Frito Bandito Flashback

I owned this eraser and cherished it! The YouTube poster says this video was banned but I don't have time to verify the facts on it; in and of itself, the short commercial is more interesting for how it re-makes an old Warner Brother's standby--the animated character being erased mid-cartoon!

Classic Frito Bandito Commercial: Mel Blanc and Friz Freleng Back in the House

Though Chon Noriega has cornered the market on the Frito Bandito in the history of American cultural studies, I like to think my notes in Tex[t]-Mex and here in the Galleryblog are useful as well! Happy Thanksgiving!

The Frito Bandito, Pencil Erasers, Memory

Is it possible for the bandit trope of the Mexican to be innocuous? Perhaps, but always already* simultaneous with this notion of innocence lurks the spectre of a 'darker' past, a swarthier potentiality. That said, I will pass on my Ethnic Studies instincts and share this YouTube video of a Frito-Lay corporation Frito Bandito television ad from the 60s out of sheer nostalgia--me and my sister Josie used to fight over the prizes in cereal boxes and here, tortilla chip 6-packs. The only thing sinister in this commercial is the memory of hermanita getting to the box first!




*Gracias Derrida!

Tortilla Chip Hawking Ethnic Mannequins | The Frito Bandito

He's even a dim memory for us forty-somethings valiantly staving off assaults of incipient Alzheimer's, but back in the day, Frito-Lay corporation's Frito Bandito was the cock of the walk when it came to corporate animated spokespeople--the Trix rabbit, Lucky Charms leprechaun and Uniroyal Tiger (nightmarish rogue), have nothing on this avatar of "Mexicanicity." For an oldie but a goodie, look up Chon Noriega's piece on the Frito Bandito for the San Diego Latino Film Festival back in 1987. A fan site on Mr. Bandito is here.

Here is the first Frito Bandito commercial; a second variation follows, with Mel Blanc doing the vocal honors; the Bandito commercials were developed by Isadore "Friz" Freleng of Speedy Gonzales fame.





A brief reading of the Frito Bandito appears in Seductive Hallucination Gallery Two in my UTPress Tex[t]-Mex volume on Mexican stereotypes in American mass culture.