Minny & Jim

I PEN THESE LINES TO MINNY HANFF,

For whom I've searched from Maine to Banff.

But all my letters have miscarried.

Perhaps, Miss Hanff, you've since been married.

If from the Dumps you'd rescue him,

Please drop a line to Sunny Jim.

Sandwiched between other appeals to missing persons, the above jingle appeared one Sunday last month in the "agony columns" of Manhattan newspapers. Seasoned readers recalled Sunny Jim. He was the jolly old fellow with the brimless plug hat. the erect queue of white hair, the towering collar, red jacket and yellow waistcoat who advertised Force, the breakfast food, 30 years ago. Before eating Force he was a scowling grump named Jim Dumps (with hair queue drooping). A famed old jingle told his story:

Jim Dumps was a most unfriendly man,

Who lived his life on a hermit plan.

He'd never stop for a friendly smile,

But trudged along in his moody style

'Till FORCE FOOD once was served to him-- Since then they call him Sunny Jim.

Newsreaders who remembered Sunny Jim remembered also the distinctive six-line jingles which appeared with him in all Force advertisements. But few knew what Minny Hanff had to do with it. Last week they read more about Minny in the agony columns:

DEAR SUNNY JIM, YOUR NOTE RECEIVED

Or can my eyes have been deceived?

In thirty years, is it so strange

My maiden name from Hanff should change?

At Hotel Berkley, if he cares,

S. Jim can find his Minny Ayers.

Last week Erwin, Wasey & Co. Inc. advertising agency supplied the missing facts about Jim & Minny. In 1902 Minny Hanff, 17, a buxom Manhattan schoolgirl, began selling verses and children's stories to newspapers. When Hecker H-O Co., makers of Force, held an advertising contest, Minny conceived the character of Sunny Jim, submitted jingles about him. The company paid her $100 for the idea, ordered more verses. Minny got her friend Dorothy Ficken, 16, to draw pictures of Sunny Jim. For a year they were kept busy. Then, to carry out a $1,000,000 advertising program, artists and copywriters were called in to help. Songs, marches, musical comedies, sermons, were composed about Sunny Jim. But the product was not taken up as enthusiastically as was its advertising campaign. In 1909 Sunny Jim was relegated to a corner of slow-selling Force's carton.

Lately Hecker H-O Co. engaged Erwin, Wasey to revive Force. Vice President Owen Burtch Winters of the agency thought it would be good publicity to revive also Sunny Jim and Minny. Although it was known that Miss Hanff married Raymond Fuller Ayers, children's page editor of the New York Herald, in 1903, efforts to locate her failed. The "agony column" jingle was written. Few days before the jingle was to appear, a new Manhattan directory was issued. There was the name of Mrs. Minny Ayers. But the idea of advertising was so pleasing, Erwin, Wasey inserted the jingle in the newspapers just the same, later got Mrs. Ayers to help write the reply.

The Force campaign is to be resumed in April or May, with jingles written by grey-haired Minny Hanff Ayers.

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