Thursday, August 20, 2009

Fruit and underwear


There are some questions parents just can't answer.
While watching TV yesterday afternoon, my daughter tossed one of those unanswerables to me.
"OK," she said as the Fruit of the Loom guys strutted across the screen. "I see green grapes, purple grapes and an apple, but what's that guy supposed to be?" She pointed one wearing leafotards.
I opened my mouth but quickly realized I couldn't tell her. I didn' t have a clue.
Lettuce? Spinach? Couldn't be. Those are veggies, not fruits.
Man, did I ever feel like an idiot. I mean, how long have those four guys been peddling men's undies on TV? How many times have I snickered at their oddball Christmas commercials? Or the one where the grape-man's cell phone starts ringing in the middle of a Vince Gill song?
How is it possible that I'd never questioned the nature of the Fruit of the Loom guys?
Much to my chagrin, (did I really just use that word?) I admitted to Elizabeth that I didn' t know, but I would find out.
Google to the rescue!
Here's what I found:
The logo was developed in 1893 and includes purple and green grapes, an apple, and gooseberries (or currants). The leaves on the commercials were made to reflect the logo. While they resemble real-life tobacco leaves, some assert they are fig leaves.
Biblically speaking, that makes sense. Ya know, Adam and the garden of Eden?
The FOTL company says they're just leaves. (booooring!) I guess they're trying to distance the company from the rumor that it devised its name as a play-on words with the Biblical phrase "Blessed is the fruit of your womb." The company says it's merely a coincidence that loom and womb rhyme. (Seems to me there's a lot of coinkydinks going on here.)
Regardless, at least now I have an answer for Elizabeth when she asks about undies.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

OMG, I never knew that either. You go girl...Google rules.

LOL.

Unknown said...

You'd think that representing mens' underwear they would at least have a banana! lol Leaves? How lame is that?

Diane said...

I had wondered too, but was too lazy to research it. Thanks for the info and it's neat that it has a biblical reference.