I have been talking about this for other people around me, so of course I thought of sharing this online - because usually this little mascot trivia is not well-known outside of France...
When you think Nesquik, you think of... Quicky the Bunny? Right? The Quick Bunny. And you think he is THE Nesquik mascot and has been there since the 70s and so forth, and there's nothing else? Well guess again! In France, Quicky was a very VERY late arrival. In France, before we had Quicky, we had... Groquik.
When in France Nesquik tried to find a mascot to symbolize its brand, back in the 70s, it didn't believe The Quick Bunny (as he was called at the time) would be a good marketable character. They wanted something that would work better with the kids of the time. So they hired Gilbert Mas (already known for successes such as the blue bear of Nestlé) to draw a mascot and he created Groquik. (with a name based on "gros", the French adjective for "big").
It was this huge, round, jolly, yellow... monster thingy? With something like ears or maybe antenna, and a little old-timey straw hat? He started in 1978, and then became THE definitive and iconic mascot of Nesquik all throughout the 80s.
His appearance was actually heavily inspired by a much more famous, beloved childhood character of the time, one that still survived in minds to this day (while Groquik was quite forgotten), Casimir "The Kind Monster" from the huge success that was L'Île aux Enfants (The Children's Island) TV show. Just like Casimir, Groquik was this big, round, friend-to-children "jolly monster", though less dinosaur-like than Casimir, and of course yellow (like the Nesquik boxes) instead of orange.
Also, Groquik was MUCH taller than Casimir. In advertisements he is often shown as basically a friendly Godzilla. Well, friendly, friendly... While sometimes he helped kids catch theves and burglars that stole Nesquik products from shops ; other promos rather showed him as the terrorist threatening people to get his Nesquik (blocking trains, or loudly playing drum in the street, or causing traffic jam until his sweet-tooth was satisfied). His size was also part of his catchphrase, "J'ai une énorme envie de Nesquik" (I have an enormous love for Nesquik). [Quite interestingly, the animated television spots of Groquik were done by the Richard Williams studio - most famous today for the animated sequences of... Roger Rabbit.]
From what I heard Groquik also existed as the Greek Nesquik cartoon? As "Kouikaras"? I don't know much about this, though.
But in 1990 it was officially announced that Groquik "went on vacations" far away and would be replaced by the other international mascot, Quicky. And the kids awaited for a long time Groquik return... Which never happened. There were even cases of kids writing letters to the Nesquik company asking when Groquik would return - but it became clear Groquik was "retired" for good...
This was because of, well, Nesquik didn't want Groquik anymore. Due to the rise of the obesity epidemic. As the 80s concluded Nesquik took to heart the accusations of sugary products and chocolate making kids fat, and so what they decided was, obviously, to just change their advertisement. They realized having a fat, enormous mascot whose name could be translated as "big-fast" was not a good move to defend the fact their product did not cause obesity. So they replaced him with Quicky, who was much better for them - smaller, thinner, faster (he is a literal runner after all) and also quite hyper-active, constantly doing all the things that were deemed "cool" back in the 90s kid media (rollers, skateboards, basket-ball, hip-hop, etc...)
[Also, fun fact, as you can see in the promotional picture above, Quicky was presented as the "cousin" of Groquik, arriving in France after doing a world-tour]
Thus a generational fracture appeared between the 70s/80s childhood and the 90s/2000s childhood, with two rival mascots. Groquik was relegated to historical trivia, and vintage nostalgia, still popping out here and there in little obscure French works or in humoristic drawings. Here are some example of said parody-drawings:
And recently he regained a new fame through the "Les Kassos" web-series (well, half web-series half-television series). The Kassos series is a dark humor parody-cartoon, intended for mature audiences due to its amount of morbid, crass and gory jokes. Its principle is to show icons and beloved characters of vintage childhood products (movies, cartoons, animes, comic books or brands) as being reduced in modern day to "social cases", mentally disturbed, offensively irreverant or socially inept. Groquik makes an appearance in one episode, complaining about how he is a victim of fatphobia and was injustly fired... And you sympathize with him until he starts revealing he also hates Quicky because he is Black, reminding you that Groquik still comes from the casually racist 70s and 80s France.
