Wheels, Flutes and Crowns are food snacks made by General Foods Canada. Jim Henson made a test pilot commercial for the product. Jim Henson's Designs and Doodles gives detail on the commercial:
“In 1966, Henson drew three monsters that appeared in a General Foods commercial that featured three crunchy snack foods: Wheels, Crowns and Flutes. Each snack was represented by a different monster. The Wheel-Stealer was a short, fuzzy monster with wonky eyes and sharply pointed teeth. The Flute-Snatcher was a speed demon with a long, sharp nose and windblown hair. The Crown-Grabber was a hulk of a monster with a Boris Karloff accent and teeth that resembled giant knitting needles.
These monsters had insatiable appetites for the snack foods they were named after. Each time the Muppet narrator, a human-looking fellow, fixes himself a tray of Wheels, Flutes and Crowns, they disappear before he can eat them. One by one, the monsters sneak in and zoom away with the snacks. Frustrated and peckish, the narrator warns viewers that these pesky monsters could be disguised as someone in your own home, at which point the monsters briefly turn into people and then dissolve back to monsters again.”
Ultimately, General Foods did not use the commercial, but this menacing trio would join Henson's menagerie of Muppet monsters. The "Flute-Snatcher" was relegated to the background, while the "Crown-Grabber" starred in a variety show sketch in which he ruined a girl's beautiful day, and was henceforth named the Beautiful Day Monster. The "Wheel-Stealer," however, enjoyed more prominent appearances. He starred in a skit that was repeated on The Ed Sullivan Show and in an industrial film for IBM in which he devoured a droning computer that turned out to contain explosives. Later, a similar-looking de-fanged monster named Arnold appeared in a series of Munchos commercials. He would then become one of the monster residents of Sesame Street, and the rest is history.
