Little Mikey

Little Mikey is a fictional boy played by John Gilchrist (born February 2, 1968) in an American television commercial promoting Quaker Oats' breakfast cereal Life.

Mikey briefly contemplates the bowl and after tasting the cereal, begins to eat it vigorously as the brothers exclaim, "He likes it!

"[7] A series of "Today's Mikey" ads aired in the 1980s, with Gilchrist bemusedly reprising the character as a college student.

[citation needed] 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.

[8] Life's ad agency, Foote, Cone & Belding, in Chicago, revived the Mikey character for two campaigns in the late 1990s.

In 1997, Quaker Oats initiated a nationwide search for the "next Mikey", settling on 4-year-old Marli Hughes out of more than 35,000 applicants.

Played by Hudson Uebelhardt, he sings about his chaotic morning, which is made sweeter with a bowl of Life.

[13] For many years, Mikey was the subject of an urban legend that purported that he had died after consuming Pop Rocks and Coke, supposedly causing a fatal stomach rupture.