#yoplait

Yoplait Whips! Strawberry Mist Yogurt Ad and Coupon

2002

Disney Adventures, Winter 2002

When I was growing up in the late 80s and early 90s, the only yogurt memories I have is of Dannon fruit on the bottom and Yoplait, and to a much lesser extent, LaYogurt and the Marva Maid local dairy yogurt. I only remember the pineapple one and primarily eating it because my boy Ernest did the commercials for Marva Maid when I was lil.

(source)

(1989)

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, yogurt became more mainstream. 1 Dannon Yogurt was becoming more popular in the United States due to an expansion into the West Coast, thus becoming the largest selling yogurt in the country by 1980. The leading seller out West? Coffee. 2

(1988)

I don't know anything about this Fresh Flavors line made with real fruit juice, but it has the coffee yogurt in the ad.

(1987)

This yogurt tote is cracking me up. Ok, it probably kept your yogurt cold for an hour.

I knew I didn't make up that Dannon had two tops when I was a kid, a foil one and that clear plastic one. I feel like I remember trying to take the clear plastic off and making a bracelet out that top lid once.

Nuts and Raisins looks good, but I bet it wasn't, because looks like it didn't last long.

Dannon caved in and began making blended yogurts, in the "French style" 3. They were named Y.E.S. and ... Melange? Oh! I mentioned Y.E.S. in the Harry Anderson commercial entry from a few years back.

Of course, since it was the 80s, someone called a Stop & Shop Supermarket in Brookline, Massachusetts and claimed they put cyanide the Dannon yogurt. 5

Yoplait arrived to the United States in the late 1970s/early 1980s. In Orlando, Yoplait arrived with a celebration involving a hot air balloon in 1980:

(source)

(source -- ok, I know the video quality is bad, but it looks like she's running in a pair of pink underwear and the little immature kid in my brain is cracking up.)

Look at that Breakfast Yogurt. I wonder if Dannon copied that.

I just realized right NOW that Yoplait no longer makes plain yogurt in the tub. I would blurt out and say "all they care about now is their sugary yogurt", but turns out, a few years ago, they took the high fructose corn syrup out of the yogurt, and now (for me) it tastes too tart. I never thought in the lords year 2025 that I would be putting a sugar packet in Yoplait yogurt. I mostly eat the Yoplait Oui in the glass containers now because its the only one that tastes like fruit of the bottom yogurt of my childhood.

Since Dannon was so prevalent in New York City, Yoplait decided to use a local icon in their commercials: the guy from the Crazy Eddie commercials:

The Yoplait U.S.A. team, in order to remain consistent with its national effort, racked its collective brain for an immediately recognizable New Yorker whose appearance in behalf of Yoplait will be a cause of surprise.

Well, the name Jerry Carroll may not ring a bell, but when you see Jerry on the tube beginning tonight frantically gesticulating in behalf of Yoplait and ending up babbling in French, all against a background of audio and video equipment, you will know him immediately - Crazy Eddie's TV salesman. You've known his scream for a decade. And now you'll hear it for Yoplait, and partly in French, for three months. Commented Miss McCarren, ''He is sort of the Howard Cosell of retail.'' 4

In 1998, activists began to complain that skunks were getting their heads stuck in empty Yoplait containers. Yoplait put a label on the containers that started "protect wildlife: crush before disposal", and put a rim at the bottom of the containers so the animals could use their legs to push the container off of their heads. 7 Yes, like that episode of Pepper Ann with the pyramid shaped peanut butter containers.

Finally in closing here is a New York Times review of the many yogurts of the time, note how most of them are described as "chalky":

Back then, they hated LaYogurt. Cut to 2025, and the New York Times Wirecutter staff loves the nonfat plain version:

If you live on the East Coast: La Yogurt Nonfat Yogurt’s glossy, pudding-like texture impressed us in a category that skewed watery and thin. We also liked its sweet-tart strawberry-like tang and its comparatively low price. At the time of testing, we were under the impression that La Yogurt was a nationally distributed brand. We were wrong — it turns out that it’s only sold in New York and elsewhere on the East Coast. If it was more widely distributed, La Yogurt Nonfat would have been a top pick. (We liked the La Yogurt Whole Milk and Lowfat yogurts too, though not quite as much as our picks.) 6

Note: before anybody goes WhAt aBoUt dAnNoN SpRiNkLiNs aNd tRiX YoGuRt?! I didn't include those because those were gross. I'm sorry. They're gross!

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Bender, Dean. “Yogurt Becomes Staple in Many American Diets.” The Pensacola News, July 18, 1981.

Vilkin, Richard. “From New York to L.A., Its Dannon Land!” The Greenville News, May 15, 1980.

Sheraton, Mimi. “New Yogurt Products Evaluated.” Tampa Tribune, July 23, 1981.

Dougherty, Phillip H. 1985. “ADVERTISING;  Yoplait Yogurt on The Move.” New York Times, July 31, 1985. https://www.nytimes.com/1985/07/31/business/advertising-yoplait-yogurt-on-the-move.html. https://archive.is/wip/S1R3Z.

Alters, Diane. 1986. “BROOKLINE STOP &SHOP REMOVES; DANNON YOGURT AFTER CALLER SAYS IT WAS POISONED WITH CYANIDE:” Boston Globe, July 15, 1986.

The New York Times. “11 Yogurts Worth Their Weight in Granola.” August 19, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-yogurt/. https://archive.is/p0wUV

I'm so happy to have preserved these precious little gems from 2003 in my childhood notebook dedicated to Rayman! You can now enjoy them in greater picture clarity! :D

Feel free to use them to teach very valuable lessons to your children! Such as eating pasta with a machete, identifying dairy products such as fries and sausages, putting their pants on with a dye, or to play in sandbags! Make sure your kids try the famous games Bagcraft and Terrasack! :P

...Oh, and look everyone! It's my original character, Purple Globox! 🙃

(DO NOT STEAL! 😡)