Your Fuller Brush Man Is Broke

Another iconic American business is going belly up: Say goodbye to the Fuller Brush man. The Kansas company, whose door-to-door salesmen hawking cleaning products became a pop culture staple decades ago, has filed for bankruptcy, reports the Wall Street Journal. Alfred C. Fuller founded the firm in 1906 with $375, recounts BusinessWeek, and he had the marketing savvy to get cartoon characters such as Donald Duck cast as Fuller Brush men. Red Skelton cemented the brand's name in the 1948 movie The Fuller Brush Man. (More Fuller Brush stories.)