We try to be sparing with obituaries at MAA (otherwise we’d never write about anything else and you’d all be sad the whole time) but must mark the passing of Louis (left), a chimpanzee who was one of the stars of the legendary series of ads for PG Tips, produced by Davidson Pearce and then by BMP when it bought the agency.
Louis, 37, was seeing out a well-earned retirement at Twycross Zoo. You’ll be relieved to hear that his business partner and friend Choppers, 42, is still going strong.
These ads, phenomenally successful and popular in their 1970s and ’80s heyday, became something of a curse for Davidson Pearce and not just because the beasts tended to bite lumps out of anyone unlucky enough to attend a shoot.
Despite all the other excellent campaigns it produced all everybody remembered were the bloody chimps.
Anyway, we mustn’t be mean. RIP Louis.
