Z is for Zoo Animal Premiums

This post is entirely the fault of the 'Philosophic Toad' who in her question on the Bonux post, got me started on a day's research which has resulted in my not doing a clients garden, not picking up some cash and not going to the shops! As a result I've run out of coffee and tobacco, can you imagine trying to sort out 11 lots of half-understood animals without nicotine or caffeine? Toad - you owe me, however, for you delectation, and the interest of any other interested passers-by, here is my take on some (not all!) of the non-domestic animal gifts, giveaways and premiums issued over the years. [Toad made-up by sending me two images of the original ad's, and a follow-up post has now been done, when I've more time I'll re-do them both into one, but in the meantime, if you open them both in two tabs, you can flick between the two for a slightly fuller - if more confusing! - picture. new post is here; Update ]

I'll do acknowledgments first this time;

Kent Sprecher's Toy Soldier HQ provides an image of the Lido mouldings here;
Wild Animals

Jean-Claude Pifret's 'Figurines Publicitaires' gives a list and photographs of the Bonux/Mir/Omo ranges.

Wayne Ratcliffe's Cluck Vol.2 gives lists and dates for two sets, and I have a photocopy of the original advert for one set which seems to have come from Vol.1.

Lots of Spanish and Portuguese language websites/pages were found but my lack of both languages meant they were of limited use, however they did contribute to the overall picture, so thanks to the many, everything else is my own guesstimation!

The first picture shows the Kellogs animals as laid out in the Cluck Vol.1 picture, with three other animals, two of which are seen in the Lido set, linked to above; Buffalo and Moose, the Wild Boar is in the same vein, but could well be a Dom/Manurba moulding, or similar (Jean/Big, French premium?). The Lido link means these were almost certainly provided by Tudor*Rose.

Issued by Kellogg's in their Puffa-Puffa Rice and Coco Krispies breakfast cereals, announced as 'Zoo Animals' in kids comic in May 1971 (Hotspur, 22nd May to be specific). A set of ten (still no Wild Boar?) were issued in Canada (and the USA?) in Sugar Pops, also by Kellogg's as 'Big Game Hunters Favorite Wild Animals' (and everything in the picture has been hunted and shot by humans in the last 200 years...), these would most likely have been Lido Originals.

We then hit this set, very similar, but much finer sculpting, and a larger range. Now the first thing you'll notice is - during the photo-session I labeled-up the group to represent the missing figures in the list of animals issued by Kellogg's at some other period (still unknown to me) in the 70's, however, as I was doing the photo's it struck me they may have been Cadbury's not Kellogg's. Ratcliffe's notes in Cluck Vol.2 on the first (8 animal) set gets to mentioning a pose variant of the Buffalo and Nabisco "shaped biscuits", and I think he was confusing the two sets as the same set.

I was already thinking of the Cadbury's Animal shaped chocolate biscuits and Google has not helped! However, I have one 1980's plastic flat of a blue Elephant with a big square base marked Cadbury, so they may well have had a similar promotion in the 1970's?

Because I photographed them as if they were the Kellogg's set below, I left out the two bottom left, if they were issued with biscuits, then they will be part of the set, as will the two Tigers, as I was looking for one! The Moose behind the Tigers is in a hard nylon plastic and points to another source of these animals somewhere? Again apart from the red Moose, these are Tudor*Rose in style and colour, why they needed to re-design 10 of them is anyone's guess, but clearly newer production methods led to finer castings.

I can't just publish a photo of the image in FP without the permission of the author/publishers, and don't have time to seek it, so will describe as best I can. There are two sets of animals, both sets are in both gold and Silver/Gunmetal with a painted Giraffe and variants of 3 of the larger set giving 30 to look for, with others bound to be still undiscovered/yet to be ascribed.

In the larger set The Bear is the same as that in the second set above, with the Moose and Zebra similar and the Camel and Giraffe bearing a good resemblance. In the smaller set the Hippo and Rhino are the close matches. The similarity's weighted against number of unrelated castings would suggest piracy in a different vein to the above sets, where the 8 are clearly the same.

Bonux are nominally linked with the larger ones only. Mir seem to have the larger set too, with a Hippo from the smaller set (to my eye it should be with the larger animals) leaving Omo with most of the small animals and the largest of the three Hippo's plus the painted Giraffe.

Animals similar to all the above sets were also made by Marx and Renwal/Plasticraft, again; good pics on Toy Soldier HQ.

The second Kellogg's set; 'Zoo Animal' is actually the set in green, red and brown bottom right with the missing Gorilla and snake, they are similar to the set in the larger picture which are the bubble-gum animals from Mundi Toys/Tylers and Dunkin, both selling to the Iberian Peninsular.

The Kellogg's set is not identical, with loss of detail on some, while others are noticeably larger. Note that apart from the Snake, all the Kellogg's are duplicates of the larger series from Spain, and as the Spanish set was issued in 1967, it's fair to assume the Kellogg's set was the copy rather than vis-a-versa.

I think the long-horned red thing belongs were I've put the missing animal card '2nd/3rd Deer' but it's hard to tell from the packet. The Tylers/Dunkin soldiers I covered a while ago came on sprues of 8 figures before being broken down into packs, so with Ratcliffe reporting the Kellogg's coming on sprues, in fours, that makes sense as you could cut an 8 figure sprue of animals into two 4 figure 'spruelets' and ensure 4 different animals in a box with a 25% chance of new animals each time you ate your way to another purchase!

The other side of the pack from Mundi Toys, I think it translates as Animals of the Savanna (or Velt?), along with similar products from Tito (cartoonish) and Olá (the name for Wall's Ice cream in Portugal and southern France), I can't find the source for my having ascribed them to Olá, so it should be taken with a pinch of salt...The Tito are marked with their little wobbly-diamond. Finally a comparison between the Kellogg's and Spanish Hippo's.

leaving us with a further size comparison, main picture, bottom, from the top left reading L-R; Kellogg's, Cadbury?/Nabisco?, Kellogg's, Mundi/Dunkin, Olá?, Unknown.

To go with the unknown Elephant is a Giraffe (smaller inset photo.), above them is a small sample of tiny soft PVC/vinyl rubber animals [Schlicht 'Minis' with the little black-dot eyes worn off!] and a group of Christmas Cracker gifts of recent origin to the left, both with Spanish bubble-gum Elephants for scale.

My sofa during this afternoons constructive activity! That box on the right is 'Animals, Unknown, Wild' and contains about 150 envelopes like the ten on the board! So it's gona'be a long life if the man upstairs wants me to finish this task!!!

Further study;
Wikipedia; Animal Biscuits

Still No Ducks