Charmin Toilet Paper

Perhaps one of the most memorable sales slogans ever devised in the history of television was that of the memorable Mr. Whipple telling everyone to “please don’t squeeze the Charmin” making Charmin toilet paper the best selling toilet paper ever for parent company Proctor and Gamble. If you are older 35 chances are good you will remember the commercials featuring actor Dick Wilson as Mr. Whipple pleading with the customers to not squeeze the Charmin.

Charmine toilet paper has actually been around since the 1920’s manufactured by the Hoberg Paper Company out of Green Bay Wisconsin. The name was coined after an employee of the paper company described the design for the new packaged as charming. The original Charmon Toilet paper package was a copy of a traditional cameo design.

Through the 1930’s and 1940’s there were only a few minor changes to the design and the packaging, then in the 1950’s the Hoberg Company changed their name to the Charmen Paper Company  and began to produce all sorts of paper products in addition to Charmen toilet paper. The packaging was modernized with the addition of the Charmin Baby.

In 1957 Proctor and Gamble acquired Charmin and discontinued all the products except for Charmon toilet paper. Still Charmin was only a regional product and not very well known, it was not until the creation of Mr. Whipple in 1964 in the please don’t squeeze the Charmin commercials that the popularity of the Charmin aloe toilet paper skyrocketed.

For over 20 years Mr. Whipple promoted the squeezable softness of Charmin travel toilet tissue with the likes of Joan Van Ark and Charlotte Rae. Mr. Whipple became one of the most recognizable Americans just behind President Nixon and Billy Graham, making him and Charmin mega roll Toilet paper a household name.

Charmin was also the first toilet paper to use perfume, and Proctor and Gamble even patented a new technique that could produce a softer Charmin aloe Toilet paper, making Charmin not only the softest but the strongest toilet paper on the market. By 1973 Charmon toilet paper became the best selling, most well known toilet paper in the US.

In 1985 Mr. Whipple as portrayed by Dick Wilson retired But Proctor and Gamble was not done improving its toilet paper, and when in 1999 they made Charmin the most absorbable toilet paper on the market Mr. Whipple came back for a round of commercials to celebrate the upgrade and the 70^th birthday of Charmin.