When I was a kid, the Chiquita banana logo looked like this:
The old one, as you can see, has an anthropomorphic banana with a fruit bowl on its head. I grew up in the 1980s, so maybe you’ve never seen that logo if you are much younger than I am.
But I didn’t see the anthropomorphic banana. Here’s what I saw:
Notice, it looked like a Kermit the Frog or Cookie Monster type monster.
For a while, I’ve been perplexed about why I saw it that way as a kid. Because, as an adult, I kept seeing the lady, but not the monster. I was perplexed, I now know, because they changed it at some point to a human lady with a fruit bowl on her head, Carmen Miranda style:
Mystery solved. And for the record, it took a long time to track down a photo of the original logo, adding to my confusion. I’ll admit, I still see the monster in the original one at first glance, especially if I see it at a smaller size as it would have been on a banana held by a younger me.
I thought it was a crown or a seal.
I can’t remember when I realized it was a dancer.
(I’m waking up your 5+ year post) You are so correct! I was eating a banana yesterday and looked at the logo and wondering if I was so visually incorrect as a kid growing up in the 70’s. I too saw a little stylized cartoon lizard or giraffe with a big head. Kind of a like Jar Jar Binks of Star Wars or the Geico Lizard from US commercials.