During Super Bowl LIV, Planters killed off its 104-year-old mascot, Mr. Peanut, and a new baby nut was born from his grave. However, the story doesn’t stop there.
Artist Nina Matsumoto took the conversation to the next level with some classically inspired fan art that quickly took over Twitter.
Matsumoto posted an image of the deceased Mr. Peanut gruesomely devouring his new offspring. The image, dark in both content and color palette, even shows the new baby nut bleeding peanut butter. The image is inspired by the famous Francisco Goya's early 19th-century painting “Saturn Devouring His Son”.
The classic painting depicted the Roman myth of the titan Saturn eating his newborn children whole, so they could not overthrow him as king of the gods -- fitting since Baby Nut is Mr. Peanut's successor. Her art reflected the resistant response many people had when the Planters Twitter account announced the death of its longtime mascot on Jan. 22.
The company’s Twitter account continued to mourn the fictional death of the mascot with video tributes and retweets of Mr. Peanut’s "friends" remembering him. Tweets of mourning came from brand accounts, comedians and consumers alike. Mark Walsh, who later appeared at the legume’s funeral, even tweeted a video tribute.
Since the strange birth, the peanut company has created a stream of tweets from Baby Nut trying to get audience involvement. But Matsumoto said she thinks the company should have gone in a different direction with the reboot.
Matsumoto began working as an artist in 2007 for Bongo Comics, providing pencils for Simpsons Comics and Bart Simpson.