Skippy Corn Flakes: You Can Kangaroo!

'You can kangaroo, you can!', runs the jingle for this advertisement for Sanitarium Skippy Corn Flakes.

The catchy lyrics include a rollcall of Australian flora and fauna: kookaburras, eucalyptus, cockatoos and platypus, paired with images of people being active or rising from bed to take on the day.

This is undeniably a very effective advertisement, combining feelings of nationalism with a typically Australian tongue-in-cheek humour and a catchy song.

Skippy Corn Flakes is promoted as the 'Aussie Corn Flake', in competition to the American brand, Kellogg's. The final image is even a pastiche of the Australian coat of arms. Skippy Corn Flakes were hugely popular in Australia for many decades.

Images of a kangaroo, in connection with the name of the product, are enough to bring back memories of the Skippy TV show, even though this ad probably dates from the 1970s or '80s, well after the TV show ceased production in 1969.

Notes by Stephen Groenewegen and Adam Blackshaw