CBS 58 Hometowns: From couch cushion to cultural icon -- The history of the cheesehead hat🧀

MILWAUKEE, WI (CBS 58) -- It all started as a homemade stunt at a Brewers game. Nearly four decades later, the cheesehead hat is a global symbol of Wisconsin pride.

CBS 58's Alex Corradetti met with Ralph Bruno, the man behind the iconic idea for this Hometowns History report. 

“My name is Ralph Bruno. I guess it was something that I had to do back in 1987 and that was to make a cheesehead,” said the Milwaukee native and creator of one of Wisconsin’s most iconic exports.

Bruno says it all began when he was heading to a Brewers baseball game. 

"They were playing the White Sox and of course our friendly neighbors to the south call us cheeseheads. We had our Pabst Blue Ribbons all set and we're going there. The night before I had made a cheesehead hat from a piece of foam, I was reupholstering my mom's couch at the time. And so I cut it in the shape of a triangle and got a wood burner out and put holes in it with the wood burner and gave it a golden color and wrapped all the cheese into one," explained Bruno.

He wore it to County Stadium the next day for that Brewers vs. White Sox game. 

"At the game, my buddies didn't know I had this thing. I had it in a brown paper bag and after we had tailgated for a while, it was time to go into the game. I put it on my head and my buddies scattered. They ran away from me! But as we got closer, they realized some people were running up to me. They wanted to touch it and see what it was," recalled Bruno. 

That’s when it clicked. “A girl came up and said, ‘Hey, can I try it on?’ And my buddies looked at me and looked at her and said, what's going on with this cheesehead thing?”

"From that moment on, Bruno couldn’t keep the cheesehead away from curious fans. “I'm a pretty quiet, shy guy… but I like to do things that are very unusual. I've always made things very unique things over the course of the years so that day it just felt like it was time for a cheesehead," said Bruno. 

And fun fact, Bruno still has the original cheesehead hat!

"It spent a lot of time in a closet in the dark and then my wife Sue had someone build a case for it, so we have it under glass now, it has a great patina to it. It's recognizable as a cheese head but it's the mac daddy of cheeseheads so that's pretty cool," said Bruno.

At first, not everyone was sold. “Back then there wasn't anything… so being first on the scene is a good-bad thing. You're met with a lot of resistance. Not everybody likes to wear cheesehead hats,” Bruno explained. “But it didn’t stop me.”

The early hats were hand-cut, but Bruno eventually developed a molding process. “My background in pattern making and mold making allowed me to go into that side of things, which allowed me to learn how to make cheesehead hats the way they are made.”

Inspired by the Claymation characters he loved as a kid on SNL, Bruno combined “foam and action” to create “Foamation,” the company that would carry the cheesehead forward. It became a family affair — with friends, siblings, and his wife Sue joining in as the brand grew.

The cultural explosion came in the 1990s, when Packers player Robert Brooks was spotted stepping off a team bus in a cheesehead. After that, Bruno says, “We never planned where cheeseheads were supposed to go. It's always been an organic, natural thing.”

In 2023, Bruno officially sold the rights to the Green Bay Packers — a fitting handoff for a homegrown brand.

"Being a family business and with my kids coming up through it, Sue and I never really pushed hard on them for even sports and things like that, so if the business wasn't in their cards, they went on to then develop their own careers. It was kind of apparent we have to figure out what's next. So, a discussion with some of the folks we have been dealing with over the years selling to them, it just came together, and it's been great that way. And the feeling that we had gotten over the years by working with the Packers...it was just the perfect fit," explained Bruno.

Chrysta Jorgensen, Director of Retail Operations for the Packers, said their partnership with Bruno began in 2022.

"We started working with Ralph and Sue Bruno in 2022, helping them on licensing side with wholesale, they were thinking of retiring. We wanted to help bridge that gap for them as they were making that decision. So, we did purchase the rights and company of Foamation and the cheesehead in 2023. We were able to announce that at our Annual Shareholders meeting. It was very special, and fans have embraced it prior to that point and continue to embrace it," said Jorgensen. 

The Packers are now focused on keeping Bruno’s vision alive. “Now for us it's about: How do we become good stewards of the cheesehead brand? We want to carry on the history of what Ralph created and now that is really is under our Lambeau Field purview; How do we continue to grow it? We're already working on some of the older designs that Ralph had created and not had been able to keep in the marketplace. The first one our team here in Green Bay did was recreate the wedge can cooler sot hat's been in the store since November. We've added the cowboy hat, the visor, the baseball cap and more so all of those old styles that fans were used to seeing that maybe have not been on shelves lately, that is an area we focus on to make sure we offer the favorite styles fans used to have to offer right back to the consumer again," explained Jorgensen. 

Cheeseheads have shown up everywhere — from airports to golf tournaments, from Lambeau Field to London.

I don't think that will ever change. it's part of the Packers culture. If you look at the big sporting events we've had here over the last few years, whether it's speed skating or golf or soccer. We still see cheeseheads. That's really fun to see because we understand at that point that brand is greater than the Green Bay Packers. it really resonates with residents of Wisconsin, fans of Wisconsin and being in the dairy state. For some fans, that becomes their good luck charm," said Jorgensen.

Bruno still gets emotional seeing the impact. “I never believed that we would be talking 38 years later about something that I had done that had no financial plan. It was just a whim kind of thing,” he said. “And everybody has that opportunity. I think that's hopefully what people get out of it — that I have a cheesehead in me somewhere, somehow. And I believe we all do. Just take advantage of it when the time arises.”