Little Mikey

Little Mikey was a fictional boy played by John Gilchrist in an American television commercial promoting Quaker Oats' breakfast cereal Life. The ad was created by art director Bob Gage, who also directed the commercial. It first aired in 1972. The popular ad campaign featuring Mikey remained in regular rotation for more than 12 years and ended up as one of the longest continuously running commercial campaigns ever aired.

The iconic commercial centers on three brothers eating breakfast. Before them sits a heaping bowl of Life breakfast cereal. Two of the brothers question each other about the cereal, prodding each other to try it, and noting that it is supposed to be healthy. Neither wants to try it ("I'm not gonna try it—you try it!"), so they get their brother Mikey to try it ("Let's get Mikey"), noting, "he hates everything". Mikey briefly stares at the bowl. After moments of contemplation, he begins to vigorously consume the cereal before him, resulting in his brothers excitedly exclaiming, "He likes it! Hey, Mikey!" Mikey's brothers in the commercial are Gilchrist's actual brothers, named Michael (the one on the left in the spot) and Tommy. John is the middle child of seven children born to Tom and Pat Gilchrist of the Bronx.

The advertisement was very popular and won a Clio Award in 1974. It was also often referenced in retrospectives of classic television advertisements. For example, in 1999, TV Guide ranked it the #10 commercial of all time. Despite the commercial's age, a 1999 survey noted that 70% of adults could identify the spot based on just a "brief generic description."

A series of "Today's Mikey" ads aired in the mid-1980s, with Gilchrist reprising the character as a college student.

In 1996, Quaker Oats commissioned director Rick Schulze, of Industrial Light & Magic Commercial Productions, to digitally composite a bottle of Snapple, then a subsidiary of Quaker Oats, into the original Life ad, via longtime Snapple ad agency Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners, New York. This time, however, in an ironic twist, Mikey likes some of the product's flavors while disliking the others.

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