Nannerpuss

2009Commercial mascot / viral ad characterdead

Also known as: Nannerpus · Banana Octopus

Nannerpuss is a 2009 Denny's Super Bowl commercial mascot featuring a googly-eyed banana puppet shaped like an octopus, sitting atop pancakes and singing a jingle.

Nannerpuss is a puppet mascot from a 2009 Denny's Super Bowl commercial, featuring a banana carved to look like an octopus with googly eyes, sitting atop a stack of pancakes and singing a jingle. The ad aired during Super Bowl XLIII and drove a 1,679% spike in traffic to Denny's website6. Despite a brief burst of fan-made remixes and fan art, Nannerpuss faded quickly from the broader meme landscape, making it a beloved but short-lived piece of late-2000s internet culture1.

TL;DR

Nannerpuss is a puppet mascot from a 2009 Denny's Super Bowl commercial, featuring a banana carved to look like an octopus with googly eyes, sitting atop a stack of pancakes and singing a jingle.

Overview

Nannerpuss is a puppeted banana peel carved to resemble an octopus, with a single googly eye and a mustache, perched on a stack of pancakes3. The character appeared in a Denny's television spot structured as an ad-within-an-ad: Nannerpuss represented a silly, childish breakfast mascot, complete with a catchy jingle ("Nannerpuss, Nannerpuss, my name's Nannerpuss"), before a deep-voiced narrator cut in to pitch Denny's Grand Slam as a "serious breakfast" alternative2. The name is a portmanteau of "nanner" (slang for banana) and "puss" (short for octopus)3.

The joke of the commercial was self-aware: Denny's wanted to position itself above goofy mascot advertising while simultaneously using a goofy mascot to grab attention2. As the ad blog The Avocado put it, the strategy was to create "a weird, colorful, attention grabbing mascot," then shove it aside and claim "that's not what we're about"2.

Nannerpuss debuted during Super Bowl XLIII on February 1, 2009. The commercial was created by the Goodby, Silverstein & Partners advertising agency and marked the first time Denny's had purchased ad time during the Super Bowl3. The character was designed to represent a typical whimsical children's breakfast, set up as a contrast to Denny's Grand Slam meal3.

The spot promoted a free Grand Slam breakfast event scheduled for the following Tuesday, February 3, 20093. That promotion drove massive results: Denny's website traffic jumped by 1,679% on game day, far outpacing every other Super Bowl advertiser6. Compete and TNS Media tracked that Frito-Lay saw a 313% increase and PepsiCo managed 199%, but nobody came close to Denny's numbers6. An estimated two million people showed up at Denny's locations for the free meal3.

Origin & Background

Platform
Television (Super Bowl XLIII broadcast), YouTube / YTMND (viral spread)
Key People
Goodby, Silverstein & Partners
Date
2009

Nannerpuss debuted during Super Bowl XLIII on February 1, 2009. The commercial was created by the Goodby, Silverstein & Partners advertising agency and marked the first time Denny's had purchased ad time during the Super Bowl. The character was designed to represent a typical whimsical children's breakfast, set up as a contrast to Denny's Grand Slam meal.

The spot promoted a free Grand Slam breakfast event scheduled for the following Tuesday, February 3, 2009. That promotion drove massive results: Denny's website traffic jumped by 1,679% on game day, far outpacing every other Super Bowl advertiser. Compete and TNS Media tracked that Frito-Lay saw a 313% increase and PepsiCo managed 199%, but nobody came close to Denny's numbers. An estimated two million people showed up at Denny's locations for the free meal.

How It Spread

Within hours of the Super Bowl broadcast, a Twitter account was created for Nannerpuss, replying to confused viewers who had just seen the ad. Denny's official website made the video available for download and encouraged sharing. On February 6, a YTMND page built from the commercial went up and pulled in nearly 18,000 views, with several other YTMND remixes following that month.

By February 10, Nannerpuss had its own Urban Dictionary definition. Coverage spread across AdWeek, Serious Eats, and The Hot Dish over the following weeks. AdWeek noted that YouTube was "awash in clips built around the catchy but grating jingle," including mashups with Christian Bale's infamous on-set rant and various fan edits. In May 2009, a user on the Craftster forums posted a hand-knitted Nannerpuss with felt pancakes.

The character picked up a Facebook fan page that eventually reached over 11,000 likes. Advertising blog Ad Nauseous nominated the commercial for Ad of the Year in late 2009, and in early 2012, the Daily Beast included it on a list of the 20 most effective Super Bowl ads.

But the hype was short-lived. Google search interest for Nannerpuss and its alternate spellings peaked sharply in February 2009 and dropped off almost immediately. Compete's tracking showed that interest in Super Bowl ads in general "dropped to almost zero within the first two days after the game".

How to Use This Meme

Nannerpuss never really developed into a reusable meme template. Its appeal was the specific commercial: the jingle, the puppet, the absurdity of a banana octopus dancing on pancakes. Most fan engagement took the form of remixes of the original footage (splicing it with other audio or editing the commercial itself) or crafting physical replicas. The Etsy market briefly offered handmade Nannerpuss items, including Valentine's Day cards featuring two Nannerpusses linking banana arms.

If you wanted to reference Nannerpuss, the typical move was to quote the jingle ("Guess what? I love pancakes") or share the original commercial clip. There was no exploitable image macro format or fill-in-the-blank template.

Cultural Impact

Nannerpuss landed at a particular moment in advertising history. In 2009, brands were just starting to figure out how internet culture could amplify a Super Bowl spot. Quiznos had already experimented with the deliberately weird Spongmonkeys, and the Dos Equis "Most Interesting Man" was being shared as a meme format. But Nannerpuss felt less calculated than those efforts. As Eater's retrospective put it, the character was "an organic attempt at Internet irreverence before every brand figured out how to 'clap back' on Twitter".

The attempt to extend the character's life didn't go well. Denny's launched an official Nannerpuss Twitter account, but it backfired when the account began posting "increasingly disturbing and inappropriate thoughts". The writer at Eater noted an irony in the whole thing: "Nannerpuss never inspired me to eat at Denny's. I developed no warm feelings for the brand who made him. If anything it made me slightly more averse to bananas".

The commercial's real legacy is as a case study in viral advertising. ReadWriteWeb's analysis of Super Bowl 2009 web traffic positioned Denny's as the clear winner, noting that online services like Hulu only managed a 76% traffic bump while career sites like Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com actually lost traffic. The ad worked as marketing even if Nannerpuss never became a lasting meme.

Fun Facts

Nannerpuss was Denny's very first Super Bowl ad purchase, and it outperformed every other advertiser in web traffic that year.

The official Nannerpuss Twitter account went rogue with bizarre and inappropriate tweets, which Denny's apparently couldn't (or didn't) control.

E-Trade, despite running what were considered funny ads during the same Super Bowl, saw its website traffic *drop* by 57%.

AdWeek called the commercial a case of making "the fictional one" better than the real ad, noting that audiences wanted the silly breakfast mascot more than the Grand Slam pitch.

Derivatives & Variations

YTMND remixes:

Multiple YTMND pages paired the Nannerpuss jingle with other content. The original YTMND page from February 6, 2009 hit nearly 18,000 views[3].

Christian Bale mashup:

A YouTube clip spliced the Nannerpuss jingle with Christian Bale's infamous on-set rant from the set of *Terminator Salvation*[5].

Handmade crafts:

A Craftster user created a knitted Nannerpuss replica with felt pancakes in May 2009. Etsy sellers also offered Nannerpuss-themed Valentine's Day cards[1][3].

Frequently Asked Questions

Nannerpuss

2009Commercial mascot / viral ad characterdead

Also known as: Nannerpus · Banana Octopus

Nannerpuss is a 2009 Denny's Super Bowl commercial mascot featuring a googly-eyed banana puppet shaped like an octopus, sitting atop pancakes and singing a jingle.

Nannerpuss is a puppet mascot from a 2009 Denny's Super Bowl commercial, featuring a banana carved to look like an octopus with googly eyes, sitting atop a stack of pancakes and singing a jingle. The ad aired during Super Bowl XLIII and drove a 1,679% spike in traffic to Denny's website. Despite a brief burst of fan-made remixes and fan art, Nannerpuss faded quickly from the broader meme landscape, making it a beloved but short-lived piece of late-2000s internet culture.

TL;DR

Nannerpuss is a puppet mascot from a 2009 Denny's Super Bowl commercial, featuring a banana carved to look like an octopus with googly eyes, sitting atop a stack of pancakes and singing a jingle.

Overview

Nannerpuss is a puppeted banana peel carved to resemble an octopus, with a single googly eye and a mustache, perched on a stack of pancakes. The character appeared in a Denny's television spot structured as an ad-within-an-ad: Nannerpuss represented a silly, childish breakfast mascot, complete with a catchy jingle ("Nannerpuss, Nannerpuss, my name's Nannerpuss"), before a deep-voiced narrator cut in to pitch Denny's Grand Slam as a "serious breakfast" alternative. The name is a portmanteau of "nanner" (slang for banana) and "puss" (short for octopus).

The joke of the commercial was self-aware: Denny's wanted to position itself above goofy mascot advertising while simultaneously using a goofy mascot to grab attention. As the ad blog The Avocado put it, the strategy was to create "a weird, colorful, attention grabbing mascot," then shove it aside and claim "that's not what we're about".

Nannerpuss debuted during Super Bowl XLIII on February 1, 2009. The commercial was created by the Goodby, Silverstein & Partners advertising agency and marked the first time Denny's had purchased ad time during the Super Bowl. The character was designed to represent a typical whimsical children's breakfast, set up as a contrast to Denny's Grand Slam meal.

The spot promoted a free Grand Slam breakfast event scheduled for the following Tuesday, February 3, 2009. That promotion drove massive results: Denny's website traffic jumped by 1,679% on game day, far outpacing every other Super Bowl advertiser. Compete and TNS Media tracked that Frito-Lay saw a 313% increase and PepsiCo managed 199%, but nobody came close to Denny's numbers. An estimated two million people showed up at Denny's locations for the free meal.

Origin & Background

Platform
Television (Super Bowl XLIII broadcast), YouTube / YTMND (viral spread)
Key People
Goodby, Silverstein & Partners
Date
2009

Nannerpuss debuted during Super Bowl XLIII on February 1, 2009. The commercial was created by the Goodby, Silverstein & Partners advertising agency and marked the first time Denny's had purchased ad time during the Super Bowl. The character was designed to represent a typical whimsical children's breakfast, set up as a contrast to Denny's Grand Slam meal.

The spot promoted a free Grand Slam breakfast event scheduled for the following Tuesday, February 3, 2009. That promotion drove massive results: Denny's website traffic jumped by 1,679% on game day, far outpacing every other Super Bowl advertiser. Compete and TNS Media tracked that Frito-Lay saw a 313% increase and PepsiCo managed 199%, but nobody came close to Denny's numbers. An estimated two million people showed up at Denny's locations for the free meal.

How It Spread

Within hours of the Super Bowl broadcast, a Twitter account was created for Nannerpuss, replying to confused viewers who had just seen the ad. Denny's official website made the video available for download and encouraged sharing. On February 6, a YTMND page built from the commercial went up and pulled in nearly 18,000 views, with several other YTMND remixes following that month.

By February 10, Nannerpuss had its own Urban Dictionary definition. Coverage spread across AdWeek, Serious Eats, and The Hot Dish over the following weeks. AdWeek noted that YouTube was "awash in clips built around the catchy but grating jingle," including mashups with Christian Bale's infamous on-set rant and various fan edits. In May 2009, a user on the Craftster forums posted a hand-knitted Nannerpuss with felt pancakes.

The character picked up a Facebook fan page that eventually reached over 11,000 likes. Advertising blog Ad Nauseous nominated the commercial for Ad of the Year in late 2009, and in early 2012, the Daily Beast included it on a list of the 20 most effective Super Bowl ads.

But the hype was short-lived. Google search interest for Nannerpuss and its alternate spellings peaked sharply in February 2009 and dropped off almost immediately. Compete's tracking showed that interest in Super Bowl ads in general "dropped to almost zero within the first two days after the game".

How to Use This Meme

Nannerpuss never really developed into a reusable meme template. Its appeal was the specific commercial: the jingle, the puppet, the absurdity of a banana octopus dancing on pancakes. Most fan engagement took the form of remixes of the original footage (splicing it with other audio or editing the commercial itself) or crafting physical replicas. The Etsy market briefly offered handmade Nannerpuss items, including Valentine's Day cards featuring two Nannerpusses linking banana arms.

If you wanted to reference Nannerpuss, the typical move was to quote the jingle ("Guess what? I love pancakes") or share the original commercial clip. There was no exploitable image macro format or fill-in-the-blank template.

Cultural Impact

Nannerpuss landed at a particular moment in advertising history. In 2009, brands were just starting to figure out how internet culture could amplify a Super Bowl spot. Quiznos had already experimented with the deliberately weird Spongmonkeys, and the Dos Equis "Most Interesting Man" was being shared as a meme format. But Nannerpuss felt less calculated than those efforts. As Eater's retrospective put it, the character was "an organic attempt at Internet irreverence before every brand figured out how to 'clap back' on Twitter".

The attempt to extend the character's life didn't go well. Denny's launched an official Nannerpuss Twitter account, but it backfired when the account began posting "increasingly disturbing and inappropriate thoughts". The writer at Eater noted an irony in the whole thing: "Nannerpuss never inspired me to eat at Denny's. I developed no warm feelings for the brand who made him. If anything it made me slightly more averse to bananas".

The commercial's real legacy is as a case study in viral advertising. ReadWriteWeb's analysis of Super Bowl 2009 web traffic positioned Denny's as the clear winner, noting that online services like Hulu only managed a 76% traffic bump while career sites like Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com actually lost traffic. The ad worked as marketing even if Nannerpuss never became a lasting meme.

Fun Facts

Nannerpuss was Denny's very first Super Bowl ad purchase, and it outperformed every other advertiser in web traffic that year.

The official Nannerpuss Twitter account went rogue with bizarre and inappropriate tweets, which Denny's apparently couldn't (or didn't) control.

E-Trade, despite running what were considered funny ads during the same Super Bowl, saw its website traffic *drop* by 57%.

AdWeek called the commercial a case of making "the fictional one" better than the real ad, noting that audiences wanted the silly breakfast mascot more than the Grand Slam pitch.

Derivatives & Variations

YTMND remixes:

Multiple YTMND pages paired the Nannerpuss jingle with other content. The original YTMND page from February 6, 2009 hit nearly 18,000 views[3].

Christian Bale mashup:

A YouTube clip spliced the Nannerpuss jingle with Christian Bale's infamous on-set rant from the set of *Terminator Salvation*[5].

Handmade crafts:

A Craftster user created a knitted Nannerpuss replica with felt pancakes in May 2009. Etsy sellers also offered Nannerpuss-themed Valentine's Day cards[1][3].

Frequently Asked Questions