"Okay, everybody, calm down! Silence I say! This meeting of the Captain Tootsie Revenge Squad is hereby called to order! There's no old business to attend to, so let's move on to inducting our latest member! I believe that we should begin by introducing ourselves, and as chairman I shall go first!"

"I am the feared Dr Narsty! I love make small children unhappy! I would venture to say that I am Captain Tootsie's arch nemesis, having come closest to defeating him by depriving him of his precious Tootsie Rolls! Oh, if only those rotten, meddling children hadn't been around to pull the cork out by it's string! Curses!"

"I also shouldn't have included a string in the first place! Augh! I'm too angry to go on... Spies! Take over!"

"Guten tag. Ve are Hans and Schmanz, Cherman schpies from ze Vorld Var II."

"Ja, ve ver azzined to make schure zat Amerika vas not hidink zecret veapons in der schmall towns!"

"Zadly, der Kaptain Tootsie schowed opp und kecked our Ärsche!"

"Ja, he schtomped us into schnitzel!"

"Me, I'm Red, Red the Terror. I never even knew I was up against Captain Tootsie 'til it was too late."

"See, I'd just busted out of the clink and I figgered I'd follow the standard pattern: tie up a fat kid and live in his house for a while. Things were going great - I found a fat kid in record time and the house was real nice - pink walls, yellow polka-dot coitains, the woiks."

"Next thing I know... Whammo! I didn't even get a chance to dress up in the kid's mudder's clothes!"

"Monster Man is next! Monster Man tell you all about time me met Captin Tooty."

"Monster Man still not know what happen. See, me have perfect plan:"

"Me spend week and week planning. Push child, open bank! Then me take monies to store for soft fruit and trail mix!"

"Monster Man still wonder how went wrong."

"Favourite theory involve sun spots, weather balloon. Too complex get into right now - Monster Man send you Powerpoint him work up."

"Worst part whole thing always having listen to candy talk all time."

"Serious, it like him have man from Marketing in him ass. Kid not know about balance diet? Him have question authority some day."

"Yes, well put, Monster Man. Just another reason that all children should be locked in a small room filled with bees."

"So now you know our stories and our reasons for hating Captain Tootsie as much as you do. We'll go through things like membership fees and the weekly 50/50 draw to pay for the water cooler later. For now, I'd like to fomally welcome you to the Captain Tootsie Revenge Squad..."

"...KILLER BEAR."

Oh how I enjoy the advertising mascots of the past, with their one-page adventures and monomaniacal outlook on life ("Only Grape Nuts can effectively stop those robbers, Timmy!") and so: Adscape, a place to discuss ads of the past.

Today, the first of what will probably end up being five or six looks at former Tootsie Roll mascot Captain Tootsie, the man who knows that a brief sugar rush is just the thing for any emergency. Specifically, we'll be looking at the Captain's troubling relationship with the beasts of the forest.

Here we find Captain Tootsie in the woods with the group of young children that constituted his Secret Legion of minor crime-fighters. Suddenly, an old man dressed like an 1800s frontiersman bursts into their campsite and tells them that there's a killer bear on the loose. Shortly thereafter, there's a disturbance at the local girls' camp - turns out that the bear has stolen some food. Captain Tootsie has a couple of Tootsie Rolls for quick energy and then:

Bear: gunned down. Candy: distributed. Mountain Man: impressed.

I'm all for respecting the opinions of the elderly and the marginally insane, but did this bear - this fleeing bear - just die because Coon Tail Charlie called it a killer? Because the bear only really gets up to two things in this ad, stealing food and growling, and I'm pretty sure that those are half of a bear's job description, along with swiping salmon out of streams and riding the occasional tiny motorcycle. I guess that it's somewhat possible that Charlie had a scrapbook full of mauling-related newspaper clippings with him, but as far as I can tell this is a case of the good Captain really wanting to hang a large animal from a tree.

Another day, another camping trip. Oops, a rattlesnake. What's a Captain to do?

That's right, it's the old rock-to-the-brain maneuver.I guess that I'm not condemning this as much as I do the wanton bear-slaughter above. Rattlesnakes plus children often ends in tears after all. Still, this is a bit of a troubling pattern that is emerging (especially taking into account Tootsie's ability to capture a similar snake using only a stick, seen in the latter part of the same ad).

What really cements my opinion that Cap Toots should just stick to the cities and leave the fauna alone is this next one:

Another day, another nature hike. Note that they have not seen a bear. They have found fresh tracks and Captain Tootsie doesn't have a gun. What to do? Rapidly retreat in the opposite direction?

Not a chance.

Yup, that's right. Captain Tootsie hates nature so much that when he found himself without a way to kill a bear, he went out of his way to make sure that it was deprived of its freedom. They spent hours on that pit, folks. They could have been two counties over if Cap hadn't insisted.

And he does it all while staying on-message.