Whatever happened to the Milky Bar kid?
He was the face of Milky Bars for decades. A pony riding, gun toting, Stetson wearing, cowboy (literally a boy) in wire rimmed round glasses. He had a Sherriff’s badge and came with the catchphrase, “The Milky Bars are on me!” – cue much celebration from everyone else in the advert, who were also kids, as they rushed to get a free Milkybar.
Readers of a certain age will remember the advert jingle:
“The Milky Bar Kid is strong and tough, and only the best is good enough, the creamiest milk, the whitest bar, the good taste that’s in Milky Bar”
It was one of those things that worked its way into our every day. It was a cultural reference, something that could be used as a joke or a reference and everyone would understand it.
During one of his Alan Partridge shows, Steve Coogan even created a skit where he met the original Milky Bar Kid for an interview. He had grown up into an addict and worse, I won’t go into the gory details but it was darkly hilarious.
Everyone loved the Milky Bar Kid. He looked like the kind of kid who would get bullied at school, but he was always the one who saved the day. So why did Nestle get rid of him?
He Was Modernised Out of Existence
It’s sad to say, but the Milky Bar Kid became too old fashioned, and as the Milkybar brand modernised, there was less and less room for the little lad.
Milkybars had been sold by Nestle since 1936, yet the first Milky Bar Kid didn’t come along until 1961. So, the Milky Bar Kid himself was a successful attempt at modernising the brand when he first came along.
They created him as a cowboy because that’s the sort of thing that kids liked playing back then. The idea to set the whole thing in the Wild West and have all of the characters played by kids was avant garde at the time. Remember Bugsy Malone? That didn’t come along until 1976 so the Milky Bar Kid was well over a decade ahead of its time.
We’ll skip over the fact that all of these cowboys spoke with very English accents…
Nestle played with a few different ideas to keep the brand relevant, even scrapping the Wild West setting. The Milky Bar Kid became a space traveller for a while, and an Indiana Jones character when those films were all the rage. They came back to the cowboy theme in his most recent reincarnation, probably to strike at nostalgic parents, and over in Australia they even made him a girl.
In the UK though, the use of the Milky Bar Kid in TV commercials became more and more sporadic and is no longer a key part of their marketing strategy. He was digitalised, so you see him on the packaging sometimes, or perhaps printed into the chocolate in some way, but he isn’t mentioned, and that banging theme tune is long since confined to the annals of history.
Every Milky Bar Kid in Order and What They Do Now
There were 10 Milky Bar Kids over the years, but a few of them seem to have fallen off the face of the planet.
Nevertheless, in the name of nostalgia, here is every known Milky Bar Kid in order, with a bit of information on what they have been doing since they handed in their badge and where they are now.
There are some gaps in the list because Nestle had gaps in their advertising too, but this is nevertheless a complete list of child actors who played the role:
- Terry Brooks: From 1961–1966
- John Cornelius: From 1974–1978
- Daniel Light?: Unknown
- Robbie Humphries: From 1983–1986
- Anthony Eden: From 1988–1991
- Simon Desborough: From 1991–1993
- Gareth Watchman: From 1994–1996
- William Wray – 2007-2009
Terry Brooks was the first ever Milky Bar Kid, and as you can imagine, he is now more like the Milky Bar Pensioner. He did a bit of acting as a child including working on stage with Norman Wisdom and Peter O’Toole, but didn’t pursue it as an adult. He had a family and worked as a builder and a lorry driver among other things. In his later years he moved to Spain where he worked as a gardener and odd job man in a country club in Murcia.
John Cornelius had a rough time after his stint in the Stetson, turning to alcohol during his twenties. He stopped drinking though and ran his own building company, as well as working as a carpenter, including work on film sets funnily enough.
Daniel Light is an odd one. He claims to have been the Milky Bar Kid from ’83-’86, but that was someone else. According to his own TikTok account him and his Dad were kicked off set and lost the contract at some point in the 1980s. His dad then took him “robbing phone boxes”. Whatever the truth of that situation, he has been a rave DJ for over 30 years so if it’s true it’s all long behind him.
Robbie Humphries did the space themed adverts in the 1980s, and ended up becoming a drama teacher. He also had serious kidney condition so was anything but ‘strong and tough’. He underwent a transplant operation in his twenties.
Anthony Eden stayed in the acting world and is a theatre actor to this day, while Simon Desborough took things in a more musical direction, still trying to break through as a jobbing musician.
Gareth Watchman was a great fit for the cowboy role since his parents ran a stables, so he was used to horses. He did a bit of public appearance roles and a small amount of acting but didn’t enjoy it much. He still works with horses though, as a show jumper in County Durham.
William Wray went on to study Astrophysics at the University of Manchester, graduating in 2017, and interned at the National Grid.
