Smokey

Smokey was created in 1944 (so he's 67 years young today).  What do you think the odds are there'll be candles on his cake?

When I was in the 3rd grade, Smokey Bear, or as I called him then, "Smokey the Bear", came to my school for a presentation about how we could all do our part to prevent forest fires.  

And though I'm not certain that any 8-year-old living in sprawling suburbia has much of a concept of forest fires, I was elated to be among the few children selected to stand on the stage with Smokey (a man in an adorable costume that looked remarkably like this):

My gift for playing a part in the fire safety presentation was a coloring book (that looked remarkably like this):

And because there's clearly no need to improve on such a good [great] thing,  Smokey is the longest running public service advertising campaign in U.S. history.

If you want to check out your own info on Smokey, go here.  I think the resources for kids are particularly fun though probably not as fun as sharing the stage with the bear himself.