Mr. Whipple makes a sale.
"Please don't squeeze the Charmin!"
— Mr. Whipple (at least once per commercial)
Mr. George Whipple is a fictional supermarket manager featured in television commercials and print advertisements that ran in the United States and Canada from the 1960s to the 1980s for Charmin toilet paper, a product of Procter & Gamble, before being replaced by the Charmin Bear. In these commercials, Mr. Whipple would always chastise customers (usually women) for squeezing the Charmin despite the fact he does so too. There were more than 500 commercials made.
Mr. Whipple was played by Dick Wilson, who also appeared on the TV show Bewitched.
The commercials inspired a line in "Weird Al" Yankovic's song "Dare to Be Stupid": "You better squeeze all the Charmin you can / When Mr. Whipple's not around."
Mr. Whipple give examples of:
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The women squeezing the Charmin, and Mr. Whipple, too, as in this commercial
, look like they're squeezing a hunk's squeezably soft butt. - Hypocritical Humor: He spends half a minute warning women not to squeeze the Charmin, only to moments later be seen squeezing the product himself.
- Long Runner: The commercials ran from 1964 to 1985.
- Reverse Psycho: Once Mr. Whipple became infuriated whenever potential customers squeezed the Charmin to test its softness. Eventually, however, he saw the light.
- Serious Business: The Charmin being squeezed and Mr. Whipple's obsession with that not happening. Reportedly Charmin wanted to emphasize the product's softness, but wasn't sure how to do that on television. They thought of the idea of suggesting customers squeeze it like they would a tomato to assess the softness, but were worried retailers might object to customers potentially damaging the merchandise before purchase. Hence, the reverse psychology campaign.
