!)
As far as the quality of Kellogg’s cereals- okay, sure. But why the hell are you going to judge them by their founder when the company is over 100 years old? Practically everyone who existed 100 years before you (at ANY point in time) had views and beliefs that you now consider primitive, twisted and barbaric.
As far as them dropping Phelps, I couldn’t care less. Everything I’ve seen from Phelps is that he’s an amazing athlete but dumber than a box of hair. Kellogg just made a business decision to drop him, the ethical ploy is just to cater to the beliefs of their largest marketing demographic.
[...] and pouring carbolic acid on the clitoris to prevent women from experiencing sexual pleasure. The Agitator » Blog Archive » Kellogg Drops Phelps « If you work at home a lot, don’t talk about Oprah or General Hospital when [...]
It’s also the company that still proudly bears the name of the man who advocated yogurt enemas and pouring carbolic acid on the clitoris to prevent women from experiencing sexual pleasure….
The Agitator » Blog Archive » Kellogg Drops Phelps……
[...] Agitator puts this in context, and reminds us that the Onion was on this kind of thing 11 years ago. This entry was posted in [...]