Here’s something else I wanted to share that I came across in Brazil: this package of little snack cakes. Not so much the snack cakes, but the packaging:
A package of Bauducco Gulosos, Bolinhos Sabor Morango (Strawberry-flavored little cakes)
Recognize the the cartoon characters?
Bubbles, is that you?
In case you are not familiar with the Powerpuff Girls, a animated TV series from Cartoon Network, this is what they usually look like.
The Powerpuff Girls looking more like sweet-looking little girls. (image source)
However, it would seem that in Brazil, the little kindergarteners are not quite sexy enough to sell snack cakes. So they have been tarted up a bit.¹
This is, of course, not the first time the little superheroines have been given a more grown-up makeover. In Japan, they were transformed into leggy anime teenagers:
The girls from Powerpuff Girls Z: not in kindergarten anymore. (image source)
Anyhow, my package of snack cakes unabashedly displays both the Cartoon Network and Powerpuff Girls logos. The transformation of the characters is somewhat mysterious to me, and is possibly only snack-cake-related. I haven’t been able to find any other similar images of them. Even on the Bauducco website itself, the same product is shown this way:
—-
¹Anyone else reminded of Xuxa, the scandalous sexpot hostess of a kids’ show?
(By the way, this post title is in part inspired by a recent post I read involving a whole hell of a lot of Sweetarts.)
collecting tokens 
Wow, those are some little hussy cakes!
actually, they’re “greedy” cakes. also very interesting.
The cake itself is a little suggestive, too. I’m just sayin’.
Xuxa is a SAINT. Yes, a saint in really short skirts, but a saint nonetheless. Is she still around with her Xow? (I guess I should go a search huh…)
Those little snack cakes are kind of disturbing looking. Disturbing, yet also tasty.
it’s always interesting to see familiar characters “translate”
Wow, such a comparative approach to media and branding- I think I know a program at a local university that would be perfect for you.
Seriously, that’s, like, what we do.
Good, Lord – Just when I think I’ve pushed Xuxa to the farthest, dusty corner of my memory she turns up here.
Like a bad petty, that one is.
I’d never heard of Xuxa before, and I thank you for initiating me to her mysteries.
I’m not sure if my low-carb diet will allow me to have the manga-cakes though.
flutter-
Perhaps that would be a good name for the product.
laloca-
Ah, I hadn’t actually known that word. I think the name predates the marketing, though. It looks like there’s at least a Shrek version out there. (And no, they didn’t sexy him up…)
jeanerz-
Sometimes a snack cake is just a…
Mme. Meow-
I suppose she may be a saint. (I don’t really have a problem with someone being both saintly and sexual.) But I’m not thrilled with marketing sexy to preschoolers…I’m just sayin’.
rima-
I can’t decide whether or not to open them, or preserve them for posterity. But I am a little peckish…
painted-
Yeah, this was an interesting translation…
bs-
Maybe once I finish the one degree…
City Girl-
Poor Xuxa was getting dusty?
Mark-
Xuxa was all the rage when I was in Brazil in ’91, and there was no escaping her mysteries. There were even products galore. I remember the “I love Xu” shoe in particular. (Mind you, “Xuxa” is pronounced “ShooSha”.)
hmmm, perhaps go ahead and eat the forbidden fruits of the over-sexxed cakes, and just preserve the wacky wrapper in a scrapbook somewhere?
thank fsm shoo-sha never showed up on my local telemundo station…
That is hilarious! I had no idea the Powerpuff girls had gotten these makeovers.
fireweaver-
Yes, I think I’ll do that. (The cakes may well be stale now, though. But that won’t stop me.)
Kyla-
Pretty wild, huh? It makes you wonder who else has been subject to this type of cultural translation.
ms.fernandez is so stuppid she got no brain. and she is my princaple she got no tast.
Actually, they were pretty hot 6 years back in the USA. Lots of ‘tween’ powerepuff products and my sister even had a pair of sneakers. But now, it’s like they disapeared.