# Nannerpuss > 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[6]. 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[1]. ## Origin 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[3]. The character was designed to represent a typical whimsical children's breakfast, set up as a contrast to Denny's Grand Slam meal[3]. The spot promoted a free Grand Slam breakfast event scheduled for the following Tuesday, February 3, 2009[3]. That promotion drove massive results: Denny's website traffic jumped by 1,679% on game day, far outpacing every other Super Bowl advertiser[6]. Compete and TNS Media tracked that Frito-Lay saw a 313% increase and PepsiCo managed 199%, but nobody came close to Denny's numbers[6]. An estimated two million people showed up at Denny's locations for the free meal[3]. - **Platform:** Television (Super Bowl XLIII broadcast), YouTube / YTMND (viral spread) - **Creator:** Goodby, Silverstein & Partners (ad agency) - **Date:** 2009 ## 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[3]. 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[2]. 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 attention[2]. 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]. ## 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[3]. Denny's official website made the video available for download and encouraged sharing[3]. 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[3]. By February 10, Nannerpuss had its own Urban Dictionary definition[4]. Coverage spread across AdWeek, Serious Eats, and The Hot Dish over the following weeks[5]. 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[5]. In May 2009, a user on the Craftster forums posted a hand-knitted Nannerpuss with felt pancakes[3]. The character picked up a Facebook fan page that eventually reached over 11,000 likes[3]. 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[3]. 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[3]. Compete's tracking showed that interest in Super Bowl ads in general "dropped to almost zero within the first two days after the game"[6]. ## How to Use 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[3]. The Etsy market briefly offered handmade Nannerpuss items, including Valentine's Day cards featuring two Nannerpusses linking banana arms[1]. 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[1]. 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"[1]. 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"[1]. 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"[1]. 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[6]. 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[3][6]. - The official Nannerpuss Twitter account went rogue with bizarre and inappropriate tweets, which Denny's apparently couldn't (or didn't) control[1]. - E-Trade, despite running what were considered funny ads during the same Super Bowl, saw its website traffic *drop* by 57%[6]. - 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[5]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Nannerpuss? Nannerpuss is a puppet character from a 2009 Denny's Super Bowl commercial. It's a banana carved to look like an octopus, with googly eyes, sitting on pancakes and singing a jingle[3]. ### Where did Nannerpuss come from? The character was created by ad agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners for Denny's first-ever Super Bowl commercial, which aired during Super Bowl XLIII in February 2009[3]. ### What does Nannerpuss mean? The name is a portmanteau of "nanner" (slang for banana) and "puss" (short for octopus). The character was meant to represent a silly children's breakfast, contrasted against Denny's "serious" Grand Slam[3][2]. ### How do you use Nannerpuss? Nannerpuss never became a reusable meme format. Most engagement involved sharing the original commercial, quoting the jingle ("Guess what? I love pancakes"), or creating physical crafts and remixes of the footage[1][3]. ### Is Nannerpuss still popular? No. Search interest peaked in February 2009 and dropped off almost immediately. Nannerpuss is remembered fondly by those who saw the original ad but never broke into lasting meme status[3][1]. ### How much traffic did the Nannerpuss ad drive? Denny's website traffic increased by 1,679% on Super Bowl Sunday, the highest of any advertiser that year[6]. ### What happened to the Nannerpuss Twitter account? Denny's created an official Twitter account for Nannerpuss on the day the commercial aired. It initially replied to confused viewers but eventually began posting increasingly disturbing and inappropriate content[1][3]. ### Why didn't Nannerpuss become a bigger meme? Eater's 2019 retrospective argued that Nannerpuss arrived just before brands learned to leverage Twitter and influencer culture to sustain viral moments. Had it launched later, Denny's social media presence could have kept the character alive[1]. ### Was Nannerpuss considered a successful ad? Yes, from a marketing standpoint. It drove the highest web traffic of any 2009 Super Bowl advertiser, brought two million people to Denny's for a free breakfast, and was later named one of the 20 most effective Super Bowl ads by the Daily Beast[3][6]. ## References 1. [Denny’s Nannerpuss Is the Meme That Never Was | Eater]() 2. [Ad Space – Nannerpuss! – The Avocado]() 3. [Denny's :: Real breakfast 24/7 :: Don't Settle for a Fake Breakfast]() 4. [Nannerpuss - Know Your Meme]() 5. [Urban Dictionary: nannerpuss]() 6. [Splitcoaststampers : Card Making, Rubber Stamping & Paper Crafting]() 7. [Nannerpus inches toward world domination]() 8. [The Real Winner of the Super Bowl? Dennys.com]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/nannerpuss Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library