1

Chester Cheetah

Image: Giorgio Trovato

Chester Cheetah joined Cheetos marketing in 1986 with a stylized, sunglasses-wearing design that reflected the youth-focused advertising of the time. His orange fur, black spots, and exaggerated long limbs gave him a modern appearance that differed from the more conventional mascots used in earlier decades.

Often depicted in cartoon adventures trying to get Cheetos from others using his hip attitude and humor, Chester began appearing in licensed merchandise and even two video games released for major home consoles. These additional uses helped increase his presence outside television ads and made him familiar to a wider audience.

2

Tony the Tiger

Image: Sten Ritterfeld

Tony the Tiger is probably one of children’s favorite mascots. Well, of course, he is gr-r-reat! Tony debuted in 1952 as part of Kellogg’s national push for its frosted cereal line. His early design resembled a traditional tiger on all fours, but by the 1960s, he was consistently illustrated standing upright. This adjustment to a more human-like figure made the character more attractive to children who started seeing him in print materials and television commercials. His striped orange coat and red scarf have remained stable features for decades, helping kids recognize the mascot across changing styles over the years.

3

Mr. Peanut

Image: Afif Ramdhasuma

Mr. Peanut entered American advertising as early as 1916, after Planters Nut & Chocolate Company held a public contest and selected a drawing submitted by a schoolboy from Virginia. The company later added the top hat, monocle, and cane, creating the formal look that became standard on packaging and billboards.

The suave, walking peanut we know and love appeared consistently in print ads and store displays, serving as a recognizable figure for the brand. During the mid-20th century, when packaged snacks and "gourmet" branding became more common in supermarkets, Mr. Peanut was used to reinforce the idea of a higher-quality product.

4

Colonel Sanders

Image: He Junhui

In the 1950s, American entrepreneur Harland Sanders became the public face of his restaurant chain, Kentucky Fried Chicken, taking part in promotional photos, interviews, and appearances that helped introduce the brand to a wider audience. His white suit and black string tie were items he regularly wore, and the company adopted them as key visual elements to create a consistent look for KFC.

By the 1960s, his image was used on signs, packaging, and national advertising, giving customers a familiar figure associated with the product. Unlike most mascots, his portrayal was based on a real person whose small roadside business had grown into a national treasure.

5

Pillsbury Doughboy

Image: Nikoloz Gachechiladze

The Pillsbury Doughboy was introduced in 1965 using stop-motion animation in his early commercials, a common technique for character advertising at the time. His soft white body, chef’s hat, and neckerchief became standard symbols in Pillsbury promotions beginning in the late 1960s.

During the 1970s, he appeared regularly on national television, helping advertise refrigerated dough products that were marketed as convenient options for home cooks. His role remained consistent across these campaigns, making him one of the brand’s most recognizable features.

6

The Kool-Aid Man

Image: Fotografía de Alimentos

In just a few years, this mascot evolved from a simple smiling pitcher to a whole pop culture icon. Oh yeah! The Kool-Aid Man’s first television appearances began in the 1970s, building on earlier print versions. His clear, rounded glass body and bright red interior were easy for children to recognize, and the short catchphrase became closely linked to the product.

During this period, he was featured regularly in Saturday-morning TV advertising and in-store promotions aimed at families. These campaigns emphasized Kool-Aid as an inexpensive, easy-to-prepare drink mix, thanks to a character that brings joy and fun, making sure people have a good time.

7

GEICO Gecko

Image: moonzigg

Born after a 1999 SAG strike that limited live actors, the animated GEICO Gecko became a beloved, relatable brand ambassador who could present insurance information in a clear, approachable way. His small upright stance, green coloring, and British accent made him easy to identify and set him apart from the fast-paced commercials common at the time.

Over the years, he became a regular presence in campaigns that explained discounts, policy options, and general coverage details. His continued use across national TV, radio, and online platforms helped establish him as one of the brand’s most recognizable marketing tools. Can you quote his famous catchphrase?

8

Energizer Bunny

Image: PublicDomainPictures

Did you know the Energizer Bunny is actually a parody of the Duracell Bunny? Premiering in 1989, a year later than its main competitor, the pink rabbit was shown wearing sunglasses and flip-flops and carrying a large bass drum.

Throughout the 1990s, the Energizer Bunny was featured in several parody-style spots that placed him inside mock versions of other commercials before he continued walking and drumming. His image became closely linked to Energizer batteries' long-lasting power, becoming a pop culture icon representing the endurance and tenacity of the American People.

9

Ronald McDonald

Image: Vijayanarasimha

Ronald McDonald is one of the most beloved characters among American children. He appeared nationally in 1963, adapted from earlier characters that had been used in local McDonald’s advertisements. With his red wig, white face makeup, and yellow jumpsuit, he lives in the magical McDonaldland with friends, representing fun and charity.

These key visual elements helped audiences recognize him instantly at store openings, public events, and televised commercials. From the 1960s through the 1980s, Ronald also participated in school visits and community programs that promoted basic safety messages and family-oriented activities. In just a few years, Ronald McDonald grew into a global icon that even inspired more characters synonymous with both fun and philanthropic missions .

10

Mr. Clean

Image: Anna Shvets

Who wouldn't trust a product promoted by a strong, reliable, muscular man? Introduced in 1958 and inspired by a U.S. Navy sailor, Mr. Clean appeared in packaging and commercials with his arms crossed and wearing a white T-shirt and a gold earring. His image, symbolizing powerful, effortless cleaning magic, helped shoppers to quickly recognize the product on crowded shelves.

The character’s straightforward design also aligned with a broader mid-century trend toward household products marketed as time-saving solutions. Over time, Mr. Clean continued to serve as a stable visual symbol for the brand’s focus on reliability and ease of use.

11

Betty Crocker

Image: Annie Spratt

Even more than a hundred years after her creation, Betty Crocker is still a beloved cultural icon representing home baking and American domesticity. She was first introduced in 1921 as a customer-response identity providing written answers to home-baking questions sent to the company. The name combined the friendly-sounding "Betty" with the surname of a retired company director, William G. Crocker.

She evolved from a voice on radio shows to the first portrait in 1936, which was repainted multiple times throughout the 20th century, and was adjusted to match changing American fashion while keeping the same general facial features. By the 1940s, she was widely recognized through cookbooks, recipe pamphlets, and radio guides that presented standardized instructions for home bakers.

12

"Rich Uncle" Pennybags

Image: Julian Hochgesang

Rich Uncle Pennybags is the mustachioed, top-hatted mascot of the Monopoly board game, a character designed to embody wealth and capitalism. His image, first introduced in 1936, was loosely based on Gilded Age tycoons like J.P. Morgan, which helped signal the game’s focus on property and finance.

When Monopoly grew in popularity and began distributing international editions in the 1970s, the mascot was added to rule books, game boxes, and licensed versions sold in different countries. Fun fact: Contrary to popular belief, Pennybags never wore a monocle. Think about that!

1

Rachel Jackson: A "Bigamy" scandal (1820s)

In 1791, a young Andrew Jackson married Rachel Donelson. Both believed her first husband, Captain Lewis Robards, had successfully finalized their divorce. Apparently, Robards didn’t file the petition, making her marriage to Jackson technically bigamous. Once the divorce went through in 1794, they officially remarried.

During the 1828 presidential campaign, Jackson’s political opponents used this legal mistake against him. They branded Rachel a loose woman and a bigamist in pamphlets scattered across the country. The intense public shaming broke her spirit and deteriorated her health. She suffered a fatal heart attack just days before Jackson’s inauguration, leaving the newly elected president heartbroken and extremely bitter toward his political rivals for the rest of his life.

2

Grover Cleveland’s illegitimate child (1884)

Decades later, another personal bombshell rocked another presidential race. Republican opponents revealed that Democratic nominee Grover Cleveland, a bachelor praised for his integrity, had fathered a child out of wedlock with a widow called Maria Halpin ten years before.

Republicans paraded through the streets chanting, "Ma, Ma, where’s my Pa?" Instead of denying the affair or trying to bury it, Cleveland instructed his campaign managers to do something radical: "Tell the truth." He admitted to supporting the child financially. His honesty caught his opponents off guard and won over voters who were tired of such dirty political tactics.

3

The Crédit Mobilier scandal (1872)

This particular scandal stands as one of the most shameless corporate schemes of the Gilded Age. Stockholders of the Union Pacific Railroad formed a fraudulent construction company called Crédit Mobilier of America . Then, they hired themselves to build the transcontinental railroad at inflated prices, pocketing tens of millions of dollars in federal subsidies.

To prevent Congress from investigating their profit margins, Congressman Oakes Ames distributed discounted shares of the company’s stock to influential politicians, including Vice President Schuyler Colfax. When the press exposed the story in 1872, the revelation that lawmakers were bribing themselves tarnished the legacy of the Ulysses S. Grant administration.

4

The Whiskey Ring scandal (1875)

A few years later, another financial disaster hit the Grant administration. The Whiskey Ring was a widespread conspiracy involving distillers, distributors, and internal federal tax officials who stole millions of dollars in liquor taxes.

Using a complex web of bribes and falsified records, the ring defrauded the U.S. Treasury. The scandal reached the inner circle of power when President Grant’s own private secretary, Orville Babcock, was indicted as a ringleader. Grant provided a deposition in his secretary’s defense. While this saved Babcock from prison, it permanently damaged the president’s reputation.

5

The Teapot Dome scandal (1920s)

Until Watergate occurred, Teapot Dome was synonymous with political corruption. During the administration of Warren G. Harding, Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall took control of valuable federal oil reserves located at Teapot Dome, Wyoming, and Elk Hills, California.

Instead of opening these fields up for competitive bidding among energy companies, Fall secretly leased the drilling rights to private oil tycoons in exchange for more than $400,000 in bribes.

6

The Chappaquiddick incident (1969)

By the mid-20th century, the nature of political scandals shifted. Secrets began to involve personal crisis and tragic losses.

In July 1969, Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy drove his car off a narrow wooden bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts. The vehicle overturned into a tidal pond, trapping and drowning his passenger, 28-year-old campaign worker Mary Jo Kopechne. Kennedy managed to escape but failed to report the fatal accident to the police for ten hours. Although he eventually pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident, his delayed reaction ended his lifelong presidential ambitions.

7

The Pentagon Papers (1971)

In 1971, military analyst Daniel Ellsberg felt the moral obligation to leak a top-secret 7,000-page Department of Defense study detailing U.S. political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967.

Published by The New York Times , the papers exposed a disturbing truth: successive administrations had systematically lied to both Congress and the American public. The documents proved that the government had expanded the war and increased troop counts while knowing that the conflict was unwinnable. The Supreme Court eventually rejected the government’s attempts to block the leaks, making a victory for freedom of the press.

8

The Watergate scandal (1972–1974)

This is, probably, the ultimate American political scandal. In June 1972, five men were arrested breaking into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C.

The break in itself was minor compared to the illegal cover-up orchestrated by President Richard Nixon and his collaborators. From paying hush money to instructing the CIA to block the FBI’s investigation, Nixon’s complicity was exposed via his own secret White House taping system. Facing impeachment and conviction by the Senate, Nixon became the first and only U.S. president to resign from office.

9

The "Keating Five" (Late 1980s)

During the Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s, five U.S. Senators—John McCain, Alan Cranston, Dennis DeConcini, John Glenn, and Donald Riegle—came under intense scrutiny.

The group was accused of intervening with federal banking regulators on behalf of Charles Keating, the chairman of Lincoln Savings and Loan, who had contributed to their political campaigns. Lincoln eventually collapsed, costing American taxpayers over $3 billion. Although the Senate Ethics Committee ultimately cleared the senators of corruption, they were publicly condemned.

10

The Bill Clinton–Monica Lewinsky affair (1998)

The 20th century ended with a scandal that blended personal infidelity with a constitutional crisis. In 1998, news broke that President Bill Clinton had an intimate relationship with a 21-year-old White House intern called Monica Lewinsky.

The affair turned into a legal battle when Clinton denied the relationship under oath during an unrelated sexual harassment lawsuit. The investigation led to Clinton’s impeachment by the House of Representatives on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. The Senate ultimately acquitted him, yet he couldn’t bypass the media circus.

1

Bill Clinton

Have you heard of Bill Blythe? Probably not, but you definitely know who he is: Bill Clinton, the 42nd president of the United States.

Born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946, in Hope, Arkansas, Clinton never knew his biological father, who passed away in a car accident three months before he was born. His mother, Virginia Cassidy Blythe, later married Roger Clinton Sr. At 15 years old, Bill chose to take the surname Clinton, adopting the name of the man who had raised him .

2

Lyndon B. Johnson

Have you ever heard of a baby who went three months without a name ? As unusual as it sounds, one US president began life exactly that way.

The future Lyndon B. Johnson was born on August 27, 1908, near Stonewall, Texas. But instead of naming their newborn son, his parents found themselves in a standoff. According to historical records from the Miller Center at the University of Virginia, his mother, Rebekah Baines Johnson, wanted to name him Clarence, while his father, Sam Ealy Johnson, wanted the baby named after himself. Unable to agree, they left him officially unnamed, and for the first three months of his life, he was simply "Baby Boy Johnson." The deadlock finally ended when his mother gave in, and the future president was named Lyndon Baines Johnson , honoring Lyndon Baines, a family friend admired by his father.

3

Ulysses S. Grant

The 18th president of the United States wasn't born with the name we all know. He was born on April 27, 1822, in Point Pleasant, Ohio, as Hiram Ulysses Grant. So where did the famous "S." come from?

The answer is a paperwork mistake. In 1839, Ohio Congressman Thomas Hamer nominated the 17-year-old Grant to the US Military Academy at West Point. Knowing the young man went by Ulysses and that his mother's maiden name was Simpson, Hamer accidentally wrote "Ulysses S. Grant" on the nomination. Grant considered correcting the error, but eventually gave up, for two main reasons. He disliked the initials of his birth name, "H.U.G.", so the mistake didn't bother him much. In addition, fixing it would have meant a mountain of paperwork that could have jeopardized his appointment to West Point. So he simply let the new name stand, and the accidental middle initial stayed with him for the rest of his life.

4

Harry S. Truman

Harry S. Truman may have one of the strangest stories on this list.

His first name, Harry, honored his maternal uncle, Harrison "Harry" Young. His middle initial, however, didn't actually stand for anything. Truman's parents chose the "S" to honor both of his grandfathers, Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young, without choosing one name over the other. In other words, the "S" wasn't short for Shipp or Solomon; it was simply "S". Truman himself usually wrote it without a period, since it wasn't an abbreviation. But after he became president, his staff encouraged him to add the period in official correspondence because it looked more conventional. That's why today he's almost always remembered as Harry S. Truman.

5

Dwight D. Eisenhower

President Dwight D. Eisenhower is remembered for leading the nation through the Cold War and signing the Civil Rights Act of 1957. But there's one surprising detail about him that most people never hear.

The man we know as Dwight Eisenhower was actually born David Dwight Eisenhower on October 14, 1890, in Denison, Texas. Named after his father, David Jacob Eisenhower, he quickly ended up with a problem: there were now two Davids in the same household. To avoid the confusion, his mother, Ida, simply began calling her son Dwight instead. He went by his middle name as if it were his first for years, but the change didn't become official until he applied to West Point at age 20. Wanting his official records to match the name everyone already knew him by, he registered as Dwight David Eisenhower and made the switch permanent.

6

Gerald R. Ford

On July 14, 1913, a baby boy named Leslie Lynch King Jr. was born in Omaha, Nebraska, and 61 years later, he became the 38th president of the United States. If the name doesn't sound familiar, there's a good reason: he entered the White House under a completely different name.

Leslie Lynch King Jr. was named after his father. However, just 16 days after his birth, his mother, Dorothy, fled the marriage with her infant son to escape her abusive husband. Three years later, she divorced King and married Gerald Rudolph Ford, a paint salesman who raised the boy as his own. From then on, everyone knew him as Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. , even though he didn't legally change his name until December 3, 1935, when he was 22 years old.

7

Ronald Reagan

Have you ever heard of "Dutch" Reagan? Perhaps not, but that was in fact the childhood nickname of Ronald Reagan, the 40th president of the United States.

Born as Ronald Wilson Reagan on February 6, 1911, in Tampico, Illinois, Reagan got his nickname from his father, who thought his newborn son looked like a "fat little Dutchman." The moniker stuck almost immediately. As a boy, Reagan embraced it so completely that, according to his autobiographies and records at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, he disliked being called Ronald and insisted everyone call him Dutch instead. That changed only after he arrived in Hollywood in the late 1930s, when studio executives convinced him that "Dutch Reagan" wasn't exactly leading-man material.

8

Jimmy Carter

Born James Earl Carter Jr. on October 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia, and named after his father, the future president had been called "Jimmy" almost from the day he was born.

Over the years, the nickname became the name he truly identified with. So when he took the presidential oath in 1977, Carter broke with tradition. Instead of using his formal first name like all the presidents, he was sworn in as Jimmy Carter, becoming the first (and still the only) US president to take the oath of office using a nickname rather than his legal name.

9

John Quincy Adams

The second president of the United States, John Adams, is one of the best-known Founding Fathers. His name is instantly recognizable to most Americans, and that's exactly why his son made an important decision about what he would be called.

John Quincy Adams was born on July 11, 1767, in the North Precinct of Braintree, Massachusetts, an area that was officially renamed Quincy in 1792. The nation's sixth president and the first son of a president to become president himself carried a name with a story. He was named not only after his father, but also after his maternal great-grandfather, Colonel John Quincy, who was gravely ill when the baby was born. Although Quincy was originally a family surname, it became the baby’s middle name. As an adult, he embraced all three names, John Quincy Adams, helping distinguish himself from his famous father while honoring both sides of his family.

10

Grover Cleveland

Most people have never heard of Stephen Cleveland, but mention Grover Cleveland, and they'll know exactly who you're talking about. The thing is, they're the same person.

Born on March 18, 1837, in Caldwell, New Jersey, the future 22nd and 24th president of the United States was actually named Stephen Grover Cleveland. His father, a Presbyterian minister, chose the name to honor Reverend Stephen Grover, the first pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Caldwell, where he was serving at the time. As he grew older, however, Cleveland made an unusual choice: instead of going by his first name, Stephen, he adopted his middle name because he simply liked the sound of "Grover Cleveland" better.