Who is Mr. Smoothie?

Illustration of Mr. Smoothie, the Stoney’s Beer mascot, standing in front of a vintage family photo wall filled with framed portraits, historic brewery memories, and nostalgic artwork.

Mr. Smoothie has been the smiling, mustached face of Stoney’s Beer since the early 1950s, when he was first created by the Cavanaugh Morris Advertising Agency. Designed to embody the friendly, approachable spirit of Jones Brewing Company in Smithton, Pennsylvania, Mr. Smoothie quickly became more than just a mascot. He became a symbol of tradition, community, and the unmistakable taste of Stoney’s. From vintage print ads to classic television spots, his presence has spanned generations, making him one of the most recognizable characters in Western Pennsylvania beer history.

Vintage 1950 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette advertisement for Stoney’s Beer featuring Mr. Smoothie, the mustached mascot character, promoting “smoother tasting” beer from Jones Brewing Co. in Smithton, PA.

Original Mr. Stoney trade character prototype, created by

The Cavanaugh Morris Advertising Agency, circa 1950

The following year, the character was slightly modified to the more recognizable jolly, beetle-browed, mustached trade character, Mr. Stoney. Jones Brewing Co. continued to use Mr. Stoney in their advertising for the next 13 years and even produced several animated advertising spots of Mr. Stoney announcing the weather forecasts for local television stations in 1961.

At the end of 1959, Howard Morris realized that many breweries could not compete with the national breweries when it came to advertising. Morris and Jones Brewing Co. created United Breweries of America (U.B.A.). They recruited six other independent regional non-competing breweries to share the same advertising design so that their advertising budgets could compete with the national brands and their advertising. The successful Mr. Stoney was used for all seven breweries. The Mr. Stoney trade character design was renamed as Mr. U.B.A., but each brewery gave him a different name based on their own brand identities. Their names were:

Crownie — Old Crown Corp.
Mr. Cook — Fred Koch Brewing Co.
Mr. Gluek — Gluek Brewing Co.
Mr. Holly — Diamond Spring Brewery Inc.
Mr. Stoney — Jones Brewing Co.
Mr. Wally — Walter Brewing Co.
Nix Besser — Louis F. Neuweiler’s Sons

The promotions were successful when first started in 1960. Unfortunately, the use of trade characters in advertising started to wane during the early 1960s. Eventually, the U.B.A. group disbanded at the end of 1964 and Mr. Stoney and all the other six breweries retired the character. Mr. Stoney, et al. faded into history the following year.

In 1961, the Fred Arthur Productions agency started producing commercials for Jones Brewing Company’s Esquire Beer. David Finoli’s book Roll Out the Stoney’s provides the texts and lyrics to commercials titled: The Hostage, Try and Find It, 95 Bottles of Beer, Fun Keeps Comin’, Scavenger Hunt, and Here Comes the Stoney’s. The final Fred Arthur commercial—the most memorable—was a joke that was never meant to be broadcast. It was called The Risqué One. A bottle of Stoney’s is heard being opened and then the action begins.

In the late 1960s, Bud Hundenski and the Corsairs featured Hudenski’s hit composition, Roll Out the Stoney’s Polka.This lively track garnered national acclaim and became synonymous with the beloved Jones Brewing Company. You can find this polka on YouTube—it is an enjoyable 3:15 minutes. Another popular Jones Brewing Company commercial available online is Here Comes the Stoney’s.

In 1988, Gabriel Podlucky and his son Gregory purchased the Jones Brewing Company from the Jones family, despite the fact that national brands were continuing to dominate the local beer market. Gabriel and Gregory felt that the Esquire brand and packaging were sub-standard, so they began an aggressive marketing campaign. They made an agreement with Tom Pastorius to produce Pittsburgh Brewing Company’s Penn Pilsner and contracted brewing for other small breweries. Another idea was to expand their beer business into the international market and they successfully negotiated an agreement to send their beer to Japan.

The business did very well, but in 1995 the brewmaster left the company and Gregory left to start his own brewery. After twelve years of operation, the Jones Brewing Company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November 2000—the result of unexpected equipment failures, union disputes, and reduced market share.

In April 2002, Jones Brewing hired the Beaver Falls-based Integra Marketing Group to provide advertising and marketing support that Jones was never able to do on its own. Tom Marshall, account executive for Integra, said the first order of business was to screen focus groups of younger beer drinkers to find out what they were looking for when they bought beer.

In 2003, the brewery contracted their beer from the Pittsburgh Brewing Company. In 2006, Gabriel Podlucky died, and his wife Sandy assumed management of the company. The Smithton brewery finally closed in 2007.

Vintage Stoney’s Beer advertisement featuring Mr. Smoothie mascot holding a glass with the slogan “S.O.S. Serve Only Stoney’s – The Smoother Tasting Beer,” by Jones Brewing Company, Smithton PA.

Vintage Stoney’s Beer coaster featuring Mr. Smoothie mascot in a yellow jacket holding a beer glass – classic Jones Brewing Company design from Smithton, Pennsylvania.