The Chips Ahoy! Mascot Is Hiding A Secret

The chocolate chip cookie had its humble origins in 1930 at the Toll House Inn when Ruth Graves used Nestle semi-sweet chocolate pieces in lieu of baker's chocolate (via All Recipes). Since then, this cookie has taken the world by storm, and tons of different variations of the recipe have been developed. While they aren't the first mass-produced chocolate chip cookies in America, Chips Ahoy certainly are the best-selling chocolate chip cookies, according to Mental Floss.

These scrumptious snacks from Nabisco have been around since 1963 and are the third best-selling cookie in the U.S. after Oreos and private label cookies (per Statista). The well-known "Cookie Guy" mascot has been around since 2002 and walks around pulling all sorts of mischievous and playful antics in commercials, such as walking into an area marked "No Food Allowed" (via Mental Floss). While he's known now as the prank-pulling "Cookie Guy," he has a secret past that doesn't come up very often.

The original mascot for Chips Ahoy was a live-action superhero that would appear on television during Saturday morning cartoons and on comic strips on the packaging of the cookies. According to Mental Floss, "The storylines often portrayed Mort Meek enjoying all "16 chocolate chips" in his cookie when a thieving villain with a sweet tooth would attack. Mort Meek would slip away, Superman-style, and reemerge as Cookie Man to save the day." That's a pretty big difference from the animated cookie we know today. 

Maybe it was because people didn't really resonate with the live-action cookie-saving superhero, or maybe it was the switch to mostly cute and animated mascots for foods and snacks marketed mainly for children, but whatever the reason, there have been some pretty dramatic alterations in the Chips Ahoy mascot over the years. What's more, there are actually five "Cookie Guys" that include Chipper, Soft, Stroppy, Chunky, and Cheeky. Are we the only ones that had no idea?