“The Pillsbury Doughboy lives in a kind of cultural permanence category in people’s minds, like Mickey Mouse or Charlie Brown,” said Charlie Hopper. “He’s simple and boring, but incorruptible.”

“A pun is rarely funny,” wrote Charlie Hopper. “Sometimes it forces you to laugh grimly along with it, but that’s not humor. That’s force of personality.”

“They’ve really struggled to come up with a consistent communications message—really all over the board, and the only consistent thing that seems to have worked besides $5 footlongs is Jared,” said Charlie Hopper with ad agency Young & Laramore.

“‘Cup Noodles has resisted the urge to hipsterize itself,’ Hopper said. ‘It’s the same old humble, useful, possibly nutritious friend from college.’”

“…I learned that the way to drive a restaurant out of business is to think of it only as an exercise in cost control.”