Miss Chiquita

The company mascot “Miss Chiquita,” now Chiquita Banana, was created in 1944 by Dik Browne, who is best known for his Hägar the Horrible comic strip. Miss Chiquita started as an animated banana with a woman’s dress and legs. Vocalist Patti Clayton was the original 1944 voice of Miss Chiquita, followed by Elsa Miranda, June Valli and Monica Lewis. Advertisements featured the trademark banana character wearing a fruit hat. The banana with a fruit hat was changed into a woman in 1987. A new Miss Chiquita design was unveiled in 1998. Peel-off stickers with the logo started being placed on bananas in 1963. They are still placed by hand today to avoid bruising the fruit.

A commercial in 1947 with a theme song in English ended with the lyrics “si, si” emphasizing for consumers the origin of the bananas as Latin America. Another commercial featured a man of Latin descent with exaggerated stereotypical features. As times changed throughout the 1960s, so did the iconography and publications of Chiquita and their produce, of bananas.

Madame Banana 1944 Vintage Men’s T-Shirt

Psyne Co.