Mr. Clean retires! What's that you say?

Cafe Society
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Mr. Clean, the Bald, Broad-Shouldered Cleaning Mascot, Retires

The character became the face of a household cleaner in 1958. It’s not clear what the brand plans for its next mascot.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/24/us/mr-clean-retires-magic-eraser.html?unlocked_article_code=1.O1A.qOv_.BEsWkKOLjhyI&smid=url-share

Is nothing scared sacred? What did he do to deserve banishment?

He’s apparently wiping the slate clean.

After 68 years, Mr. Clean, the bald, strapping mascot of the household cleaning products bearing his name, announced his retirement in a social media post.

In the post, shared last week on the brand’s Instagram account, Mr. Clean is standing behind a lectern and wearing sunglasses and a Hawaiian shirt, his signature all-white outfit seemingly a thing of the past. A chyron reading “Breaking News: Mr. Clean Announces Retirement” stretches across the video.

“After a career with zero stains on the record, he’s ready for new adventures,” a narrator says.

…

The brand’s plans for a successor are not clear, nor is it known whether Mr. Clean has children to inherit the role. A decade ago, the brand similarly said it was sending its character on an extended vacation and was in the market for a new Mr. — or Ms. or Mrs. — Clean.

Is he too white? Is it the earring? Was his name found in the Epstein files?

This smells funny.
:face_with_monocle:

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Its a marketing ploy to draw attention to a brand that has been taken for granted. He will come out of retirement.

I actually just bought a pair of his non-latex reusable gloves not 10 minutes ago.

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You must not have used Mr. Clean if your house smells funny.

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Yeah, like when Mr. Peanut “died” a few years ago.

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I’m old enough to remember when the Sinclair dinosaur became extinct. (maybe 1969?) I was so sad. They had commercials where he walked off, sad and alone.

That lasted what? 10 years? 15? less? I can’t remember for sure.

Now he’s baaaaaaack. And the Sinclair website doesn’t acknowledge he ever went away. Not even during ARCO.

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This is funny. Ever since moving to Europe, I’ve stopped thinking of him by his original name.

Now, for me, he’s “Mister Proper.”

But it turns out this is a global announcement. The figure is retiring everywhere.

https://fr.qz.com/m-propre-annonce-sa-retraite

At least until the brand needs to be rejuvenated with a “glorious return.”

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Mr Pibb re-branding:

CLEAN XTRA!

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No, silly rabbit, it’s the story that smells.
:roll_eyes:

Around here we use Fabuloso. VERY distinctive smell, which some people think smells worse than whatever you were trying to clean up. But I like it.

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Considering all the time companies spend trying to establish an image, character, or logo, you do have to wonder why they’d change it seemingly at the drop of a hat. Mr. Clean, with his white shirt, white hair, and scrubbed skin epitomized “clean”. He also looked unnervingly like my Boy Scout troop’s Scoutmaster, a tough military guy.

There’s no real reason to retire him, except possibly that he’s TOO white, but I’m sure they can live with that.

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He’s settling down to open a B&B with the Jolly Green Giant.

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He’s going back to school to work on his Ph.D. He will return as Dr. Clean.

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“Please, ‘Mr. Clean’ was my father’s name.”

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It isn’t really the same stuff anymore ever since they changed the active ingredient from a weak solution of sodium hydroxide to alkyl-methyl-benzo something. I really saw a difference.

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I’m expecting Fabio hair when Mr. Clean comes back.

And please, the stuff smells like water with a teaspoon of ammonia.

I like my cleaners to really have a bite(and a stink) like Lysol in the brown bottle. (You know have one, way back in the cupboard under your sink)

Now that’s a cleaner, right there.

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I think this is it. What products have a white, male human (as opposed to an animal or cartoon character) avatar?

Check out these white, manly symbols from the past (Mr. Clean is there):

(The Old Spice guy is black, but he’s pretty recent. Not from the era of the Man in the Arrow Shirt or the Schweppes Man.)

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Now that I think about it, I’m honestly kind of surprised that Procter & Gamble never felt the need to give Mr. Clean a wife or kids. Maybe they’ll remedy that now. When he comes back, it will be revealed that he met a nice girl and they cranked out a couple of moppets.

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When I was in college, several of us went to a local grocery store, to pick up some things for a party. It was the middle of the afternoon, and P&G had some promotional appearance for Mr. Clean going on inside the store: it featured a street sweeper machine parked outside, covered with Mr. Clean logos, and an actor who was serving as Mr. Clean himself: shaved head, earring, muscular build, white t-shirt, white pants.

When we got there, the promotional appearance was ending, and the actor was just leaving the store. We talked with him for a moment (because how often do you get to meet Mr. Clean??); as we were talking with him, a young, attractive woman walked over. Mr. Clean said good-bye to us, and started to walk away with the woman. We shouted, “Hey, is that Mrs. Clean??” They both laughed.

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I’ve always assumed the Brawny paper towel guy was his domestic partner. (They’re old school, they don’t feel the need to make it official.)

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I don’t know why, but Mr. Clean (or Mr. Proper as they call him over here) always struck me as “GAY” (with all capital letters), visible from a couple of kilometers away. The kind of person that pings gaydars all over.

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They got rid of the Jack in the Box clown for a while and then brought back a cooler version of him a number of years later. That could be the plan.