Before Mr. Peanut died, he really lived.

On Wednesday, Planters killed off its longtime spokesnut in a slick commercial. On a road trip with Wesley Snipes and Matt Walsh of “Veep,” Mr. Peanut’s vehicle careened off a cliff, and as the trio clung to life on a perilously cracking branch, Mr. Peanut tipped his hat and let go. Then he exploded in flames.

“It is with heavy hearts that we confirm that Mr. Peanut has died at 104,” the brand’s Twitter account confirmed. A funeral is expected to be broadcast during a Superbowl commercial.

It was an effective piece of marketing, but the antics were no stranger than the time Mr. Peanut shared a tender moment with a topless woman in a bathtub, nearly fell off a ferry into Lake Ontario, and ran for mayor of Vancouver.

Those extracurriculars happened in the 1970s, although none were sanctioned by Planters head office. They were all acts of performance art, dreamed up by conceptual artist Vincent Trasov for his Mr. Peanut, who is a “distant relative” of the corporate legume. Trasov, who was born in Edmonton, spent many years in Vancouver, where his character became a part of the arts scene.

The late Mr. Peanut had a bigger mouth and was known to be salty, thanks to a proprietary blend of spices. Trasov’s Mr. Peanut has more subdued features, and is more on the saucy side. For Trasov, it was about playing with identity and persona, and bringing art and absurdity into everyday life.

He has never heard from the Planters people, unless you count the time he visited the Toronto factory in costume in 1972: “They wouldn’t let us in the door,” he says from his home in a village near Berlin.

On Thursday, the artist, now 72, awoke to a flurry of condolence emails. He greeted the news with some skepticism. He does not think the other Mr. Peanut is truly dead. “I daresay they’ll come up with something new for Mr. Peanut.”

His Mr. Peanut is still alive, although he hasn’t been spotted walking elegantly about town since the 1970s. He lives on in Trasov’s pen and wash drawings, where the peanut is hard at work in an office landscape from “Death of a Salesman”; dead in a bathtub as French Revolution martyr Jean-Paul Marat; and staring contemplatively at the water along the Seine on a Sunday afternoon.

“I haven’t given up on my Mr. Peanut,” he says, adding that he is trying to get a commission for a bronze peanut column in Vancouver.

As a boy, Trasov had a Mr. Peanut colouring book. He always enjoyed the scale of the figure, the gangly legs and bulbous frame. When he began his artistic career in 1969, he was looking for an identity and “flashed on Mr. Peanut.” At first, he thought it would be interesting to animate the jaunty peanut, but drawing him frame by frame proved a big undertaking.

He decided to animate him with a costume. He made a papier mâché shell in 1971, and paired it with black tights, white gloves, a top hat, monocle, cane, and unending silence. As Mr. Peanut, he and his friends eventually visited New York, L.A., Halifax and other cities in a bid to surprise people with this unexpected bit of art. People always wanted photos or a handshake. Only one baby cried.

During a visit to Toronto he nearly fell through a gap between the ferry and the wharf at Ward’s Island. “Your vision is very limited in the costume,” he explains. A friend saved him. Friends were very important. They spoke for him, while he silently observed.

His most famous performance was the 1974 Vancouver mayoral race. His friend, the sculptor John Mitchell, encouraged him to enter the race in full regalia as a stand-in for the aspirations of the city’s art community. Mitchell was the campaign manager and spokesperson.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

During the election, their campaign literature noted that Mr. Peanut was unavailable for comment before, during and after the election, but heralded him as “a powerful weapon aimed at the bureaucratic formality of the real world.” At an all-candidates meeting, he performed a 20-second tap routine.

Reporter Judith Timson noted the “sweet smell” of marijuana at a fundraiser, where Mr. Peanut emerged with chorus girls to the glorious strains of “Chattanooga Choo-Choo.”

Incumbent Mayor Art Phillips won. Mr. Peanut received 2,685 votes.

He retired the costume after the 1974 election. It no longer fits, but it was on display at a Berlin gallery last year. The shell resides at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery in Vancouver. When the Star contacted the gallery this Wednesday, there was a worrying pause. “What do you mean Mr. Peanut was killed off?” the registrar said. The Star regrets the error. Your Mr. Peanut is still alive.

Read more about: