Chesdale Cheese is a variety of cheese produced for the mass market in New Zealand. It is chiefly known for its animated television advertising with the jingle sung by two cartoon characters Ches and Dale wearing gumboots and black singlets. The commercial was created by art director Don Couldrey and copywriter Robert Merlyn Jenkins in 1969.[citation needed] The jingle was learned off by heart and sung in a variety of ingeniously distorted fashions by generations of New Zealand children. It is considered a major Kiwiana element, and has sometimes been semi-seriously proffered as an icon of New Zealand culture.