Little Debbie Is Real, And Her Origin Story Is One To Savor

Will the real Betty Crocker please stand up? Too bad she doesn’t exist. But, surprise, surprise, Little Debbie is real, and she’s all grown up.

The face on boxes of the beloved snack cakes belongs to Debbie McKee-Fowler, the granddaughter of McKee Foods’ founders O.D. and Ruth McKee, as detailed in a new video by the Weird History Food YouTube channel. The couple riskily built their business during the height of the Great Depression, selling snack cakes for five cents a pop at the back of a car. The treats were transported throughout the country, offering a little sweetness to troubled families.

As they became more successful, the McKees decided to rebrand their snack cakes. By 1960, they were distributing family-sized snack cartons, but they didn’t know how to repackage them to appeal to the masses. Their packaging supplier, Bob Masher, stepped in and offered up the suggestion to adorn boxes with the cherubic face of their four-year-old granddaughter, Debbie.

The couple liked the sound of this, so they enlisted an Atlanta pinup artist named Pearl Frush Mann to create the new company logo. Little Debbie, now eternalized as the mascot of delicious snacks like Oatmeal Creme Pies, was aged up to about nine years old and pictured in a straw hat.

The branding decision was made without the knowledge of Debbie’s parents, who only found out about her likeness being used after coming across the new packaging. There’s little evidence of them being Debbie Downers about this move, though.

The real Debbie herself didn’t mind this commercialized tribute so much. According to the company, she’d give out snack cakes to customers while dressed in the iconic straw hat as a child.

The Little Debbie logo has received a few tweaks over the years, but they haven’t departed too greatly from the original design.

Today, the real Little Debbie remains a big part of the company. Not only has she served as the brand’s figurehead, but the 62-year-old Debbie McKee-Fowler is also the Executive Vice President of McKee Foods and on its Board of Directors.

[via Boing Boing, Weird History Food, Digg, Mashed, images via various sources]