Wilkins and Wontkins

Wilkins and Wontkins are characters created by puppeteer Jim Henson for the Wilkins Coffee brand. The coffee was produced and sold in the United States by John H Wilkins & Company in Washington D.C. "Wilkins", a character who enjoys Wilkins Coffee, and "Wontkins", a character who does not—are used to advertise the coffee.

Background
Wilkins Coffee was founded in 1899 by John H. Wilkins Sr. The company sold coffee, tea and spices. His son John Wilkins, Jr. later took over the business.

Wilkins Coffee's slogan was ‘'Try Wilkins Coffee - It’s Just Wonderful!’

Wilkins and Wontkins
In 1957, Jim Henson was hired by Helen Ver Standig who worked on advertising Wilkins Coffee, to produce commercials using early Muppet characters. Henson produced these commercials from 1957 to 1961. Each ad ran for about 10 seconds long. They were composed of an 8-second puppet skit, and a 2-second shot of the advertised Wilkins product. The ads were very successful. In 1958, 25,000 puppets of Wilkins and Wontkins were sold for 1 dollar each. There were also ads for Wilkins Tea, Wilkins Instant Coffee, and Wilkins Community Coffee. Jim Henson also used Wilkins and Wontkins in ads for several other brands, such as Nash’s Coffee, Red Diamond Coffee, Kraml Dairy, Taystee Bread and Faygo. The last ads to feature Wilkins and Wontkins were ads for Community Coffee in 1969.

Later History
John H. Wilkins, Jr. died in 1967 of a heart ailment.

Wilkins Coffee had a number 1 retail spot in the 1950s but as competition got tougher with companies such as General Mills and Folgers Wilkins began losing its market share. In the early 1990s Wilkins Coffee started to sell Wilkins and Wontkins shirts to try to regain popularity.

Wilkins Coffee has been defunct since 1992.

In 2006 Helen Ver Standig died of respiratory failure at the age of 86.

In recent years the Wilkins Coffee ads have gone viral online.