When an ad guru told the New York Times this weekend, “He is who he is, and people respect his genuineness,” were kinder words ever spoken about a cartoon peanut? She was referring, as you may have intuited, to the Planters mascot Mr. Peanut, who is getting a $35 million makeover that includes a celebrity voice lent by Robert Downey Jr. Still, even talking legumes are subject to speculation about their sexuality, and Mr. Peanut is no different; after all, this is a character who chooses to wear a monocle and loves to throw dinner parties, traits that inspired the campaign’s ad men to clarify the relationship between Mr. Peanut and his new male sidekick like so: ” ‘Benson is quite enamored of Mr. Peanut,’ Mr. Levine said, but they are, as the saying goes, just friends. Benson does not live in Mr. Peanut’s house, Mr. Wixom said.” [NYT]
