SPUDS MACKENZIE

'Spuds MacKenzie' (real name 'Honey Tree Evil Eye') was the marketing dog of the year in 1987 when he first showed up in a Bud Light Beer Super Bowl ad. By the end of the game, Spuds was a marketing success.
The sly ladies-dog (a Bull Terrier) existed not without his share of controversy. Shortly after Spuds' sensational rise to fame it was learned that "he" was actually female. The "controversy" was spread through the media. At one point Budweiser employees concealed "Spuds" from cameras, so as to hide her female genitals while she urinated.
Because of the popularity of the ads, they were the subject of attacks and calls for censorship by temperance-oriented groups. In 1989, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, along with Mothers Against Drunk Driving, charged that Anheuser-Busch was pitching the too-cool-for-monogamy-and-sobriety dog to children. Although the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) found no evidence to support that allegation, the ads were dropped.
Spuds died of kidney failure on May 31, 1993 in North Riverside, Illinois at age 10. An urban legend had Spuds dying of electrocution while filming a commercial. Another urban myth includes Spuds dying from being thrown from an airplane when his parachute failed to open while filming a commercial.

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Cultural References

Cultural References

★ The character Slurms MacKenzie ("The Original Party Worm") from the television series ''Futurama'' is a parody of Spuds, as is Santa's Little Helper's stint as "Suds McDuff" on ''The Simpsons''.

★ On an episode of ''Family Guy'', while at a spring break celebration, one character sees a Bull Terrier which he replies to and says, "Hey look, it's Spuds MacKenzie". The dog attacks him.

★ In an epsode of ''The Golden Girls'', one of Sophia's boyfriends is said to have been caught spraypainting "something obscene on Spuds MacKenzie", on a billboard of Spuds'.

★ Spuds made two cameo appearances in the 80's comic strip "Bloom County." First as a presidential candidate running against Bill the Cat and Opus, and then again during the strip's "female crisis" where he revealed to Opus that one member of Bloom County's all male cast was actually a female in disguise but passed out from alcohol intoxication before he could reveal who it was.