The world's first double-decker hamburger needed a larger-than-life personality to help create a national appetite. So when a chubby little boy in red suspenders walked into Bob's Pantry in Glendale, California, in 1936, he became the new symbol for Bob's Big Boy restaurant. Owner and founder Bob Wian created a stylized image for his "Big Boy," with red-checked pants and suspenders, dark wavy hair, cherubic cheeks and a happy grin -- because he was holding the hamburger he was named for.
The Big Boy image became so popular that Bob's Big Boy restaurants soon franchised all over the country under several different names, including Elias, JB's, Frisch's, and Shoney's. Marriott took over the chain in 1967.
Over the years, the Big Boy has cleaned up his image (one suspender used to droop -- now they're both buttoned up tight), shed a few pounds, and lightened his hair from dark brown to chestnut. But his popularity is still so strong that when Marriott was thinking of retiring him in the mid-1980's, a national customer survey voted him back in a landslide decision.
This doll is a two-dimensional representation, with lithographed features in the Big Boy's trademark red, white and blue colors. His face is more real and child-like in this interpretation than in some of the other figures in his image.
