By now, you know that Planters Peanuts decided to kill off its mascot Mr. Peanut in its pre-Super Bowl ad. Then they decided to bring him back in baby form. If this took you on an emotional rollercoaster like no other, the digital painting one artist made reimagining Mr. Peanut and Baby Nut as father and son in a nightmarish scene will shake you to your very core.
Artist Nina Matsumoto created an image titled “Mr. Peanut Devouring His Son” as a parody of the painting “Saturn Devouring His Son” by Spanish artist Francisco Goya. She tweeted the image around 2 a.m. in an effort to not scare too many of her followers. But instead of losing followers, it’s likely she gained a few. Twitter is the unofficial place for anything that’s dark and funny. So, of course, people were all over it.
The days leading up to the creation, Matsumoto was morbidly fascinated by the death of Mr. Peanut. “Now, I'm fascinated by how hard Planters is trying to push Baby Nut onto us...they REALLY want Baby Nut to happen," Matsumoto told Delish.
The image of Mr. Peanut “chomping down on his young successor, peanut butter innards dripping down his hands” popped into her head after seeing all of the merch, memes, and fan accounts of Baby Nut online. While it seems like Baby Nut is Mr. Peanut’s reincarnation instead of his son, Baby Nut is still next in line to take over mascot duties. “It's fitting because [Goya’s painting] depicts a giant eating his own children out of fear they would grow up to overthrow him,” Matsumoto said.
This may be both the best and worst thing to come out of the Baby Nut campaign. It’s only a matter of time before people start getting tattoos of Baby Nut drinking a White Claw or any of the other wild actions people took during the rise of Baby Yoda.
