When the United States entered World War II, well-known celebrities already highly placed in American popular culture, such as Donald Duck and Bugs Bunny, joined the war effort, donating their highly visible images for patriotic and informative cartoons.
[citation needed] Spokestoons have also lent their celebrity status to individual events, such as Pogo for Earth Day in 1970,[1] or The Smurfs to UNICEF in 2005.
Though fast food franchises have used gimmicks to tie-in temporarily with current releases of animated features since the 1950s, a few cartoons have become more permanently associated with a product or service offered by corporate culture, similar to that of a mascot, and may be considered genuine spokestoons.
Early recorded usages of the term "spokestoon" include a March 25, 1995, feature in the Portland, Maine Press Herald, noting "Buster Brown, the comic strip character who became the 'spokestoon' for the children's shoe line", and an October 1995 article about the Disney Corporation's use of characters from The Lion King to promote good nutrition in children.
[3] Some examples of spokestoons and the products they are identified with include: This article about an animated character is a stub.