Transcript
A (0:00)
When you start your college career at Heritage University, you're opening the door to something big. To a world of new experiences, to personal growth and academic discovery, to friendships that will last your entire life and the future you've always dreamed of. You're opening the door to your best life. And the best part is, it won't stop here. Heritage University Operation Best Life Learn more at heritage.
B (0:28)
Edu BestLife Rest of the Story when commercial artist hadn't Sund Blum got the assignment, he was enthusiastic, partly because the subject matter was intriguing, partly because he'd already selected the perfect male model for the company's advertisement. The model was a former salesman. It had no modeling experience, in fact. But Mr. Sunbloom, with a stroke of characteristic genius recalling Lou Prentice, put the ad and the person together in his own mind and realized he had a surefire winner. So the artist called Lou into his studio and painted him and presented his rendering to the company, and executives were overjoyed. They ran the ad in the Saturday Evening Post, then in the Ladies Home Journal, then in the National Geographic. The readers were delighted. The campaign was a huge success. But you'd never guess Louis died. Lou prentice, without whom Mr. Sunblom could not imagine, that particular advertisement, suddenly was gone. And no, the artist could not simply paint him by memory or by photograph, not without losing that special spark that had attracted Mr. Sunblom in the first place. But this is the rest of the story. Haddon Sunblom was, as they say, even in his own day, a legend in the advertising industry. His credentials, the Art Institute of Chicago, the American Academy of Art, impressive. But moreover, he was a creator of legends in their own right. The Quaker Oats man, for instance. The very symbol of that product was Mr. Sunblom's invention. The Coca Cola company came to him, said they'd like something for the winter holidays. And you've just learned how the artist responded. He called up a retired salesman named Lou Prentice, and from that merry face and impressive portly presence he created, I mean, he actually invented for the first time ever, anywhere, Santa Claus. You see, before Head and Sunblom, there were a lot of Saint Nicks with a variety of physical characteristics, most of which you would probably not even recognize as Santa. Like, it took Mr. Sunblom and of course, Lou Prentice to produce the jolly rotund, human sized, red suited, black belted, white bearded Santa Claus the world now knows and loves. But then Santa Claus model Lou Prentice passed away. And the artist realized that if the now traditional Santa Claus were to survive a new live model would have to be discovered. Mr. Sunblom searched everywhere. Naturally, there was no shortage of applicants for this most important commercial illustration. And yet no one the artist interviewed satisfied him in the way lou had in 1931. No one, no matter how physically similar, possessed a warm, magical Santa Claus Persona. But then one day Mr. Sunblom found his man. And for another 30 years plus, that second model was the model for Coca Cola's Santa Claus and for yours. And in the tradition of this wondrous season, the artist's introduction to his new Santa prototype came in a wondrous way. For at the casual suggestion of an unremembered somebody, Haddon Sunblom had to search no farther for St. Nick than his own mirror. So the next time you see a picture of a jolly faced Santa in his red suit trimmed in white, you'll know you're seeing the world's most reproduced of all self portraits. Because now you know the rest of the story.